The Sports Economist

Ending the three-week trial in United States District Court, the jury on Monday found that the union’s licensing subsidiary, Players Inc., had used the identities of thousands of retired players without compensating them. A key example was the union’s agreement with EA Sports, which generates at least $25 million a year for the use of player identities in the popular Madden video game series.

The majority of sports licensing revenue derives from the use of active players. The Madden game features more than 100 past teams, like the 1966 Green Bay Packers, and players on those teams argued that although their names and pictures had not been included, many of their individual characteristics — talent level, experience, height and so on — were. The players argued that the group licensing agreement they had signed with Players Inc. required that revenue from such deals be shared with them.

Herb Adderley, who played cornerback on the 1966 Packers, was the name plaintiff for the class that filed suit.

“They betrayed us,” Adderley said of the union in a telephone interview. “We put our trust and faith in them, and they betrayed us.”

Labels: academia, NFL, NFL; tradeoffs

Labels: academia, NCAA

Schools that have been around for many years (especially the Ivies, which are centuries old) are well ahead in the reputation game. Because of the difficulty of measuring quality and because reputations are entrenched by time, those reputations are extremely durable, even if they are based on inaccurate information. Upstarts are always trying to catch up.

To break into the circle of eminent institutions, a school must triumph in a mysterious competition that involves the opinions of peers (who funnel their views into the U.S. News rankings), national publicity, and evidence of having money (whether from an endowment or state coffers).

So, will a football team contribute to the process of building UNC-Charlotte’s reputation, bringing it up from the also-ran level where it appears to be now? Given enough time—and [Chancellor] Dubois is planning for the next 25 years, not the next five—Dubois bets that it will.

In fact, Dubois not only argues that it will improve UNC-Charlotte’s reputation, he specifically stated that a football team will boost the academic reputation of UNC-Charlotte.

“Within North Carolina, does anyone doubt that the excellent institutional and academic reputations enjoyed by Chapel Hill, N.C. State, Wake Forest, and Duke have been strengthened by the prestige of their athletic programs?” he asked. He even cited research by two Charlotte faculty members confirming that a strong football program provides “measurable benefits to the academic reputation of a participating university.”

Odd as this seems, it is not entirely unrealistic. As long as we don’t know what actual education is going on (and even research is difficult to evaluate), then academic reputation depends on this smoke-and-mirrors competition that could be influenced by almost anything.

All the substance of cotton candy

Instead of trying to feed the sparrows of academic reputation through the horses of intercollegiate football, why not spend resources on programs that have a direct bearing on teaching and scholarship? With but a small fraction of what it would cost to compete in football, the school could establish several academic centers such as the James Madison Program and the Alexander Hamilton Institute. Initiatives like that would enhance the atmosphere of scholarship and debate at UNCC. That would do much more do make people think positively about the school as an educational institution than would a costly foray into entertainment.

Labels: academia, college football

For George Mason University, just outside Washington, the positive effects of its unlikely Final Four appearance two years ago were wide-reaching.

In addition to increases in fundraising, attendance at games and other benefits, freshman applications increased 22 percent the year after the team made its magical run. The percentage of out-of-state freshmen jumped from 17 percent to 25 percent, and admissions inquiries rose 350 percent, said Robert Baker, director of George Mason's Center for Sport Management who conducted a study called "The Business of Being Cinderella."

Baker also found that SAT scores went up by 25 points in the freshman class, and retention rates as freshmen moved into their sophomore year increased more than 2 percentage points.

"You will certainly have critics who say it would have happened anyway, but I think the general consensus is that it happened faster because of this and that it allowed this university to reach new heights more quickly," Baker said.

Gonzaga was virtually unknown in most parts of the country until it broke into the national tournament in the mid-'90s. The Zags have been in the tournament every year since 1999, and during that time enrollment has grown from just over 4,500 to nearly 7,000, said Dale Goodwin, a university spokesman.

Inquiries have jumped from about 20,000 per year to 50,000, and the Spokane, Wash., school attracts students from eastern states where it doesn't recruit.

"There's no other way they would have heard about Gonzaga," Goodwin said.

The study found that private schools saw even larger increases than public universities.

Many analysts question the role of college sports within higher education. However, one hypothesized benefit of high-profile college sports is that they can influence college choice decisions. Empirical studies that have analyzed the impact of a school’s athletic success on the quantity of student applications and the average quality of those students have produced mixed results. This study uses two unique datasets to shed additional light on the indirect benefits that sports success provides to NCAA Division I schools. Key findings include: (i) football and basketball success significantly increase the quantity of applications to a school, with estimates ranging from 2-8% for the top 20 football schools and the top 16 basketball schools each year; (ii) the extra applications received are composed of both low and high SAT scoring students, thus providing potential for schools to improve their admission outcomes, and (iii) schools exploit these increases in applications by increasing both the number and the quality of incoming students.

Labels: academia, college sports, NCAA

Labels: academia, sports economics