National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2002
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The Will to Act Project
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The NCAA News
Over the last four years and at the direction of the NCAA Executive Committee, the Association has invested in significant research to benchmark the perception of college sports and the NCAA itself. The research has helped the national office take the lead in developing a multiyear public affairs plan aimed at reputation management and engaging our new media and corporate partners in ways that enhance the attributes of intercollegiate athletics and higher education.
With the help of four national research firms, we surveyed key constituents within the membership, the media and the public (see the accompanying article for a summary of results). We conducted focus group interviews with college fans and non-fans. And we looked specifically at the impact of two major sports -- football and basketball.
Four major themes emerged from the research. Some of the results represent good news and some not so good.
The NCAA does a good job of embracing the "competitive spirit" and reinforcing the values of competition and fair play. In fact, the NCAA is synonymous with college sports.
Education is not strongly linked with the NCAA image. All constituents believe intercollegiate athletics' top priority should be assuring that student-athletes earn a college degree. But most believe that such help has become a low priority.
The image of the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics is directly linked with connotations of big business and money. All constituents believe making money should be a relatively low priority, but most respondents believe too much energy is devoted to chasing dollars and that education is compromised in the process.
Finally, all groups believe schools should follow the same rules, but most constituents believe all schools "cheat all the time."
There is confusion even at our own member institutions about where the role of the NCAA as an association ends and the role of the conference or local campus begins. There is little public understanding that most athletics programs must be subsidized by an institution's general budget or that 94 percent of the Association's revenue goes to the membership as direct payments or in the form of championships, goods and services. Hardly anyone understands how the NCAA works, how rules are proposed and approved, how policy is developed, how salaries for coaches are determined, or any of a myriad of other details about the operation of intercollegiate athletics.
It is clear that cleaning up some misperceptions is in order.
What is also clear from the research is that all of us -- campus, conference and national office; large public university or small private college; Divisions I, II or III; university president or assistant coach -- are being painted by the same brush. How much money is budgeted for athletics or how little, how student-athletes are treated by national policy or team rules, the perceived hubris with which we conduct the affairs of college sports, whatever the utterances and actions are of each of us affects the image of all of us. We're in this together. You are the NCAA, and the NCAA is college sports.
Image and reputation -- what we stand for as the whole of college sports and as our part -- are measured largely by our actions. We say we stand for conducting our athletics programs within the mission of higher education. We say our student-athletes are to be fully integrated into the student body. We say the collegiate model for sport is unique and wholly different from the professional model. But based on the results of research, our publics and our colleagues have judged our behavior and found it lacking.
Too many of us in college sports have done a poor job of telling the story of intercollegiate athletics in general and of student-athletes in particular. In fact, one of my biggest disappointments over the last eight years as NCAA president has been the steady decline in how we support one another and a rising emphasis on our own self-protecting agendas. How often when you read a column that excoriates college sports or the NCAA have you called the reporter to set the record straight where it was misrepresented? How often have you stayed silent while your coaches or athletics administrators "blame" the NCAA for national policy that a majority of member institutions -- yours included, perhaps -- helped put in place?
As members of the NCAA -- as a part of the whole -- college presidents must lead an effort to redefine the image of intercollegiate athletics. By engaging the will to act in this effort, you will enhance the reputation of your own institution to attract prospective students, media, donors and even previously disenfranchised alumni. Here are specific recommendations to consider:
Embrace and use key NCAA messages (see accompanying listing) and discuss them with your faculty and athletics staff.
Ask high-profile coaches and administrators to use the media platforms they command to speak about the importance of athletics programs being a part of the total higher education experience within the NCAA structure.
Invite the NCAA public relations team to your campus to discuss what the Association's public affairs plan means for your campus. For information about these campus visits, contact Gail Dent (gdent@ncaa.org), NCAA assistant director of public relations.
Examine the actions of athletics policy and personnel to determine if the student-athlete comes first in decision-making on your campus.
Through your relationships with local media, challenge reporters when they fail to give accurate facts or characterize the NCAA or intercollegiate athletics in ways that damage the image of higher education.
Use local forums as a starting point to tell the story of intercollegiate athletics and to build momentum for a new understanding of college sports.
"Own" your role in the image problems of college sports, become a part of the solution and recognize that an association's reputation is made member by member.
A university relations administrator told the story a few years ago about an assistant who had a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip taped on a filing cabinet. The story, I believe, helps put in perspective our role in managing the image of intercollegiate athletics. In the comic strip, Calvin was standing in his room, surrounded by clutter while his mother berated him for not cleaning his room as directed. After she left the room with parting instructions to get it cleaned, Calvin complained to Hobbes that what he really needed was a good PR program. The university relations assistant had added a handwritten note beneath the strip that read: "What you need is to clean your room."
In image management, as in most other endeavors, actions speak louder than words.
Image and reputation research, 1999 to 2002
The NCAA has conducted a series of research projects over the last four years geared at measuring the image and reputation of the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics. The following three firms have conducted the research: Louis Harris & Associates, Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations, and Landor Associates.
Project scope
Louis Harris & Associates and Landor Associates were commissioned in 1998 to create an empirical foundation to bridge the gap between how the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics want to be perceived and how they are perceived by both internal and external constituents. The survey was conducted with 3,393 interviews, including 1,884 internal constituents from all three divisions and all levels of the membership; 1,300 individuals in the general public; and 209 members of the media.
Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations conducted a communications audit of 158 CEOs, athletics directors, senior woman administrators, faculty athletics representatives and conference commissioners from all three divisions. Designed primarily to learn how these individuals receive information and how they want to receive communications in the future, the audit also examined perceptions about the NCAA's mission and most critical issues.
Landor Associates conducted brand image research in January and February 2002. Focus groups were conducted in three cities (Boston, Chicago and Charlotte) and an online survey of 994 respondents was conducted. The research objective was to understand the current NCAA brand imagery.
Project results
The following are major themes within the 1998 study by Louis Harris & Associates:
Internal and external constituents agree with the NCAA president's No. 1 priority of keeping the interests of the student-athlete at the heart of the NCAA decision-making. However, they feel this is an area where the NCAA is not doing well.
Internal and external constituents agree that generating revenue for the NCAA and /or member schools should be a lower priority. However, they believe generating money is what the NCAA pays the most attention to.
The NCAA is seen as generating enormous revenues, but too few believe these revenues benefit member institutions or student-athletes. They have no clear understanding of where the money goes.
All constituents believe all NCAA institutions should follow the rules, but large percentages of all groups believe that most major college programs regularly violate NCAA rules.
Internal constituents support the concept behind Title IX. However, that support is thin and dissipates with regard to specific policies.
The descriptive word most commonly applied to the NCAA is "powerful." The media and public also view the NCAA as commercialized.
The general population is not familiar with how the NCAA works or what it does.
The NCAA is seen as doing a good job at providing a high level of competition, conducting championships and protecting the safety of student-athletes.
Most constituents, especially internal ones, believe money has a significant influence on collegiate athletics.
Majorities of all groups surveyed think revenues from commercial activities are not distributed to member institutions.
The media get most of their information from the media. The second most important source of information is coaches and high-profile administrators.
When asked to identify the most important issues facing intercollegiate athletics, external constituents named student-athlete academic performance. Internal constituents (member institutions) named money and funding.
The Fleishman-Hillard communications audit yielded these important findings:
There is disagreement about the mission of the NCAA. Most internal constituents see governance as the mission of the Association, but chief executive officers view promoting intercollegiate athletics as the mission. No group named student-athlete welfare as the No. 1 mission objective.
CEOs did, however, cite student-athlete welfare as the No. 1 issue facing the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics. Other important issues were recruiting, academic standards and Title IX.
Results from the Landor Associates research included:
The NCAA is synonymous with college sports, namely college football and basketball. Beyond college sports, the brand has limited recognition.
The NCAA is considered big business intent on making money for the benefit of the NCAA, and this image is generated through the major college sports event sponsorships and high-profile athletes who are more interested in sports than academics.
The NCAA and college sports are not differentiated from professional sports. However, most respondents feel the NCAA and college sports are a more pure form of competition relative to professional sports.
Although inappropriate behavior from some high-profile athletes in college sports tend to damage the image of the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics, it is the "average" student-athlete competing for the love of the game that has the potential to build differentiation and strengthen the image.
* Respondents believe that educating the student-athlete should be the ultimate goal of the NCAA. However, the big-business aspect of the brand suggests the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics compromise education for the purpose of sports competition.
Four messages tell the story of the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics
- The NCAA is a membership-led association of colleges and universities with athletics programs; conferences and affiliated organizations.
- We are committed to protecting the best interests of student-athletes.
- We are committed to providing a quality education to student-athletes.
- We are committed to supporting athletics participation opportunities for student-athletes.
Presidents, athletics directors, senior women administrators, and faculty representatives from member colleges and universities, and conference representatives vote on NCAA legislation.
Student-athletes have an organized voice in the NCAA through the Student-Athlete Advisory Committees (SAACs).
The NCAA conducts 87 championships in 22 sports each year in which more than 44,000 student-athletes compete to be the national champion.
The integrity of student-athletes, college sports and athletics participation is protected through legislation and governance.
Through committees at the campus, conference and national level, student-athletes have a voice in the governance of college sports.
Time demands on student-athletes within their sport are limited both during the week and by the length of the season through NCAA bylaws.
Graduation rates of student-athletes at every member school are made public to help prospects make decisions about their choice of a college or university.
The safety of student-athletes is supported through playing rules, research and recommended sports-medicine policy.
The amateur status of student-athletes is protected by legislative standards.
NCAA initial- and continuing-eligibility requirements, as well as individual college admissions and graduation standards, assure a fundamental academic foundation as a condition for athletics participation.
On average, student-athletes graduate at higher rates than their counterparts in the student body.
Academic standards are continually being monitored and revised to assure quality education opportunities for the broad range of student-athletes.
Through various local and national initiatives, the education of student-athletes extends beyond the classroom to include leadership development.
More than 360,000 student-athletes are participating in college sports at 977 member colleges and universities.
The NCAA conducts 87 championships in 22 sports each year in which more than 44,000 student-athletes compete to be the national collegiate champion.
By promoting intercollegiate athletics and higher education through its agreements with CBS, ESPN and corporate partners, the NCAA helps generate funding for these athletics opportunities. NCAA member institutions spend in excess of $4 billion annually to provide participation opportunities, and 94 cents of every dollar that comes to the NCAA goes back to member schools in direct dollars, championships or services.
NCAA bylaws provide a "level playing field" on which member colleges and universities can compete against one another. While NCAA playing rules and eligibility standards provide fair play, NCAA recruiting rules provide equal opportunities for access to intercollegiate athletics.
The integrity of student-athletes, college sports and athletics participation is protected through legislation, governance initiatives and administrative policy against corrupting outside influences.
In short, the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics are committed to the best interests, education and athletics participation of student-athletes.
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