B1G, Sec, collude to block media rights consolidation

Football
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PS one other thing…Alabama 2008 to 2010 US News rankings averaged 84.375…in 2026 #169

UAB was not even on the list above…but in 2026 UAB is #132…and remember everyone says that “Alabama killed the UAB football program” for a couple of years

so that clearly and irrefutably kills the argument that athletics spending and success leads to academic success and higher rankings

and PS just for fun Auburn…certainly has had success and spends…average of 91.25 from 2008 to 2015 and #102 today…again they spend, but the success is not close to Alabama, but their rankings are much higher

again clearly ZERO correlation between athletics spending, success, and academic rankings

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Why would you base your argument on USN&WR data?

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Who wants 18-21 year olds deciding how to run a billion dollar a year operation that is the University ?

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It’s meaningless. UH football was abysmal under Dana but UH still had record applications and freshmen class.

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Again - I am not reading all of these huge post. Learn to communicate a little more concisely.

You said something about Michigan and Ohio St - They have been on radio going back 100 years, so guess what it was around for a long time. No one said anything about massive expense being a deciding factor. It is relative.

Now go back and look at schools over time Start in 1995. TCU had the Fiesta Bowl before the Rose. You are acting like it is some magic potion but it is a combination of factors over time and not a straight line correlation. Saw something about TCU being where they were in 2012 - Guess what, they have not maintained a #2 ranking and other top schoold also play a factor in rankings.

Treating something as an absolute and not looking at all other factor that tie in is a mistake. Athletics is absolutely a marketing factor for a school, but to act like it is the only one is stupid.

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This discussion is about marketing and that one actually fits well. That said they are all biased in different ways.

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I had more faith in your responses. MArketing is not just athletics, other factors as well. I would be curious as to the breakdown of record applications. I would assume more from outside texas would be a good thing as opposed to more Houstonians applying because it is easy to apply to 20 universities using online applications.

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if you believe that you can solve complex issues with tweets then you are a major part of the issue

and you read what I said you just realized you could not refute it and that it destroyed the idea that athletics plays into academic rankings or academic success so you went to the www “rebuttal” of “not going to read all of that” which is a short way of saying you really do not have any solutions other than “take from the SEC” or “rely on pretend correlations about marketing and academics”…all while wanting people that care nothing about academics to be the representation of that “marketing effort”

and if you cannot look at data from all the way back to 2008 up to 2026 (18 years) and accept that as proof of something and you now want to go back to 1995 (for whatever reason) well then you are just not going to accept the defeat of what you are claiming

I presented a combination of factors…from multiple universities…those that spend on athletics heavily, those that spend a lot less, those that have had massive success, those that have had little success…numbers of applicants, enrollment figures, locations of applicants…going back many many years

and no “combination of factors” supports any argument that massive spending on athletics and especially very large transfers of academic side money to athletics makes any meaningful difference for academic reputation and success

and all one has to do is look at DECADES of the top universities in the USA and how they cater to athletics (or really how they do not) to see that being a top ranked university has nothing to do with athletics or the transfer of large amounts of academic side money over to athletics

the only thing it MIGHT support is that you will get more applicants…but as shown with SMU and even TCU it really does not matter that you get more applicants if you are not going to admit them

in 2001 UH had 6,508 applicants and admitted 5,295 and enrolled 2,847 with 288 part time

in 2024 UH had 31,716 applicants with 23,446 admitted and of that 5,778 chose to enroll with 440 part time

so with 4.9X more applicants, 4.4x X more admitted…UH was able to convince only able to get 2.03X more to actually enroll

that really does not seem like that great of a success unless the goal is “more applicants” and “slightly more unqualified applicants” and “many more admitted, but a great deal of them choosing to not enroll after admission”

as a comparison we will use the university of north Texas state

2001 7,967 applied, 5,819 admitted, 2,995 enrolled, part time 184

so slightly more applied, slightly more admitted, slightly more enrolled slightly fewer part time

2024 38,477 applied, 27,793 admitted, 6,558 enrolled, 172 part time…so again more applicants, more admitted, more enrolled, fewer part time

only recently have they started to spend way too much academic side money on athletics with so far any “success” from that proving they are still a stepping stone school for both coaches and athletes…really great “marketing investment” there

now lets look at UTD

2001 3,834 applied, 2,305 admitted, 980 enrolled, 51 part time

2024 31,789 applied, 20,704 admitted, 4,007 enrolled, 189 part time

now lets take a look at the academic rankings of UTD vs the university of north Texas state or UH

110, 132, 208…who here wants to claim that spending on athletics makes a university better academically based on those comparisons of 3 public universities in the same state and all in large metro areas…what an extremely poor argument to try and make…and really who even wants to claim it has a meaningful impact on applicants and the quality of applicants

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because the failed claim was made that TCU had a rapid ascent in the US News rankings after their Rose Bowl win and that claim supports the idea that academic dollars should be handed off to athletics

so I used the US News rankings to prove that claim as completely false

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and to answer another question

Fall 2025 Facts

Top 10 Places of Student Origin

Harris County 23,809 followed by the contiguous counties to Harris then followed by the largest populated counties in Texas

then followed by India, China, Vietnam, Pakistan, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Bangladesh before California shows up followed by Mexico, and Iran before Louisiana shows up closely followed by the Philippines

so perhaps UH needs a cricket team, a baccarat casino, and mens soccer if they really want to market to their target “out of state” market…massive spending on football and basketball does really not seem to be shifting the demographics much or “selling”

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I never said that. You were just simplifying the issue to just athletics. I’m not trying to solve any issue, just stating that Athletics is part of marketing and should not be strictly determined by student votes. The same as any other major university expenditure.

You asked what Part of your original comments that I disagreed with.

You want to call me a liar - F you (yes probably against board rules, but I do not take the assertion lightly). I read some sentences and replied based on those. Yes, those few lines were from 2018, not 2008 so check the math.

You are not factoring the whole issue, but trying to say it is only athletics or not. Your facts do not go back and show how a university (such as Ohio St) would be affected if they had not had national sports coverage for the past 80-100 years (yes radio). Your just picking and choosing how you personally apply the data which is incomplete.

This alone tells me you are not fully understanding the issues. Absolutely getting more applicants is good as most top universities show they are selective in the admissions. The more applicants and only same number of admissions means a lower acceptance rate - basic math and good for university ratings.

Not sure what you are trying to prove with just more applicants. It does not prove anything about athletic departments being part of marketing. Lots of factors go into, athletics is one. Good athletics is good marketing as you are on TV more. BAd athletics just means you do not benefit from it as much, not that people avoid the school. Also what other factors go into the increased applications from 2001 to 2026 - Can you figure it out. There is one MAJOR factor.

I am done wasting time with this, but I do have one last question:

If sports does nothing for a school’s public visibility (ie. marketing), then why are there so many FCS schools moving up to FBS. I doubt it is so they can spend 10-20 million more to compete while only getting about 2 million more in media revenue. That 10-20 million does not even put them in the range to compete for a FBS title nor does it include NIL needs from boosters.

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for the 1,000th time…a university is not “selective” based on acceptance rate period the end

the ONLY thing that acceptance rate shows is the ratio of qualified applicants vs. unqualified applicants…it shows NOTHING at all about the actual quality of the applicants that were accepted to the university…I do not understand how anyone with a college degree cannot grasp this very simple FACT

just because a university has more unqualified applicants that they rejected that does not mean the students they accepted are more qualified

in the case of UH in particular and all state universities in Texas not names UT there is something called GUARANTEED ADMISSIONS…if you apply and you meet those metrics you are accepted period the end…again how does anyone with a college degree not understand that

and when a university has the same GUARANTEED admissions metrics metrics for a decade or more then there is nothing to benefit from getting more applicants especially unqualified ones…it reflects nothing at all about the quality of those that were accepted…because for that entire decade or more the quality of applicant that would be accepted does not change one bit no matter how many applicants there are because the GUARANTEED admissions metrics have not changed…what a wonderful use of tens of millions of “athletics marketing dollars”…hey guys we attracted more UNQUALIFIED applicants to our university that do not meet our GUARANTEED admissions metrics and we are going to use a meaningless ratio of those accepted vs. those rejected to try and claim that the quality of applicant has risen when that metric does not reflect that at all and only someone that lacks basic logic, reason, math, and college admissions understanding would think that it does

and there are not a great deal more schools moving up at this point and the ones that are it is not extremely popular with their students…SHSU students in a very large number did not want to move up because they understood the chances of long term success vs. the cost to do so were very very small and simply not worth it…they preferred to keep being a bigger dog in a smaller division than being fodder for programs in D1-A that need a buy in game

in addition to that a lot of college administrators and ADs are not exactly great business people that is just a simple fact…plus a number of them are wanting “more students” but their goal is to get more students just to have more warm bodies they do not care anything about academic quality or reputation and many of them know that is not going to be something achievable for their university

if your goal is to have low admissions standards, gets lots of applicants that cannot even meet those, spend tens of millions on athletics to the detriment of the academic side and be a US News unranked or US News #250 university then hey “go for the lead ring”

but you can also go ahead and accept a lot of losing, buy in games, lack of fan support, churn in coaches (being fired or hired away), and an ever growing need to spend more academic side money on athletics to achieve that “goal”

because as I have showed with the US News rankings data over a long number of years and as I have showed with the enrollment data that shows places like UTD that spend very little on athletics and do not have football at all yet have rocketed up the rankings…you can attract students or you can attract top students…but athletics is not a proven means to attract top students or to get top rankings…and the fact that the vast majority of the very top universities in the US News (and many other) rankings are not major players in college athletics again proves that point

and over time as many of these move up bake the same bleats that are made on this forum about “lets make the SEC or Big 10 give us some money somehow” those move ups and those programs that cannot get fan support, student support, donor support, and corporate support while making those bleats will find themselves left by the wayside

and the way that will happen is to cut the academic side spending, make it more difficult and costly for those smaller programs to attract the “playas” that have no business on a college campus, and to be able to keep up with facilities and to compete in general along with eventually probably locking them out from getting buy in games

more than likely at least at first that will not result in the fools that do not belong on a college campus from being in college athletics…and it will probably actually drive up some cost…but over time as programs wear down, drop down, or drop sports to where they cannot be in D1-A because no conference will have a member that sponsors 8 sports total (mens and womens combined)…well that will be the time the top programs finally have enough of the insane spending and move to get it under control…but they are also going to make sure there is not a rush of programs to move back up or to restart football because the metrics to do so will be far too high

your argument that “athletics sells a university” is only barely true if your desire is to be a very large degree factory filled with student apathy and students wearing other schools apparel or if you are a smaller university that wants to be a larger degree factory filled with apathy and other schools apparel and you are looking to make a very large and very poor investment to do so and to lock yourself into that situation for decades if not longer

there is ZERO to suggest that larger athletics spending results in better rankings or in a better quality of student applying and in fact I have showed in multiple ways that is easily proven false