Trophies and Transcripts

“FSU V Miami 021” © Ayzmo

As the heat of summer begins to abate, and great fall weather draws nearer, excitement around the state starts to build for the kickoff of this year’s college football season. This annual ritual of marching bands and fight songs, team colors and stuffed mascots, and tailgates and ticket windows binds students and local communities in a unique way, turning the school pride up to 11.

Florida is home to many of the top college football programs in the nation. In the past decade alone, Florida universities have claimed 3 national championships (two by the University of Florida, and the 2013 title by Florida State University) as well as a handful of bowl victories. This year is no different, with Florida State University starting the season ranked number 8 in the nation in the preseason USA Today Coaches’ poll, and 10th in the Associated Press Top 25.

More than just boasting and claiming bragging rights, success on the field can actually affect a school’s academic standing off the field. Studies have shown that a school’s successful athletic program can have a positive impact on a university’s exposure, attracting students to the university, as well as increasing application, retention, and graduation rates. Given these positive impacts, rooting for Florida universities’ athletic programs may just be rooting for Florida’s academic system.

Increased Exposure

The most obvious way a university’s athletic success can benefit the school academically is through increased national exposure. When a school has an exceptional football season, its games are typically moved into national television broadcast slots, sports networks highlight the school, and the school is featured in more articles online and in print media. This grants the university an extraordinary amount of free advertisement, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

After George Mason University’s (GMU) “Cinderella” run to the 2006 Men’s Basketball Final Four, Dr. Robert Baker, director of the Center for Sport Management at GMU, studied the value of the school’s exposure. Baker found that the university gained an estimated $677.5 million in free media coverage.¹

In Florida, capitalizing on expanded exposure was brought to the forefront by Dr. Paul Jarley, the dean of the College of Business at the University of Central Florida (UCF). After the success of UCF’s 2013 college football season, which culminated in winning the highly respected Fiesta Bowl, Dr. Jarley wrote that UCF needed to “Leverage [the] win to spread [the] word of [UCF’s] accomplishments in the classroom and research.”²Dr. Jarley went on to write about different ways that alumni and students could use the Fiesta Bowl victory as a vehicle to raise the notoriety of the school, including helping to build the University’s presence in major cities around the country.

1  George Mason University. The Business of Being Cinderella: Mason Releases Study on Final Four Impact.
2  Jarley, Paul. “Leveraging Our Fiesta Bowl Win.”

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