What might it mean that several small universities added a flurry of sports in the final days of October?
November 1 is always a big day for universities. Many college campuses target November 1 as the day for early decision applications. These decisions are binding for students and offer enrollment management VPs a barometer of sorts for demand of their universities. The dilemma for prospective students is this: going the early decision route allows a student to increase their chances of acceptance at their top school. But, at the same time, students do not have the ability to shop around for the best financial aid offer as they have likely applied to one school, and, as such, will miss the early action deadlines of other schools.
This process of admission is particularly critical for tuition-driven campuses, typically small, private liberal arts-based institutions. Schools like early decision because it locks in students and gives the campus a starting point to project an incoming class. As illustrated in the quote below, students applying early decision tend to know this is the place they want to go.
Recruited student-athletes is one group of students who tend to know exactly where they want to go. Typically, this group is attracted to the campus by the athletic facilities, the coaches, opportunity for playing time, etc. Many athletes know by September of their senior high school year where they want to “commit” to play in college.
As the population of college-bound students will shrink over the next few years, competition to attract any student will increase. Some colleges have already begun to announce cuts in tuition costs for certain segments of students. Sports, therefore, can be viewed as a way to attract early decision applicants to a college.
Recognizing correlation does not always mean anything, it is probably a stretch on my part to draw parallels between early decision deadlines and the flood of universities last week that announced new sports programs, many beginning with the next academic year. By my count, 20 new sports were announced between October 23 and November 1 at 11 institutions, all of them at small, tuition-driven institutions. For the period of Oct. 1-22, universities added just 18 sports.
If you are a subscriber here, you know my interest in analyzing the percent of an institution’s student body that are athletes. (Joe Scalzo of Crain’s Cleveland Business wrote about this on Oct. 22 and was kind enough to ask for my thoughts. His story is thorough and worth the read.) Six of the 11 schools to add more sports are already at 40% or higher percentage of student-athletes.
I consulted the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act to get officially reported numbers of undergraduate students and unduplicated athletes for each institution that announced a new sport in the time period. Below are the results.
Division I
Canisius added women’s acrobatics and tumbling, 1,707 undergrads, 404 athletes (24%)
Division II
Ursuline added men’s cross country, men’s indoor track & field, and men’s outdoor track & field (first men’s sports in school’s history), 536 students (40 men), 147 athletes (27%)
Division III
St. Joseph’s Univ-Brooklyn added women’s flag football, 3,200 students, 337 athletes (11%)
University of the Ozarks added women’s volleyball, 764 students, 316 athletes (41%)
NAIA
IU-Southeast added men’s golf and women’s golf, 2,237 students, 106 athletes (5%)
William Woods added men’s volleyball and women’s beach volleyball, 645 students, 342 athletes (53%)
Arizona Christian added women’s flag football and women’s wrestling, 928 students, 413 athletes (45%)
Washington Adventist added women’s flag football, 422 students, 123 athletes (29%)
Truett McConnell added men’s bowling, women’s bowling, men’s pickleball, women’s pickleball, 784 students, 455 athletes (58%)
Lindsey Wilson added women’s flag football, 1,529 students, 863 athletes (56%)
Siena Heights added men’s ice hockey and women’s ice hockey, 1.095 students, 718 athletes (66%)
Is this merely a coincidence between the timing of early decision and announcement of new sports? Possibly, but the data raises questions. To compare, I cross-referenced my spreadsheet that tracks sports added/dropped for the same time period (Oct. 23-Nov. 1) each of the past few years. Consider this trend:
2024 = 20 new sports
2023 = 7 new sports
2022 = 10 new sports
2021 = 7 new sports
It would seem this is a direct play to attract students at a critical and tenuous time for many universities. But don’t take my word for it, read it straight from university officials.
Siena Heights, the school with 66% of student-athletes, directly acknowledged athletics as “an important consideration of many incoming students.”
Lindsey Wilson’s athletic director noted the decision was a reaction to looking for “ways to grow enrollment on our main campus.”
And, at Ursuline, where only 10% of the student body is male, the addition of the first three sports for men is directly tied to enrollment growth. It doesn’t hurt that cross country and track and field are typically among the least expensive sports to operate.
My customary caveat for these types of stories is this: I do not personally know anyone at these schools, and I have no knowledge of their internal discussions. Clearly, conversations and feasibility studies of adding sports were conducted prior to the past week, but the timing of the announcements suggests these decisions give off a sort of “break glass in case of emergency” vibe.
always appreciate your insight, Steve!