Originally Posted by UACFlyer
....and yet once in a while you here of a school deciding to step up to FBS level....in spite of what we know re the financials. As I understand it, most (i.e., more than half), of the Power 5 schools lose money on football.
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There is a direct correlation between FBS football and enrollment. The schools that have recently added it and/or reclassified to the FBS level are all public schools who want to grow enrollment. And, it has worked. Western Kentucky,
Charlotte, UTSA, Georgia Southern, Appalachian State, Old Dominion, South Alabama, and Georgia State have all seen their enrollments spike since starting up football, or moving football up to the FBS level. Strangely enough, I know a few of those schools have said the average test scores of the students who enroll have also gone up. Now, you'd really be jumping to conclusions if you said that was because of football because it could have easily been due to other things, but every public institution that isn't the state's flagship institution seems to be experiencing huge spikes in enrollment, and are even setting records for enrollment, after they started playing FBS football.
That's why schools are adding it. For a private school like Dayton, their enrollment is pretty much capped. There are more students who apply than are accepted despite the fact that they meet the minimum admission standards. There is only room for so many. For most of the schools that have decided to add football, they'll take anyone who meets the minimum requirements, and they want as many as they can get. Football gets them more (for whatever reason). Hence, the reason for having it. They would LOVE to get to a point to where they're having to turn students away that meet the minimum.
