Does athletic spending improve the academic mission of the university? A quantitative study of the relationship between athletic spending and institutional enrollment in FCS athletic institutions

ABSTRACT

As university budgets face fiscal challenges, it is important that university leaders make smart fiduciary choices. Critics of athletic spending, on the other hand, argue that money spent on college sports could be spent in other areas of the university. Using a fixed-effects regression, the purpose of this analysis was to examine the relationship between intercollegiate athletics and college enrollment at FCS schools during the period between 2003 and 2015. Specifically, the researcher sought to examine whether institutional athletics expenditures had an impact on the total enrollments, number of applications, or quality of applicants at each of the universities within the Southland Conference. The results of this study showed virtually no relationships between athletic spending and any of the dependent variables under study. Instead, this research suggested that at the FCS level, institutional spending on athletics did not statistically significantly impact university enrollment, application or student quality measures.

KEYWORDS:

• College athletics expenditures spending enrollment
• quantitative
• regression
• FCS
• outcomes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert D. McDermand

Dr. Robert McDermand has an extensive background in sport business and higher education administration. He has spent nearly two decades working in student-athlete academic services at four universities throughout the U.S. and Canada. McDermand received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Public Administration from Ohio State University. He completed a Master of Business Administration and a doctoral degree in educational leadership at SFA. McDermand was the Region IV director for the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletes from 2016–2019 and a member of the N4A Board of Directors. His research interests include intercollegiate athletics, sociology of sports, sports business and the use of data in sports.