Financial impact of NCAA success is not easy to measure (via The Center Square) – The financial impact of successful basketball teams at the University of Illinois is difficult to measure.
The Fighting Illini men’s and women’s squads both won 22 games and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament this season.
Karen Weaver, a member of the graduate faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, said Cinderella seasons by sports teams don’t usually lead to financial windfalls for universities.
“While there might be an increase in the number of applications, there might be a one-year bump in enrollment, the challenge is sustainability over a period of time,” Weaver told The Center Square. “The only thing that drives that is consistent winning.”
Weaver said it is difficult to determine if winning sports teams at major public universities benefit taxpayers or the community at large.
“The longer term is a little bit tough, because so many of these athletic programs do not receive dollars directly from the states. They might be passed through from the states through the academic side of the house to the university, but, in most situations in the Big Ten [athletic conference], very few schools offer subsidized athletics programs directly,” Weaver explained. “The mid-major schools have a lot of subsidized athletic programs, mostly by student fees.”
The University of Illinois women’s basketball team recently joined the men’s squad by winning in the postseason and helping the school financially.
The Illini women won their first NCAA Tournament game since the year 2000 on Saturday before losing to Texas Monday in Austin. Head coach Shauna Green’s Orange and Blue finished the season with 22 wins, tied for third-most in program history.
Weaver said, in the past, only men’s teams directly helped their schools financially by winning during March Madness.
“Up until this past year, not this year but the previous year, only the men’s basketball teams could earn what they call, ‘financial units,’ so it obviously had a direct impact,” Weaver said. “The better they did in the tournament, the more money went to the Big Ten, that was then distributed among the membership. This year, they have the women’s, what they call ‘a unit,’ so the women’s teams can get financial units for winning in this tournament.”
The Illini men fell to Kentucky, 84-75, Sunday evening in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee. Illinois closed the season with a 22-13 mark and the program’s fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance under head coach Brad Underwood.
Weaver said most schools in the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference have made major investments in basketball. Weaver said you could argue that there is an economic benefit to the community when teams host NCAA Tournament games.
Financial impact of NCAA success is not easy to measure
