In challenging economic times, athletics programs at NCAA member schools are wrestling, not only with better business practices, travel costs, staffing efficiencies and sport-sponsorship concerns, but also even whether to change NCAA division affiliation as a way of either reducing costs or increasing revenue.

In light of the current economic climate, The NCAA News asked Division II Presidents Council Chair Stephen Jordan (president at Metropolitan State), Management Council Chair Tim Selgo (athletics director at Grand Valley State) and Championships Committee Chair Dave Riggins (athletics director at Mars Hill) to discuss the fiscal impact of Division II membership, including whether the notion of athletics as a financial drain on the campus is myth or reality.

In Part 2 of this three-part series, Jordan, Selgo and Riggins talk about the benefits of having ample postseason opportunities in all sports at the Division II level.

NCAA News: Part of the attraction to classify at the highest level of division affiliation is the perception that it will be easier – and more profitable – to market the athletics program. Are there effective marketing tactics Division II institutions can use to give their student-athletes the exposure and publicity they deserve without breaking the budget?

Tim Selgo: Believe it or not, one of the reasons some schools reclassify to Division I is to have their football and basketball teams appear on the ESPN “Bottom Line,” which scrolls scores at the bottom of the screen. First of all, the number of prospective student-athlete who actually watch this is minimal. And the few who do are not likely to make their college selection based on seeing a school’s name come across the ticker.

The best way – and the less expensive way – for an institution to get more exposure is to target marketing dollars specifically to areas in which the institution is likely to recruit students. Becoming Division I is far more expensive than doing this, and most schools that have gone Division I in recent years aren’t getting any more publicity for their schools than they did before – they are just spending more money on athletics. And in most cases, the publicity they are getting is negative, either from the compromises they’ve had to make to try to be successful or by having losing programs.

Stephen Jordan: Many schools at the lower echelon of Division I are located in states that have major Division I schools, and they find themselves in a very difficult position on that marketing piece. They can go into most stores and find apparel from the major universities but not their own. That kind of aggressive marketing model works well for a few institutions but not for most.

In addition, some programs have migrated to Division I seeking increased television exposure that never comes. Meanwhile, the Division II television agreement with CBS College Sports Network has provided national regular-season television games in football and basketball for more than 70 Division II programs, not to mention increased national broadcasts of our NCAA championships.

NCAA News: What about attendance? Don’t you need marketing to build attendance? How do Division II schools make sure that their regional markets support their teams?

Stephen Jordan: There is a lot to be said for the size of attendance some Division I teams get at their games. They may be doing well in attendance but very poorly at the bottom line. Can they say that is better than the benefit their athletes would get if they had a true community-engagement component as part of their athletics experience (which Division II has)?

They are both important, but different. To what extent does having all these visitors to your campus because they come to your games bring to the college, and what benefit does the college get because the student-athletes get a community-engagement activity that may influence them beyond game day? One has to enter into that kind of evaluation. We have a lot of schools in Division II that – while they may not be attracting 40,000 per game – they might attract a few thousand and have very successful programs. If I can have the same overall participation from fans and do it at a lower cost, why wouldn’t I think about that? The assumption that Division II has a lower fan base is not necessarily correct.

NCAA News: Many people see the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship or a Division I postseason bowl game as the pinnacle of intercollegiate athletics postseason competition. Do student-athletes who choose Division II compromise their potential for a rewarding championship experience?

Dave Riggins: Our nation’s economic crisis is requiring college sports administrators to stretch resources without compromising the student-athlete experience. This is a challenge for me, just as it is for the other 287 athletics directors in Division II. What encourages me, though, is that we in Division II are better positioned than most to deal with this complicated problem.

Certainly, nobody should have any illusions about the current financial climate in higher education and intercollegiate athletics. Enrollment is down at many institutions, which is reducing tuition revenue. At the same time, donations are declining, and endowment investments are in a free fall.

None of that is good news for anybody, but all of those circumstances are more problematic for financially overextended programs. Our Division II model, however, is the most fiscally conservative in all of college sports. Not only does our philosophy emphasize regional competition, but we also employ a partial-scholarship approach that controls expenses and generates institutional revenue.

Tim Selgo: Having been a student-athlete myself, albeit 30 years ago, and having been around college athletics my entire adult, professional career, I can safely say that one of the most important things in the life of a collegiate student-athlete is to have the opportunity for postseason competition. People who have never been a collegiate student-athlete don’t understand how hard it is.

College sports can be a grind, regardless of the division in which you participate. It is a lot more competitive and involves a lot more hard work than high school sports. The “fun” is in seeing all of the hard work pay off through postseason competition. Division II offers more postseason championship opportunities than any either Division I or Division III. That’s another important reason why we believe Division II is the right division for Grand Valley State.

Many schools make the decision to move to Division I to get into the “Big Dance.” We have seen examples of schools that have spent millions of dollars in their move to Division I get all excited because they get a week of publicity in the national media for being a No. 16 seed and then get blown out by a No.1 seed.

Other schools have moved to the Football Championship Subdivision – which again means all of their other sports are Division I – and while their football teams sometimes make the FCS playoffs, student-athletes in most of the school’s other sports have almost no chance at postseason play and certainly no chance at a national championship. Some of these schools had nationally competitive programs in softball, swimming, soccer, cross country or volleyball in Division II but they have fallen off the college sports map because it is so hard to compete in Division I.

I spent 20 years of my life at the University of Toledo in the Mid-American Conference. It is a great conference and I was fortunate enough to play in the “Sweet Sixteen” during March Madness in my junior year. But the facts are that at the mid-major or low-major level, you have almost no chance at a national championship. Having been a part of conference championship teams at Division I and now having been a part of national championship teams at Division II, I can tell you from experience that being a national champion is far more rewarding.

•        Coming tomorrow in Part 3: How one school’s attempt to live the Division I philosophy led it to choose Division II instead.

•        If you missed Part 1: Jordan and Selgo discussed the real costs associated with sponsoring competitive, broad-based athletics programs.