Successful sports program

"This paper investigates the effect of winning, postseason play, and television appearances for football and basketball on first-year student enrollment demand over a 21-year period at a representative NCAA Division I institution. Empirical estimates confirm popular notions that winning on the football field, after traditional enrollment demand factors are controlled, does attract students. However, postseason play and television coverage have no significant effect. The results also suggest that sanctions imposed by the NCAA for rules violations reduce first-year student enrollment demand." 

https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ssj/10/3/article-p286.xml

The paper is a bit old, but probably as or more relevant now. You're welcome... 

I believe it's had a pretty significant effect on Alabama's student applications.

Should have the answer in a minute or two.  I don't want to pay $24.95 for that journal article.


 

A large one, it matters a lot to 17 year old boys, which is kind of sad to think that they let it impact their choice of school. 

I was much more mature and picked my school based on where my new girl friend went, but I did marry her so it has worked out so far. 

I'm pretty sure it doesn't enhance any university's reputation directly. I think the Heisman effect is real - applications go up because more people are aware of schools with successful sports, especially football and basketball. Historically, Notre Dame and the University of Chicago built their schools around successful sports programs (building "a university the football team can be proud of" is a real quote from a former president of Oklahoma). I think a fair number of post-Civil War land grant schools used the promise of physical fitness and very specifically college football as a way to convince the various state legislatures that having state universities was a good thing. But those are all examples from at least a century ago. These days I don't think it's really a thing for international prestige, and domestically i think it's a very indirect influence. 

I'm pretty sure MSU's applications went up quite a bit when they got good at football under Mork.

What is a non-academic university?

Is drawing more student applications necessary?  Michigan's acceptance rate is already very low especially when compared to other state universities.  I would want the best students applying.  Are we going to draw off Ivy League applicants because we won some football games?  

Direct enhancement, as far as the reputation of the university as a whole? Probably little to none at all. And internationally I doubt many care. Collegiate athletics really aren't a thing anywhere other than the US. At least not to the scale the US has made it. But there are definitely indirect effects. 

Athletics are, at their core, entertainment. Winning provides good entertainment, and losing provides bad entertainment. Generally speaking, people want to be around good entertainment, and they want to know that wherever they go to school, there are great and plentiful options to occupy their fun time with. Winning is more fun to watch than losing, so having a winning football/basketball program is an indirect selling point for people to come to the university. Its usually not the reason (or it at least never should be unless you're committing to play for said programs), but it is a reason. 

Winning teams generate more excitement, and that usually generates more people who want to come to that school. Basic Supply/Demand. If you have a good supply of winning and excitement, there will be a demand to come to Michigan to take it all in.

Increased application volume generally raises the profile of your student body, as you have more bandwidth with your admissions to select the best of the best to be enrolled. You also find situations where people are generally much more inclined to donate to the university when the teams are winning. More money in the university's pocket means more money for research purposes, campus facility upgrades, building renovations, scholarships, the whole nine yards. 

So I live near FGCU which I'm sure most of you have never heard of. If you follow college basketball and march madness you'll remember FGCU was one of those Cinderella teams that went a lot further than projected and beat a few big names(Georgetown was one) back in 2013. Since I've lived in this area I remember reading college applications had skyrocketed and the requirements to get in were raised. FGCU (to those living here and went to highschool here) was the school that you went to if you didn't get into the bigger named Florida universities. 

Personal experience:

Son was academically accomplished. He was considering a few Ivys to attend to enhance the initial push into his chosen field. Asked my opinion, it went something like this:

Michigan is a top 5 school in your chosen field, it's a top 10 or 20 school in athletics, and Ann Arbor is one of the great college towns. You will (continue to) be as cold in the winters as you are now. The tuition will be as high as some of the Ivys. I enjoyed my time there, let's visit.

We visited, he loved it, he applied, was admitted, excelled, graduated. Doing fine.

My take is: it definitely enhances. It definitely draws more good applicants.

The only ever time I have heard of Michigan Football, before I got to the US, was when The Horror happened. So no, didn’t influenced me at all.

It has more impact than you think.

Our daughter picked a lower ranked school (ASU Honors) with sports over a higher ranked school (UCSB with no football team). That also entered in to my decision to pick Michigan 4 decades ago (she also got in to Michigan).

Her full ride at ASU also made the decision easier.

coach K is a huge reason why academically Duke is Duke 

Ask Siri. 

"It's kind of hard to rally around a math class."

-Bear Bryant