How Much Does an NCAA Basketball Championship Matter: A Call for Research on the Public Relations Impact of Athletic Success

I write this editorial in the wake of my University's mens’ basketball team having just won the NCAA Division 1 National Championship. While winning what is widely referred to as the “Big Dance” by sports fan is a major event at any U.S. University, it is especially big here at Villanova for a number of reasons. First, with 347 Division 1 teams, the statistical odds of any team winning in a given year are 0.00288, making it the championship an impressive achievement by any standard. A second impressive aspect of the Villanova Wildcats’ win is apparent when looking at its enrollment, which is just under 11,000 is considerably smaller than most of the college basketball powerhouses in the U.S. For example, North Carolina, this year's runner up (and a five time champion in its history) has an enrollment of about 29,000, as does University of Kentucky. Basketball powerhouse Michigan State checks in at just over 50,000 students while UCLA has more than 43,000. While In the big scheme of U.S. Universities, Villanova can perhaps be referred to as medium sized, and the basketball program is regarded as very strong, the public still senses a bit of a “David vs. Goliath” aspect to Villanova winning. The fact that this is the second championship for Villanova, the first occurring thirty-one years ago in 1985 (still much talked about around here) is pretty unique for a school of this size.

A third special aspect of Villanova's title is the sense of community the win has helped to build. Villanova is a Catholic University, founded and run by Augustinian priests and located in the so called “Main Line” suburbs of Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a city where college basketball is very popular and five leading programs play each other in what is referred to as “Big 5” basketball. What do the other four schools, Temple, St. Joseph's, LaSalle, and University of Pennsylvania (and Drexel, not a member but also with a good basketball program) have in common? All are located within the city limits, while Villanova is not. Yet, when a parade to celebrate the championship was held on a Friday afternoon in Center City Philadelphia (what we call our “downtown” here), an overflow crowd of more than 60,000 appeared to welcome and applaud the team. An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper stated, “We needed that parade. Maybe more than the Wildcats did. Sure, Villanova University is six miles beyond City Avenue in Radnor Township, but the whole region's fans desperately needed a moment of bliss to put Philadelphia's recent sports futility out of mind (Bender and Crystal 2016). The idea that athletics can build unity is not new, as evidenced by Baron Pierre de Coubertin's founding philosophy for the Olympics, but it sure is nice to see that type of thinking operating in practice around here.

Finally, at a personal level for many of us at the University, the championship is special because it represents the hard work and efforts of the student athletes involved. Big time U.S. college football and basketball often get considerable bad press, and very often with good reason – sometimes related to academic standards being ignored or bent, payoffs being made, or bad behavior whether legal or illegal. My personal experience with the Villanova athletes, however, has been that they work extremely hard to excel both at their sport and to do well in the classroom. This does not leave them much time for anything else. Our coach, Jerrold “Jay” Wright, is known for upholding academic standards and motivating the players to do their best. I'd also be remiss if I did not mention the hard work of many who support the program, including the cheerleaders and the band, (as well as University employees) a fact not lost on our University President, Father Peter Donohue who made a point of thanking these groups at the parade, groups that most of us probably would have forgotten to mention. Again, all of this contributes to a great sense of community.

I realize that some readers not familiar with “big time college athletics” in the U.S. and the level of excitement our college programs in American football and basketball create among the student body and community may find this whole editorial odd, but what had really prompted this choice of topic for this editorial is being contacted by various people I know, including several from around the world, about the title (I've gotten several notes of congratulations even though I am obviously not a member of the team!). So I thought it was worth delving a bit into what these championships do for a U.S. University. As is often the case, I've concluded that we really should know more about it than we actually do from a promotion and public relations standpoint. Conventional wisdom seems to be that winning a major college championship (i.e., men's basketball or football in the U.S.) in a revenue generating sport is likely to increase both donations to a University as well as applications to the University. If one were to listen to the “wisdom on the street,” they would think that winning such a title would be a financial bonanza to a University. Of course, as is often the case, things are not that simple.

When the general public sees full stadiums and extensive media coverage, it is natural to think that major NCAA sports are big revenue generators. The reality, however, is that the research evidence shows that most college athletic departments as a whole are not profitable. For example, a 2013 study by the NCAA found that only 3 percent of men's basketball programs generated a surplus (Berr 2016). Dating back to Indiana University Professor Murray Sperber's 1990 book College Sports, Inc., the Athletic Department vs. the University, it is well documented by researchers that on the whole, in spite of direct donations and income from revenue generating sports, expenses outpace revenue in overall athletic departments. Much of the reason for this is related to the high expense of facilities, scholarships, salaries, travel, equipment, etc. for both revenue and non-revenue generating sports. Even at those institutions where the “big time” sports run a surplus, the non-revenue generating sports need to be supported at levels higher than the surplus, leading to athletic programs having to be subsidized by the University at the large majority of institutions. Of course, there is a case to be made that some level of subsidization is appropriate – after all, these programs offer many hard working young men and women scholarships and the opportunity to participate in a sport they excel at and enjoy. Moreover, these programs are a source of pride and enjoyment for many in the community at many Universities.

While the idea that winning a sports tournament can produce significant benefits to a University may seem bizarre to some not as exposed to the U.S. system, there is research evidence that some positive impacts can occur in the short-term, especially when looking at well documented individual cased. Berr (2016) points out that applications to Georgetown University rose 45% between 1983 and 1986 when Patrick Ewing was a dominant force on the Hoya's men's basketball team. Further, Boston College's 30% increase applications in 1984 has been dubbed a result of the “Flutie Effect,” a reference to the quarterback of their underdog football team who defeated powerhouse University of Miami in a high profile Orange Bowl game. The relatively limited number of academic studies that have been done on the topic appear to support the idea that athletic success and championships in the two most attention getting sports drive at least a short term increase in applications as well as an increase in applications relative to per schools (Toma and Cross 1998).

While it is not the goal to do a comprehensive review of studies here, the consensus is that the evidence on this issue is mixed. At least a few studies have found some positive short-term link between sports success and donations and applications to a University. For example, using data over the twenty year period from 1976 to 1996, Humphreys and Mondello (2003) found that football bowl appearances and appearing in the NCAA basketball postseason tournament led to higher restricted giving (often aimed at the athletic department) but not higher unrestricted giving in the following year at public institutions. At private institutions this relationship also held, but only for basketball tournament appearances and not football. Pope and Pope (2008) looked more holistically at football and basketball's success and concluded that successful programs see a boost in applications of somewhere between 2 and 8%. This increase was found to be composed of both low and high scoring applicants on the SAT, but the authors pointed out that this form of increase allows for an increase in student quality through greater selectivity from a larger applicant pool.

Others who have looked at the impact of athletic success on donations and applications to Universities suggest that the long-term effect is likely quite small. For example, Robert Frank of the Cornell School of Business found in a 2004 report to the Knight Commission that the impact of winning championships on these dimensions were short-term and that long-term effects were very small. Frank concluded that the institutions would generally be better off financially if they cut spending on big-time college athletics (Frank 2004). In general, it would appear that the findings of this stream of research are suggestive of: 1) athletic programs generally being expensive and a proposition that does not generate a surplus for most universities; and 2) athletic championships success having some positive short-term impact on donations and applications, but only a small, if any, effect on these dimensions in the long-term. Indeed, the idea of a smaller long-term impact from athletic makes sense from my viewpoint. In my experience, the biggest driver of improved student quality and prestige by far since I've been at Villanova was based on an increase in Villanova's undergraduate program rankings (relative to other schools) from Bloomberg Business Week.

The evidence for some positive short-term impacts of championships on Universities is suggestive of a research opportunity for advertising and public relations scholars. There is clearly an opportunity for those Universities to benefit from public relations opportunity associated with winning a national title. Research aimed at not only understanding the effect of such titles, but also how to extend and capitalize on the opportunity would be highly beneficial. As exposures are essentially the currency by which advertising is purchased (Taylor and Sarkees 2016), the huge amount of publicity generated by a big-time NCAA championship which likely produces hundreds of millions of exposures to a target audience is clearly of high value. In a highly cluttered media environment, these exposures are especially valuable as they are associated with a high level of excitement among a big segment of the population.

As I am writing this editorial, it makes me harken back to a provocative book, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of P. R. by Al Ries and Laura Ries I first read back in 2002. While my opinion is that the authors were not right about the “Fall of Advertising” part of their thesis – advertising can still be very effective at accomplishing specific types of objectives (see e.g., Raithel, Taylor and Hock 2016) and the advent of digital advertising has created tremendous opportunity for customized communications (e.g., Maslowska, Smit, and van den Putte 2013; Puzakova, Rocereto,, and Kwak 2013), they raised excellent points about the strength of public relations. Ries and Ries (2002) especially emphasized the potential quality of unpaid media, the depth of impression, and the willing to capitalize on such impressions.

Interestingly enough, much of the limited research that has been done in this area has been done by sports economists or those publishing in journals explicitly devoted to sports marketing. While those outlets provide valuable perspectives, clearly insights from marketing, advertising and public relations scholars would have the potential to contribute to knowledge development in the area. I have written in this space before about how the growing stream of research on “Big Event” advertising (e..g., Olympics. Super bowl, World Cup Football) and sponsorships (see, e..g, Do, Woodside, and Ko 2015) hold considerable promise. Similar research on how Universities can capitalize on a major championship or other positive event would be of interest to the International Journal of Advertising. In addition to attempting to quantify impacts, research on appropriate programs to tie in to the publicity generated and to maximize its effectiveness would be worthwhile. It would also be intriguing to examine whether there is an “underdog” effect that applies to smaller schools as has been found in some general advertising research contexts (Jun et al., 2015). Another area of interest would be to examine the role culture plays in such instances and whether the degree of positive impacts is confined to certain cultures (see Taylor and Okazaki 2015). In general, it has been exciting time around here and I look forward to seeing submissions in this general area of inquiry.