College Baseball, College Basketball, College football, Crisis Management

Can The Ivies Derive Green From Athletic Marketing?

Before the recent economic downturn, the whispers regarding the upgrading of the competitive level of Ivy League athletics were abounding. The large endowments of many of the schools were bringing the institutions to perhaps remove the paperwork and qualification for financial grants and give all students who qualified for enrollment a basic grant for free tuition. The thought was that it would be an efficient way to use the endowment money, and the reward of free tuition for academic excellence would pay off with a more satisfied and even more loyal alumnus in the future. So if you took away all the need-based paperwork for athletes…especially in football and basketball but even for hockey, and combined it with the state of the art facilities already in place and the promise of a best in class education, would more academically gifted athletes choose say, playing at Harvard as opposed to playing at Boston College, or maybe even playing hoops at Penn as opposed to Duke? While the transformation wouldn’t be overnight, the possibilities for athletes who did compete on a high level both athletically and academically were very intriguing. Could athletics find a bigger place in the hallowed halls of the Ivy League schools, where football once was king?

So we fast forward to today, where school endowments, although still very large, have been hit by the downward economic crisis, and now those free rides seem to have taken a back seat. Still, could now athletics, and sports marketing, fill a financial void that never existed? It presents a very interesting challenge for the Ivy League yet again. Most schools have never looked to invest in ancillary sponsorship dollars related to sports, although it could be argued that the quality of such an alumni list to tap into, even just the athletic alumni, could be pretty intriguing for many brands. The diversity of marketing through athletics, keeping in mind the large numbers of sports most Ivies offer, to both athletes and to the current student body is also intriguing. And a changing of the guard in men’s basketball, where Tommy Amaker has raised the profile at Harvard, Cornell is vastly improved, and others that were once doormats are now more than competitive out of conference, has made the Penn/Princeton domination a thing of the past. A recent article looking at Penn’s sudden mid-season change in coaching pointed to the fact that maybe athletics is becoming too important at the Ivy League level, but maybe it is the opposite. Schools are now seeing the ability to use athletics and sports marketing to perhaps raise ancillary dollars and continue to market the school to a very diverse audience.

Yes there is the argument that athletics can be a drain on the focus of a University. Hofstra and Northeastern have dropped football and the University of New Orleans is transitioning to Division III, but with the facilities in place, the balance of academics and athletics and an already stellar international reputation, why couldn’t a raised presence for Ivy League schools fill a role, especially a growing financial one?

It remains to be seen how deep the Ivy League schools across the board will go into the athletic branding pool. Some schools like Columbia and Penn have made investments in sports marketing positions to exploit the opportunities that already exist, and virtually every school has a staff member focused on promotions and ways to balance cost. Yet no one has culled the alumni, brand and athletic power to make a string run, either alone or as a group, at sponsorship dollars. Maybe there is a need for TV…an Ivy network which would feature both athletic events and academic programs…maybe it is a brand that steps up and asks for the access in exchange for support of athletics. However one thing is sure, in these challenging times the Ivy League schools do offer an intriguing cache which could raise the competitive level higher for larger sports like basketball and football. The question is, will the schools deem it a short term fix that could lead to the headaches of big time athletics, or can they deal with the funding headaches that could keep growing a pain all their own? The answer as to which is less painful and which is more profitable remains to be seen.