Big Time College Football: Why?

Why? Why are certain schools part of big time college football?

Why is Berkeley part of the BCS? Berkeley’s six-year graduation rate is crazy high because of the exclusivity of the school, its endowment is in the billions, and like Stanford and the University of Washington, it is a true international university. In the last 20 years, half of Berkeley’s seasons have been been above .500 with the other half being extremely disappointing. What does the Berkeley’s football program add to the academic outcomes of the school and graduate research that drives all of Berkeley’s international acclaim?

Why is Arizona State University part of the BCS? ASU’s six-year graduation rate is disappointingly low and it is the largest school by campus enrollment in the US. In the last 20 years half of ASU’s season were above .500 and ASU has been a little more competitive than Berkeley. With such a low graduation rate and an on campus enrollment that is the largest in the country, why does ASU need big time college football? Do they need football to help drive their research dollars or to entertain a large undergraduate population? Do they need the program to keep alumni engaged so they buy season tickets and donate to the university? Even if this is the case, ASU’s endowment is not nearly as large as other institutions and their endowment per student is the lowest in the PAC-12. They also have a lot more work to do because of the realities at ASU; total enrollment of around 73k, Tempe Main Campus enrollment is at 60k, and a goal to get online enrollments at 100k means that ASU has a lot of non-football work to do.

Moving away from my beloved PAC-12; why is Vanderbilt part of the SEC? I understand that Vanderbilt was a founding member in 1932 but they have been hardly been competitive in the last 20-years. Does Vanderbilt need to play I-A football; they don’t need any help with their endowment or academic outcomes? Vanderbilt is ranked 88 in Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, the highest in the SEC and it has a quarter of the student population and 2.8x the endowment than the University of Florida, the next highest THE ranked team from the SEC (ranked 128; Texas A&M is 158).

Why is the Mississippi State in the SEC? Like Vanderbilt they were a founding member but have been not been competitive over the last 20-years. Mississippi State occupies the bottom of the SEC when it comes to graduation rate and has the smallest endowment of the bunch. Why is Mississippi State trying to compete with the likes of Florida and Alabama when its core mission is to “provide access and opportunity to students from all sectors of the state's diverse population, as well as from other states and countries, and to offer excellent programs of teaching, research, and service.” Without being cute, there is nothing in the mission about providing quality entertainment to students and alumni by fielding a competitive football program that was last SEC Champion in 1941.

In my opinion this article is not particularly brilliant but like my previous article about the Time Higher Education’s world rankings we need to ask the question: why? Why do  schools feel the need to have big time college football (and basketball) programs? At this point I could go through all the BCS conferences and other I-A conferences and pick and choose high performing schools and low performing schools and ask the questions; why?

*For this article, I used facts and figures from the current academic year rather than 2011-2012 like my previous articles about big time college football.