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Will football success bring better students, more academic donations?

The UO administration has been wishing this would happen for the last 20 years, as justification for their slavish devotion to big-time sports. Richard Read has the latest in the Oregonian here, complete with quotes from Chief PR flack Tim Clevenger, VP for Enrollment Roger Thompson, and VP for Development Mike Andreasen, taking a little time out from their Rose Bowl junket:

UO’s $2 billion fund drive, on the heels of a $1.14 billion Oregon State University capital campaign, had raised “well over” $700 million by December, Andreasen said. He added: “We’ll have something to say probably in about three weeks.”

Meanwhile, many of our competitors (OSU being the most obvious example) have put their efforts into academics and research, and by at least some measures are doing quite well:

The published statistical studies on the academic payoff to sports give mixed results. Football victories seem to induce more low to medium ability males to apply, but not necessarily enroll. While they increase donations to athletics, they have a zero to negative effect on donations to the academic side, because of the crowding out effect. Of course Phil Knight’s money is the error term for donation regressions – an error term that tends to come with a lot of strings, as in the $2M UO students are paying to run his athlete-only Jock Box, a.k.a “the gift that keeps on taking”.

7 Comments

  1. skeptical 01/03/2015

    So the Oregonian piece takes as given the word of UO administrators that enrollment of out of state students will balloon in the aftermath of football success. But is enrollment the problem? It’s the money, the donations, isn’t it? What evidence is there, because of a Rose Bowl win or national championship, that alumni will open their checkbooks for academics?

    Is there the slightest chance Phil Knight will announce a generous donation once the football team has won the natty? I think he’s just waiting for the Ducks to bring home the hardware before giving up the two bills. Right?

  2. duckduckgo 01/03/2015

    I suspect there will be some more donations linked to a win, but I’d guess that the win will affect the timing more than if the donation happens.

    Colorado has a horrible team and lots of out-of-state students too. Most students care about other things (and no, this was true before the legal pot).

  3. nom 01/03/2015

    UO admins have been wishing this would happen for the last 20 years? Hello?? They played in the National Championship game in 2011. What bump happened then? Is everyone assuming they’re just gonna roll the Bucks like they did Jameis and his arrogant pals?

    Way too much cart before the horse.

  4. Fishwrapper 01/05/2015

    The perspective people keep missing is that this is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the school colors on a national stage. So quit whining – and how about a big cheer for the Silver and White!

    • huzza 01/05/2015

      Right. And we shouldn’t get in the way of the Nike uniform attention whores (wait … nah, forget about it) who have to grab the headlines away from the teams somehow.

      • Fishwrapper 01/05/2015

        UNike: It’s all about tradition…

        • nom 01/05/2015

          Traditionally insecure.

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