Perspectives: From Marketing to Learning - Changing the Conversation

In a USA Today article dated Wednesday, September 22, Steve Berkowitz, Jodi Upton, Michael McCarthy and Jack Gillum write about student fees and how they quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) support college sports.

In the piece, college sports are described as “important parts of campus life and excellent vehicles for generating publicity and alumni support.” Faculty groups are cited as saying “successful sports programs adds to campus spirit and unity, provides free advertising, helps in branding and provides a link and outreach to alumni.”  Institutional representatives are quoted as saying “a strong successful athletic program is very important to the connection with alumni, donors and leaders in the state, and it magnifies the university not only in the state, but beyond the state. That’s the visibility that the athletics program can have.”

OK, stop the presses; send out a bulletin and enough already. We get it!

We have heard and continue to hear that the reason we “do” college sports is branding and brand awareness, free advertising and publicity, marketing and alumni and donor connectivity.  Institution presidents talk about affiliating with the NCAA Division I “brand” or they argue that changing conferences improves their “market share.” Conference administrators talk about “branding” their leagues and their schools through networking, digital platforms, and social media applications.

Athletic Directors are rewarded for their fundraising, ticket sales, promotions and marketing campaigns – most designed to improve their “market position” and drive their “brand”. The NCAA, once primarily a regulatory outfit focused on enforcement and championships, now actively manages programs in revenue generation, branding, marketing, promotion and positioning the “Blue Disk.” Television executives remind us through advertising sales and ratings metrics that market share and brand names drive their relationship with college sports.

Cinderella gets invited to the ball but -- the Butlers, George Masons and Gonzagas notwithstanding -- most TV execs want her to leave well before midnight.
In the midst of the focus on the marketing theme, however, I would like to advocate for a different approach, one that recognizes the reality of the current state of college sports but changes the conversation.

So restart the presses, and may I have your attention please.

The primary reason sports exist on university campuses is that it is intended to add value to the educational experience of the participants. Simply put, college athletics is supposed to be about an educational experience that focuses on competing, learning and serving. It is not primarily and was not intended to be an overtly commercialized enterprise that emphasizes brand, market share and TV ratings.

Now before you call me naïve, college sports does need some commercial elements. History and the evolution of the industry prove that point, and college sports programs -- when professionally managed by value-based campus leaders -- do create positive commercial benefits. But these benefits I consider coincidental to the enterprise and are ancillary outcomes, not primary. The primary argument in support of college sports and the connected financial support of college sports from the academy comes from the educational aspect, not the commercial.

College sports are more than measuring competitive and commercial outputs. College sports are about learning through competition. Whether that manifests itself in social learning, emotional learning, leadership development or a renewed commitment and understanding of service and personal responsibility, the learning/educational components of participating on a college sports team are primary.  They are real, measurable and fundamental. Everything else, no matter how positive or how much media attention it demands, is secondary.

So let’s change the conversation or, at the very least, broaden it. College sports are primarily about learning and developing students for successful lives, and that is precisely what occurs for the overwhelming majority of the NCAA‘s 400,000 student-athletes.

Let’s leave it up to the NBA and the NFL to brand and market athletes, cities, coaches and the like.  And while we celebrate and enjoy our favorite professional home town team, let’s talk about how college athletics is foremost an added educational value proposition for students. The conversation just might lead us to considering our enterprise, and our work in it, in a different and perhaps more collegial way.