As college athletics has become more popular, institutions have seen the benefits of an integrated brand approach in which the athletics brand contributes to -- rather than detracts from -- the university brand.

Schools with big-time football or basketball programs face a challenge in that regard. Ohio State University Athletics Director Andy Geiger oversees a large and prosperous athletics program that might be susceptible to "brand creep."

"Certainly, the university wants to avoid the word-association game at Ohio State always being 'football,' " he said. "But the university also doesn't think it has to destroy football in order to accomplish that. Yes, there are concerns that athletics has such a dominant presence -- it's loud and brash and games are such a big part of the culture of this place. But because athletics is such an endemic part of the culture, there's a buy-in here that's pretty darn big, too. A large number of faculty and staff are ticket holders and are a major part of football Saturdays.

"Still, there's a fundamental understanding of integrating all this with honor."

NCAA President Myles Brand believes universities gain the most ground under an integrated marketing and branding campaign. He said there are cases where athletics departments may desire more autonomy in presenting their own image but that in the end, the athletics brand wins when the university brand wins.

"Some athletics departments may actually want to detach themselves from the university brand because they may see the university's interests as quite broad, including the academic interests, and they may perceive that those academic interests aren't sufficiently oriented toward their own approach," Brand said. "I think that's a mistake."

Stanford University is a success story in that regard. A perennial championship contender in many sports, the Stanford brand nonetheless remains academically based.

"We don't even have an athletics brand, really. It's an academic brand," said Debi Gore-Mann, Stanford senior associate athletics director who is filling in for Athletics Director Ted Leland while he is on sabbatical. "That's what we have and the athletics department doesn't want to tarnish that. You go anywhere in the world, and people are going to think of us more as an academic institution, and we're happy with that."

Gore-Mann said the university brand is largely why Stanford athletics is so successful.

"The academic reputation here opens a lot of doors for our coaches with recruits," she said. "Parents might not consider our athletics if we weren't walking in their door offering a Stanford education. Especially for a newer program that doesn't have national championships to sell, the academic brand goes a long way."

"When extraordinary students (not just athletes) are recruited, people talk about Harvard and Stanford," said University of Tulsa President Bob Lawless. "The reason I mention that is not for the Harvard, but for the Stanford. Stanford's reputation is principally academics. Duke is another example. Duke is well-known for basketball, but the university maintains a credible reputation outside of athletics. There may be some schools that are more known for athletics, but certainly the majority of the Association is identified by academics."

University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway said he is not worried about the athletics brand -- even in the upper echelon of Division I-A -- tarnishing the university brand.

"The university is one of the few institutions in society over time -- the church is another -- that has survived intact in terms of its mission and its contribution to the well-being of humans. I don't think we have to worry that the athletics brand will take precedence over the educational brand," Hemenway said.

"If you asked the man in the street, he wouldn't have any trouble seeing that the university has a vibrant life apart from its athletics identity. Even if you have a successful football team and you're filling the stands with 100,000 fans every Saturday, there are still many more of your students who are studying or at the library or doing something else than at the game."