The study conducted by Robert H. Frank, an economist and professor of management and economics at Cornell University, takes on two popular college sports "myths" -- one suggesting that institutions with winning teams generate more revenues than those with losing programs, and another suggesting that winning programs prompt increased donations from alumni or a better pool of applicants.

Frank's study reviewed existing research conducted between 1981 and 2003, including a baseline economic study the NCAA commissioned two years ago, that explores the links between athletics success and student applications and fund-raising.

Frank agreed with the NCAA study that found success in big-time athletics has little, if any, systematic effect on the quality of incoming freshmen an institution is able to attract (as measured by average SAT scores). Based on the empirical literature, Frank said, even if the overall net effect of athletics success on student recruitment is positive, it is likely to be small.

"If expanding its applicant pool is an institution's goal, it faces many more attractive investment opportunities than those it confronts in the domain of big-time college athletics," Frank said. "Individual institutions that decide to invest more money in their sports programs in the hope of raising more funds or improving their applicant pools would be wiser to spend the money in other ways."

That finding supports the August 2003 NCAA study conducted by Robert Litan, vice-president for research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri; Jonathan Orszag, managing director of Sebago Associates, Inc., an economic-policy consulting firm; and Peter Orszag, a senior director at Sebago and a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institute. Their eight-year research showed that, at least as far as operating budgets are concerned, the effects of increased athletics spending may be exaggerated.

The NCAA study looked at 10 hypotheses about college athletics, focusing primarily on Division I-A institutions, and relied on data rather than anecdotes to assess the validity of those hypotheses. The research was based in large part on a comprehensive database from school-specific information collected as part of the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) merged with data from other sources. The study also relied on a detailed survey of chief financial officers from 17 Division I institutions.

Among the NCAA study's major findings were that increased spending on football or men's basketball does not produce medium-term increases in winning percentages, and higher winning percentages do not produce medium-term increases in net operating revenue; and that there is little, if any, correlation between increased spending and increases or decreases in the measurable academic quality of students or alumni giving.

Frank, who earned his Ph.D. in economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and has authored or co-authored eight books on economic trends, said his review of the NCAA's study and others leads him to believe that institutions should think twice about investing in their athletics programs to achieve mythical outcomes.

"Institutions deciding whether, and, if so, how much, to invest in pursuit of big-time athletics success should not bank on increasing alumni donations or the quality of their applicants," he said. "In a winner-take-all market like college sports, even if large gains in alumni donations were possible, competition among institutions to capture those gains would have already eliminated any opportunities for gain that might initially have been available."

Knight Commission Chair William Friday, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said Frank's findings support the need for "an overall stand-down in the athletics funding arms race."

"The conclusion that athletics success does not meaningfully increase either the amount of alumni donations nor the quality of student applicants has broad policy considerations for both individual institutions and athletics alliances like the NCAA," Friday said.

The NCAA study, however, found little evidence to indicate an "arms race," as defined by increased operating expenditures at one school triggering increases at other schools. The study found some analysis suggesting that an arms-race phenomenon exists among schools within the same conference, but other specifications suggest no relationship.

"At least over the eight years in the study, we can't detect a connection between spending more and winning more," NCAA President Myles Brand said when the study was released.

Southern Methodist University President R. Gerald Turner, a Knight Commission member, said the entire body of research should give institutions pause when deciding how to allocate operating expenses in athletics, an outcome also emphasized in the NCAA findings.

"This review of the literature assesses the results of previous studies and provides a succinct analysis that will be an asset to those of us who must evaluate the expected benefits from expenditures for our athletics programs," Turner said. "Institutions deciding to increase expenditures in pursuit of big-time athletics success should have reasons other than an anticipation of increased alumni donations for academic programs or enhancement in the quality of their applicants."