Secret Ballots--Public Results

A college degree is not just the learning. In exchange for your time and ten’s of thousands of dollars you can tell people where you went to school and hope they are impressed. Is a student with a degree from Harvard or Yale head and shoulders above the person with a degree from a local state university that began at community college? Hard to tell? Looking over a stack of resumes, which stand out Yale or Northern Iowa?

In this season’s crop of preseason rankings there is one team (like Auburn in 2008) that will be ranking highly only to finish in November without a bowl bid. With the coaches’ ballot now to be secret it is interesting to see how another ballot is filled out.

"University of Florida President Bernie Machen, in a recent assessment of national universities, gave his school the highest-possible ranking, "distinguished," as he also did Harvard, Princeton and Yale universities."

See the ballot here http://www.gainesville.com/assets/pdf/GS17003616.PDF

Running a large university is a difficult job and while you may have a feeling about the competition you may not truly have a nation wide perspective. Apparently President Machen has a very positive view of the job he is doing a UF. He therefore rated his school and therefore his job as “Distinguished”. Two other schools that were rated overall as being the equals of UF, Fordham (“Strong”) and the University of Delaware (“Adequate”) have taken steps to improve their positions in this ranking.

Recently there has been buzz that the Delaware Blue Hens were considering a move the FBS level given there success on the field and putting fans in their stadium. Fordham for its part shook up the sleepy Patriot League by offering scholarship for football which academically minded north eastern universities do not need. Since the 1950’s members of both the Ivy and the near by Patriot League have offered football scholarships. Consequently, college football in the region is smaller than the one would expect given the population. These schools need to learn from the great University of Florida and realize the you can have both...bread, circus and by the way since we say so academics.

So watch President Machen, the competition is upgrading their football and shortly may be nipping a the Gator’s in arrested and legal fees.

And remember, it is only wrong if someone is watching.

More Than Numbers

Any business student knows the simple formula: Revenue – Expenses = Profit (Lose). That said there is more to the impact of college football than this simple equation tells. The BCF has long contended that the public relations and promotional value of college football is grossly underestimated. Jane Stancill and Rachel Carter put forth in Small Colleges Adopt Football the cost of starting up a football program. The article has the unusual element of balance giving the motivation for pushing forward into the capital intense world of college football and some real world reasons motivations. For example:

1. At UNC-Pembroke, football is one way to attract students and keep them happy, said Chancellor Allen Meadors, …

…," he said. "There is absolutely nothing for students to do off campus. If we don't provide activities, it's just not there."

Last weekend, in a revival of a long-dead program, the UNC-Pembroke Braves stormed onto the home field for the first time in 56 years. The students did the wave and reveled in pre-game tailgating outside the sold-out stadium.

"It was just a huge sense of community," gushed Student Government Vice President Barry Burch Jr.

2. Fifty-seven percent of the nation's college students are women. St. Augustine's President Dianne Boardley Suber said her college is bucking the trend with 55 percent men on campus; the college plans to study the trend to see whether it is related to football.

The observation made in the article about having your team’s score on the ESPN ticker rings true to any older college football fan that can remember the Prudential College Football Scoreboard where the score of the Drake (Do you know where Drake Univiersity is located?) and Holy Cross games were reported weekly and etched into your awareness. Or for you younger folks, how many of you the likes of Boise State, Florida Atlantic or Troy State ten years ago?

The accountant will point to the balance sheet and tell you how much money is going out the door but the profit formula is more complex than the formula would lead us to believe as sometimes you need to address the revenue side of the equation through building awareness of your product. And as any marketer will tell you awareness is half of the battle.



(Drake University is in Des Moines, Iowa).