Institutions of higher commitment: A case study of de-escalation and American football's decisive role in intercollegiate athletics

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Institutions of higher commitment: A case study of de-escalation and American football’s decisive role in intercollegiate athletics Michael Hutchinson a,*, Brennan K. Berg b,1 a b

The University of Memphis, 495 Zach Curlin Street, 308 Elma Roane Fieldhouse, Memphis, TN 38152, USA The University of Memphis, 495 Zach Curlin Street, 206 Elma Roane Fieldhouse, Memphis, TN 38152, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 15 May 2014 Received in revised form 3 September 2014 Accepted 5 September 2014

This case study presents a common challenge among many sport organisations facing the decision to maintain, increase, or decrease commitment to failing projects or courses of action. Using escalation of commitment theory as a framework, this case highlights the organisational processes for reversing former commitment decisions, underscoring seldom pursued de-escalation behaviour. This case uses fictional East University to illustrate the circumstances confronting most National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletic departments in the United States. Amidst inadequate revenue to cover increasing expenses, university decision makers are often responsible for determining the most suitable commitment to intercollegiate athletics, with a specific focus on costly football programs. Given extensive stakeholder involvement and pressure, commitment decisions are further complicated by the complex economic, social, and political challenges of balancing often competing groups and their interests. In response to a university-wide initiative emphasising successful programs and critically scrutinising underperforming programs, East’s athletic director Steve Barnes is charged with determining the most appropriate course of action in de-escalating athletics (notably football) commitment. Consequently, the situation presented provides students with an opportunity to critically evaluate the multifaceted nature of de-escalating commitment to an existing course of action. This case is useful for both undergraduate and graduate courses in strategic management, organisational behaviour, athletic administration, and policy and governance. ß 2014 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: De-escalation of commitment Organisational commitment Management Intercollegiate athletics Athletic administration Sport policy

Teaching note Sport organisations often commit to projects and courses of action exceeding financial feasibility. Although the potential return for high risk, high reward endeavours may be enticing, the greater likelihood of failure can result in a cycle of escalating commitment in a failing course of action. While several international sport entities exhibit such behaviour (see

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 901 678 2228; fax: +1 901 678 3591. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Hutchinson), [email protected] (B.K. Berg). 1 Tel.: +1 901 678 2462; fax: +1 901 678 3591. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2014.09.002 1441-3523/ß 2014 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Clarke, 2012; Fujita, 2009; Sanburn, 2012; Scott, 2012), this escalation of commitment manifests prominently in the United States of America (USA) among National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) university athletic departments (Fulks, 2013; Grasgreen, 2012). Amidst increasing expenses for most collegiate sport programs and profitability among only 7% of Division I athletic departments (Fulks, 2013), university decision makers regularly consider the most suitable commitment to intercollegiate athletics, specifically facing challenges in determining the most efficient and effective means for managing costly football programs. This matter is further complicated by extensive stakeholder involvement and pressure, as decision makers must account for numerous, often competing groups and their interests. Given the current and projected challenges for participation in big-time college athletics, this case study is designed to facilitate the consideration of alternative avenues for de-escalating the overextended commitment of athletic departments that operate amidst complex economic, social, and political environments within higher learning institutions. Steve Barnes is the athletic director at East University, a mid-sized Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institution located along the eastern seaboard of the USA. Following university implementation of a management philosophy known as selective excellence, Steve is faced with a de-escalation decision to East’s current athletic department operations by considering alternative courses of action. While several alternatives may exist, the case presents three scenarios that would allow East to maintain its current Division I association amidst a reduced commitment to athletics. This case study is appropriate for both undergraduate and graduate sport management courses, with specific application to strategicmanagement, organisational behaviour, athletic administration, and policy and governance topics. The application of escalation of commitment theory provides students with a relevant example of the capability for theory to inform industry practice. While the case has a specific context of intercollegiate athletics in the USA, it presents a challenge that managers encounter in a variety of sport organisations, including international professional sport leagues (Fujita, 2009; Scott, 2012), community sport programs (Cohen, 2013), and Olympic Games host cities (Clarke, 2012; Sanburn, 2012). This case offers students the opportunity to critically evaluate different courses of action and then set the policy for the athletic department. Although the characters presented are fictional, the case utilises facts and data from various Division I athletic departments that have been confronted with similar issues as those presented to the students. Thus, students are provided with a realistic scenario to consider the consequences of the potential solutions to the presented situation. This case also demonstrates the relevance and value of sport management research that has used many theoretical perspectives (e.g., stakeholder theory, institutional theory, social identity theory, critical theory) to advance our understanding of intercollegiate athletics. For instance, stakeholder theory has informed research on how intercollegiate athletic goals and priorities can be influenced by administrators’ personal values. This research has been measured using a variety of goals-‘and processes-based scales, including the Scale of Athletic Priorities, Scale of Athletic Department Goals, and Scale of Athletic Department Processes (see Trail & Chelladurai, 2002). While this case study directly and indirectly implicates several theoretical perspectives, it underscores scholars’ lack of consideration for sport’s potential to both further advance and apply escalation of commitment theory. 1. Escalation of commitment theory and sport Escalation of commitment theory posits that there is potential for individuals and organisations to become entrapped in pursuing a failing course(s) of action despite the presence of objective negative feedback (Sleesman, Conlon, McNamara, & Miles, 2012; Staw, 1976; Staw & Ross, 1987, 1989). While contextual environments differ, escalation scenarios typically produce similar characteristics (Brockner, 1992). Conventional escalation behaviour begins with an actor(s) committing considerable resources to a course of action with the intent of achieving a planned goal. Following a period of unproductive or ineffective operation, involved actors receive ambiguous or negative feedback indicating the venture is not achieving the desired objective(s). Yet, amidst such feedback, involved actors continue investing resources into the course of action in hopes of eventually achieving the original expectations of success. This behaviour has the likelihood to substantially impact the long-term viability of an organisation, as this cycle can produce what many organisational theorists term a permanently failing organisation (Meyer & Zucker, 1989; Montealegre & Keil, 2000; Ross & Staw, 1993). Investigation of escalation behaviour has broadly identified four determinants—project, psychological, social, structural— prompting commitment to a failing course of action (Staw & Ross, 1987). These determinants account for the influence of several factors in organisational commitment decisions, including finances and economics (project determinants such as closing costs, opportunity costs, salvage value), actor information processing (psychological determinants such as individual motivations, biases, errors), actor behaviour as the result of internal and external feedback (social determinants such as impression management, modelling, societal leadership norms), and non-individual level forces (structural determinants such as institutionalisation, administrative inertia, politics, side-bets) (see Ross & Staw, 1993; Sleesman et al., 2012). While escalation circumstances maintain grounds for additional examination, less explored de-escalation of commitment provides worthwhile theoretical and practical implications for the sport environment. Defined by Keil and Robey (1999), de-escalation of commitment is ‘‘the reversal of escalating commitment to failing courses of action, either through project termination or redirection’’ (p. 65). As a historical example of de-escalation in intercollegiate athletics, consider the circumstances of the once prominent athletics department at the University of Chicago. Beginning in the 1890s, University of Chicago founding President William R. Harper was one of the initial academic administrators to use intercollegiate athletics (specifically football) for generating university exposure. Under the leadership of Harper’s former student Amos A. Stagg, the football program competed as one of the founding members of the nation’s

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foremost athletic conference (Big 10 Conference) in order to promote the university as a premier institution of higher learning (Lester, 1999). While the football program experienced early success, the 1920s brought about a gradual decline in both team performance and revenue generated. Coupled with nationwide concern over the safety of football, this decade of lacklustre performance and decreasing revenue led university administrators to question the existing commitment to the program. With the hiring of Robert M. Hutchins as university president in 1929, the university began a period of examining its emphasis and investment in the football program. Amidst believing athletics provided value to the university setting, Hutchins considered the current use and management of football to be damaging the overall academic reputation (Lawson & Ingham, 1980). The departure of Stagg as head coach in 1932 further incited the program’s dramatic decline, as lesser talented recruits resulted in reduced spectator interest. Consequently, in 1939, Hutchins made the decision to discontinue football program sponsorship while maintaining Big 10 Conference competition in all remaining sports. The circumstances at the University of Chicago illustrate two important points regarding de-escalating commitment and the context of intercollegiate athletics. First, as the definition implies, de-escalation is not manifest only in the form of course termination or abandonment; rather, it is more expansive to include redirection as ‘‘a radical rescoping or redefining of the project’’ (Montealegre & Keil, 2000, p. 418). For instance, Hutchins’ decision to discontinue football did not result in complete athletics abandonment, as the remaining sport offerings continued to compete in the elite Big 10 Conference. Second, determining the most appropriate extent of commitment to athletics (specifically to the sport of football) has long been a topic of debate among university constituents. The University of Chicago example demonstrates how the core discussion of increasing or decreasing athletics commitment remains unaffected by temporal context. Recently, however, escalating commitment has been a growing trend among higher learning institutions, as many have increased their commitment to the highest levels of athletic competition without evidence of tangible return (Frieder & Fulks, 2007). As the landscape for numerous sport contexts (notably intercollegiate athletics) becomes increasingly conducive to escalation behaviour, strategies for avoiding the escalation trap are evermore important. 2. Intercollegiate athletics in the United States Contrary to most international amateur competition, intercollegiate athletics in the USA has become a platform to develop both cultural ideology and big-time business (see Beyer & Hannah, 2000). While the USA offers several athletic governing associations for competition (e.g., National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics), the NCAA is by and large the chief association for most university athletic departments. Currently, the NCAA offers three levels of competition (Division I, Division II, Division III) with divisional differences including (but not limited to) the minimum number of sport team offerings, availability and amount of athletics grant-in-aid (scholarships), restrictions on the extent of interdivisional competition, and unique criteria for the sport of football (NCAA, 2014). Although the NCAA’s mission stresses amateur student-athlete development, there exists a clear commercial aspect in the Division I classification as evidenced by increasingly lucrative media contracts, corporate sponsorships, licensing revenue, and coaching salaries (Pritchett, 2010; Rhoden, 2013). While Division I is categorised into three subdivisions,2 the two highest and most commercial subdivisions are the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Amidst subtle differences, these two subdivisions are predominantly differentiated by the increased amount of media coverage and resources devoted to FBS athletic departments. Intercollegiate athletics in the USA is also distinctive due to the policy regulation known as Title IX, which was part of the Education Amendments Act passed by the United States Congress in 1972. Originally, this legislation was designed to prohibit gender discrimination in educational settings. However, in subsequent decades its resounding impact has been most publicised in its application to gender equity in sport, most notably in intercollegiate athletics. Universities in the USA are individually responsible for ensuring that both genders are equally accommodated and provided equal athletics opportunities to be in compliance with Title IX (Spengler, Anderson, Connaughton, & Baker, 2009). This mandates a nearly equal number of available athletic scholarships for both genders. Relative to other sports, football usually involves a much larger pool of participants who are on athletic scholarships. For example, universities at the FBS level are allowed to offer 85 football scholarships. Therefore, the sizeable number of granted scholarships for football alone requires the offering of multiple female sports to nearly equal the dozens given out to male student-athletes playing football. As noted, there has been a growing trend among universities to increase their commitment to Division I intercollegiate athletics (Frieder & Fulks, 2007). For instance, numerous universities have reclassified or begun the reclassification process from a lower division to a higher division (e.g., Division II to Division I; FCS to FBS). This reclassification is most evident among universities transitioning from the FCS to FBS. While only 19 universities reclassified to the FBS from 1978 to 2010, nine universities have either reclassified or are in the process of reclassification to the FBS in the three years since 2010 (Dosh, 2013). Further, several former non-football universities have recently added football as a sport offering at the Division I level, with examples including Georgia State University, Houston Baptist University, Old Dominion University, University of South Alabama, and University of Texas-San Antonio. Broadly speaking, Division I athletics has the potential to provide several university benefits, including increased comprehensive exposure, financial profit or economic benefit, increased

2 In addition to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), Division I offers a No Football Subdivision for universities desiring to maintain Division I competition in all sports but football.

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and higher quality student applications, status or prestige, and a sense of community (for a more exhaustive review of research on these items, see Table 1). Consequently, given the perception of being able to acquire these benefits one can understand the lure for a university to increase their existing commitment to athletics competition. Yet, excluding the effect of exposure and sense of community, research has indicated mixed results on the other forms of anticipated return and the overall benefit of successful Division I athletic programs, with success largely defined by the performance of football and men’s basketball (see Frieder & Fulks, 2007; Goff, 2000; Pope & Pope, 2009; Stinson & Howard, 2007). With specific regard to the economic environment, Fulks provides annual reports of the financial landscape surrounding university athletic departments. While athletics operations have the potential to generate significant revenue, expenses are often in excess, as only 7% of Division I athletic departments achieve profitability (Fulks, 2013). Fundamentally, the potential for athletic department profitability is the result of revenue generated from football and men’s basketball programs. Although there is an underlying belief that Division I universities house profitable football and men’s basketball programs, Fulks (2013) revealed that only 50–60% of FBS football and men’s basketball programs were profitable from 2004 to 2012 (0% in FCS). This matter is further complicated among FBS universities due to the increasing rate of expenses that are socially and politically expected to be incurred by the athletic department (e.g., costs of scholarships, coaching salaries, facility upgrades, team travel). Such expenses have outpaced the increasing rate of revenue generated at a large majority of universities (Fulks, 2013). Additional longitudinal research has revealed little to no measurable financial benefits for universities reclassifying Table 1 Readings table. Case teaching topic

References

Application

Escalation of commitment theory

Sleesman et al. (2012) Staw (1976) Staw and Ross (1987, 1989)

These publications provide a foundation for understanding both the background and determinants of escalation of commitment theory.

Keil and Ma¨hring (2010) Keil and Montealegre (2000) Keil and Robey (1999) Ma¨hring, Keil, Mathiassen, and Pries-Heje (2008) Montealegre and Keil (2000) Ross (2003)

These publications specifically discuss and examine de-escalation of commitment and the proposed process for achievement.

Bouchet and Hutchinson (2010, 2011, 2012) Hutchinson (2013) Hutchinson and Bouchet (2014a, 2014b) Hutchinson et al. (2015)

These publications advance escalation and de-escalation of commitment theory using the context of sport.

Beyer and Hannah (2000) Frank (2004) Goff (2000) Roy, Graeff, and Harmon (2008) Shulman and Bowen (2001) Sperber (2000) Zimbalist (1999)

These publications provide evidence of the marketing/branding effects (specifically university brand exposure) gained from competition in Division I athletics.

Baade and Sundberg (1996) Daughtrey and Stotlar (2000) Frank (2004) Frieder and Fulks (2007) Grimes and Chressanthis (1994) Hughes and Shank (2008) Humphreys and Mondello (2007) Orszag and Orszag (2005a, 2005b) Stinson and Howard (2007)

These publications provide a diverse sample (although not exhaustive list) of scholarly research on the positive and negative financial effects of competition in Division I athletics.

Frank (2004) Goff (2000) Murphy and Trandel (1994) Noll (2004) Pope and Pope (2009) Toma and Cross (1998)

These publications provide scholarly evidence of findings concerning the impact (or lack of impact) of Division I athletics on university admission applications and the quality of students admitted to a university.

Beyer and Hannah (2000) Bouchet and Hutchinson (2010) Dwyer, Eddy, Havard, and Braa (2010) Goff (2000) Hutchinson et al. (2015) Kelly and Dixon (2011) Simon (2008)

These publications provide evidence of the role and/or impact (or lack of impact) of status or prestige in competing in Division I athletics.

Intercollegiate athletics

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from Division II to the FCS or the FCS to the FBS, with intangible motivations (notably status or prestige) appearing to drive these decisions (Frieder & Fulks, 2007; Hutchinson, Nite, & Bouchet, 2015). These financial challenges have been a principle motivation for select universities in considering de-escalating their commitment to intercollegiate athletics participation. 3. De-escalation of commitment and Division I athletics Research on de-escalation of commitment in sport is limited, with only a handful of studies exploring de-escalation behaviour among university athletic departments (see Hutchinson & Bouchet, 2014a). These investigations have focused on understanding factor-oriented (seeking to explain a given phenomenon) and process-oriented (seeking to examine the evolution of events over time) aspects of de-escalating commitment. Within the context of intercollegiate athletics, de-escalation of commitment has been predominately motivated by extreme financial circumstances; however, there have been instances of universities engaging in redirection efforts for additional justifications beyond substantial financial loss (see Hutchinson, 2013). In theory, de-escalation of commitment can manifest in several capacities. For instance, numerous Division I institutions have recently discontinued several sport offerings in order to maintain costly revenue generating sports and remain in compliance with Title IX. Examples include the University of Maryland and Robert Morris University’s elimination of seven sports, Rutgers University’s elimination of six sports, and Temple University’s elimination of five sports (Zimmerman, 2014). Yet, these instances are primarily instituted with motivations to reallocate funds to other sport offerings (typically football and men’s basketball). De-escalation in its truest sense appears evident in more unconventional decisions, notably involving drastic changes to football program sponsorship, divisional membership, and athletics department existence. For instance, a myriad of Division I universities have opted for discontinuing the costly sport of football as an athletic offering (Olson, 2010). Further, a small handful of universities have reclassified from scholarship Division I to non-scholarship Division III (Wieberg, 2010). Presumably the most extreme de-escalation display has been presented by former Division III Spelman College and New York City College of Technology which discontinued intercollegiate athletics altogether (Tierney, 2013). By most accounts, these decisions to de-escalate have produced positive consequences beyond the anticipated financial savings. For example, discontinuing Division I football at Northeastern University, Boston University, and East Tennessee State University did not result in negative consequences. To the contrary, each university experienced select benefits, including increases in student applications and enrolment, increases in the overall number of donors and giving earmarked for athletics, increases in student interest in athletics, and maintaining the existing demographic make-up of the student body (Hutchinson & Bouchet, 2014b; Spring, 2010). Similar results were experienced in Birmingham-Southern College’s reclassification from Division I to Division III. Due in part to the addition of a non-scholarship football program, the university experienced increases in student applicants/enrolment, alumni giving, institutional endowment, and the overall number of student-athletes (Reeves, 2007; West, 2008).3 Yet, this small number of universities indicates the challenges of modifying the commitment to athletics. Recently, several Division I universities have initiated the process of de-escalating commitment to athletics. For instance, Rice University, Tulane University, and the University of New Orleans each began the de-escalation process from Division I athletics via divisional reclassification, implementation of non-scholarship football, and/or discontinuation of their football program. However, resistance among select members of multiple stakeholder groups (donors, alumni, students, community members) resulted in eventual abandonment of all efforts to reduce the existing commitment to athletics (see Hlavinka, 2004; Hogan, 2011; McKinsey Report, 2004; O’Neil, 2010; Whittaker, 2010). While the financial realities of Division I competition are an ever-increasing concern, the social and political forces among stakeholder groups present university and athletic department administrators with difficulty in implementing (or even considering) the decision to de-escalate their athletics commitment. Therefore, this case study presents an ambiguous university athletic department considering the decision to alter the existing commitment to athletics participation. 4. Discussion questions and exercises The information presented in this case provides students with the opportunity to comprehensively consider the circumstances facing the majority of Division I athletic departments. Amidst positive and negative consequences for escalating or de-escalating commitment, the following questions could guide a classroom or online discussion and group exercise for evaluating the commitment of universities to intercollegiate athletic programs: (1) Regarding participation in NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics, answer the following questions: a. What are the benefits (or perceived benefits) of participating in NCAA Division I? Which stakeholder groups (faculty, students, alumni, donors, community members, the media) receive benefits or positive impact from participation in NCAA Division I? Since benefits may be to one or more stakeholder groups, identify all that are applicable.

3 While these institutions experienced positive results from de-escalating commitment, it should be noted that the majority were Division I FCS and Division I No Football programs. For instance, regarding Division I universities that offer a football program, no FBS university has ever reclassified to a lower division and the most recent FBS universities to discontinue their football program occurred in the early 1990s. If such a circumstance were to occur at a FBS university, the benefits described above may or may not necessarily be replicated.

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(2)

(3) (4) (5)

(6)

b. What are the negative aspects (or perceived negative aspects) of participating in NCAA Division I? Which stakeholder groups (faculty, students, alumni, donors, community members, the media) would be negatively affected from participation in NCAA Division I? Since negative effects may be to one or more stakeholder groups, identify all that are applicable. c. In August 2014, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved a new governance structure allowing the 64 universities in the five major conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC-12, SEC) and the University of Notre Dame to create their own legislation and voting rights for student-athletes. Examples of this decision-making authority potentially include (but are not limited to) increased stipends for cost-of-attendance, additional insurance benefits for players, more flexible recruiting rules, larger staff sizes, and allowing student-athletes to pursue outside paid career opportunities. Consequently, how does this autonomy positively and negatively impact the NCAA Division I landscape? Which alternative do you think is best for Steve? Prior to answering this main question, structure your thoughts by answering the following questions first: a. What factors (or criteria) should be most important to Steve in choosing the most appropriate alternative course of action? b. Using the factors (or criteria) established above, provide a comparison chart for each of the three alternative courses of action. c. Indicate which alternative course of action is best for East University and why. Beyond the three alternatives provided, what other course(s) of action would be feasible for Steve to take? Based on the selected alternative course of action, describe the subsequent impact on each of the following stakeholder groups: faculty, students, alumni, donors, community members, and the media. Are select stakeholder groups’ feedback or insight more important or valuable than other stakeholder groups’ feedback or insight? Simply, should certain stakeholder groups have more say in Steve’s final decision regarding athletics commitment? Select a Division I athletic department of your choice. Utilising an online database operated by a reputable source (such as USA Today4 and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics5), investigate the athletic department’s financial status over the course of several years. In doing so, consider the following trends: a. How much has total revenue increased or decreased? b. How much has total expenditures increased or decreased? c. How much of the athletic department’s budget is subsidised by the university? How much of that subsidy was met with the use of student fees? d. What percentage of the athletic department’s budget does the university subsidise? What has the trend looked like for the past several years? e. How could a university make an economic justification for athletics investment amidst evidence of departmental financial deficit?

(7) Current Division I regulations require a minimum number of sport team offerings (14) by member institutions, with specifications for the distribution of team offerings based on gender (seven teams for men and seven teams for women or six teams for men and eight teams for women). Further, Title IX legislation requires equitable allocation of resources between both genders. Given the changing landscape and structure of Division I participation, assume the NCAA no longer requires Division I members to offer a minimum number of sport teams. With Title IX as your sole regulatory responsibility (i.e., equitable allocation of resources between both genders), how would you structure the type and number of both male and female team offerings? Taking on the decision making role for your athletic department, would you: a. Offer as many possible sports for both male and female teams? b. Offer only teams that have a history of sustained or elite performance? c. Offer football, and/or men’s basketball, and the necessary number of female sports to maintain Title IX compliance? d. Offer another option? While these questions provide the opportunity for classroom or online discussion and group exercises, instructors may also consider implementing one or more of the following assignments:  One potential assignment involves a group debate among all classroom students. The instructor would divide the class evenly into three groups. Each group would be given one of the three alternative courses of action to defend as the best alternative for Steve to pursue. To ensure the effectiveness of the exercise, the instructor is encouraged to assign each

4 The link for the USA Today database is as follows: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/story/2012-05-14/ncaa-college-athletics-financesdatabase/54955804/1 5 The link for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics database is as follows: http://spendingdatabase.knightcommission.org/ ?utm_source=April+3+Update&utm_campaign=Knight+Commission+Advisory+for+March+2014+meeting&utm_medium=email

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group with submitting written evidence of preparing for the debate. Such written evidence could be in a paper or debate notes format. The instructor and/or an independent third party (e.g., select graduate students, fellow faculty members) would serve as a moderator for the debate.  In the same groups, students would prepare to play the role of Steve and answer to key stakeholder groups—faculty, students, alumni, donors, community members, the media—in a town hall meeting. Each student group would need to anticipate questions and prepare answers for each stakeholder group. However, in the designated class for the town hall meetings, each student group would address only two stakeholder groups. When not playing the role of Steve, each student group would take on the role of the other four stakeholder groups, asking questions and raisings objections to the student group presently playing the role of Steve before the class. The instructor would determine which stakeholder groups each student group would address. Thus, each student group would need to (a) prepare to play the role of every stakeholder group and (b) ensure that they know how to either speak on behalf of that stakeholder group or address that stakeholder group as Steve would in his role as athletic director.

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Institutions of higher commitment: A case study of de-escalation and American football’s decisive role in intercollegiate athletics

Case study The brisk autumn air swept through Steve’s open overcoat as he departed the university centre following a quarterly Board of Regents meeting. As the athletic director of East University, a mid-sized Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institution located along the eastern seaboard of the United States (USA), Steve Barnes had provided his annual report regarding athletics’ initiatives and operations at the third quarter meeting in July. Yet, an unexpected request to also attend the October meeting personified the forthcoming winter cool front as indicative of not only atmospheric, but also institutional change. Six months earlier, the Board of Regents began the process of revisiting the long-range plan for East’s management and direction. Given the changing climate of higher education, the Board entertained interest in a university management philosophy known as selective excellence, an approach emphasising successful programs and critically scrutinising underperforming programs. Following much discussion between the Board and university president, the October meeting informed all executive staff members of the intent to pursue selective excellence in all university operations, further charging each department to consider context-specific modification (e.g., budget cuts, personnel reduction or reallocation, program discontinuation) if success was an unlikely outcome. The sun had long disappeared behind the tall backdrop of pine and oak trees scattered throughout East’s mature foliageladen campus. Although the sharp breeze caused Steve to button his overcoat, his mind could not be farther from the seasonal weather patterns of the region. In fulfilling the selective excellence vision, the Board charged executive staff members to create program-specific proposals for addressing commitment to unsuccessful or inefficient operations. For instance, academic departments with low or dropping enrolment figures and a high number of employees (e.g., staff, professors, and/or instructors) would be required to justify their need to maintain the high number of human resources. Based on the rationale provided, the department may be allocated fewer funds for such positions, thus requiring budget or personnel modification (e.g., reduction of staff or instructors; increased teaching loads for underperforming research professors). Final proposals would be presented to Board members and the president at the January quarterly meeting in three months. Certainly, Steve was accustomed to the environmental challenges accompanying operation and competition in the highest level of intercollegiate athletics; yet, the current landscape had presented additional financial difficulties over the past five years. While Steve could appreciate the Board’s intent to highlight successful university programs, he knew that a principal driver for this initiative was the long-standing effect of a sagging economy. To be sure, Steve recognised that the next three months would require arduous interactions and feedback from stakeholders both within and outside the athletic department, with the course for athletic management at East appearing inevitably headed for some form of change. 1. History of East University Founded in 1905, East University is a comprehensive public institution of higher education located in an urban metropolitan environment along the east coast of the USA. Situated in a city of nearly 500,000, East’s enrolment of 20,000 has historically served commuter and non-traditional students due to its municipal location and limited on-campus housing. Relative to other universities in the USA, the student body consists of more students from blue collar backgrounds who have to work part-time or even full-time jobs while in school, including older adults who are slowly completing their degrees while balancing their careers and raising a family. Located in the centre of the city, East is one of the biggest contributors to the local economy and employs over 3,000 faculty and staff. It also supplies local businesses with many professionally qualified candidates for employment, which has resulted in many alums of the university remaining in or within close proximity to the metropolitan area. Unfortunately, the slowly recovering national economy has impacted East’s still struggling home state economy. The effects have resulted in several years of decreasing state appropriations for public institutions and contributions from local corporations that have traditionally supported the university. With enrolment remaining stagnant for the past several years, the university’s revenue from tuition, its largest revenue stream, has not gone up as expected. Thus, the economic circumstances have led to annual financial difficulties for East. For instance, the university’s administration was recently forced to make significant eliminations across campus, including faculty and staff positions, to make up for a $10 million budget deficit from the previous academic year. Given the bleak outlook for the next few years, administrators continue to seek and pursue non-traditional strategies for increasing revenue and decreasing expenditures. Simply increasing tuition to raise revenue was not feasible due to the modest financial resources of most students, some of whom would likely have to drop out if their costs went up further. While the financial status quo was a key motivation for adopting the selective excellence approach, East’s administration also desires to modify the university’s existing academic image. The aspiration to attract higher quality students is likewise being heavily emphasised and the university president does not want higher

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tuition to be a reason for such students to go elsewhere. Inspired by recent institutions such as Northeastern University (see Hutchinson & Bouchet, 2014b), the East administration has embraced the selective excellence approach in emphasising and investing in successful programs. The university’s leadership continues to promote the goals of East becoming one of the premier research universities in the eastern USA, growing its enrolment by 5,000 students over the next decade, and increasing graduation rates by 5% to establish an all-time high in school history. Despite these academic goals, many East stakeholders recognise that athletics presently serves as the most visible platform of the university and solicits the most passionate identification from all who support it. 2. Athletics at East University There is no question that athletics is an important part of campus life at East University, like it is at many universities in the USA. ‘‘Once considered the sideshow to the academic circus, (intercollegiate athletics) had become, for many Americans, the main event’’ (Ingrassia, 2012, p. 199). Much like the non-traditional makeup of the student body, there are some unique features to how sports are experienced at the school. While a few athletics facilities are located on the main East campus, most are dispersed throughout the city, including the football stadium and basketball arena where competitions are held. Consequently, student participation in university-sponsored activities does not match that of more traditional campus environments due to students and other fans being required to commute to different parts of the city rather than having all athletic events easily accessible on campus. As a long-time member of NCAA Division I, East offers 18 men’s (9) and women’s (9) scholarship sports, including a FBS football program. While East is located in a region of the USA where football is quite prominent and other select sports have produced periodic seasons of success, by far the most popular and successful is the men’s basketball program. Rich in tradition, the East basketball program has long been an escape for the entire university and city from the social problems that have challenged the local community throughout its history. The team is almost always selected to play in the NCAA’s championship tournament at the end of the season. The men’s basketball program annually has some of the highest attendance numbers for its home games for all universities in the USA. Local youth who play basketball often aspire to be among the select few who are offered scholarships to play basketball at East. The basketball program is covered by the local media throughout the year, in season and out of season, regardless of how successful any of the other East teams are performing in their sports. The football program, however, is not enjoying the same level of success as men’s basketball. Throughout the entire history of East football, the team has not been able to compete for a conference championship but for a few select seasons. The last decade has been among the lowest in program history with the team not having a single winning season and a general apathy developing among most of East’s stakeholder groups. Attendance at home football games was among the lowest in the country in the FBS during the same timeframe. Local youth who play football almost always aim to play at another university where football has been more successful and prominent in campus life. The football program receives modest coverage from the local media with the most common topic of discussion focused on how the football program can finally be fixed. This overall atmosphere surrounding the football program has resulted in East being heavily dependent on men’s basketball as its main source of revenue to support all other athletic operations. In fact, the football program was a heavy financial drain to the university given all the resources required to operate a football team at the FBS level and the negligible revenue the sport generated. At most FBS universities in the USA, either football or men’s basketball need to be successful and bring in a large percentage of revenue to help fund the remaining sports in the athletic department, which often do not accrue enough revenue to match their expenses. Despite the success of the men’s basketball program, however, the financial drain of football resulted in an operating loss for East athletics overall, which required an annual subsidy from the university to meet all of its expenses. Ideally, the leadership at East would like to have men’s basketball and football both be successful and give athletics two strong sources of revenue to support all other sports, which is possible at a small percentage of universities in the USA (Groves, 2014; Tucker, 2012). However, given his experiences in collegiate athletics and the current state of the football program, Steve knew such an idealistic scenario would take a monumental effort by the entire East University community. 3. The East University stakeholders Steve began the long process of holding numerous town hall meetings with the East community and soliciting feedback from each stakeholder group. Since groups often have different interests, Steve was aware that such stakeholder consultation might increase the difficulty of redirecting East’s course of action (see Hutchinson & Bouchet, 2014a, 2014b; Trail & Chelladurai, 2002), but he felt an obligation to solicit feedback from individual stakeholder groups regarding the status quo and future direction of the athletic department. Steve understood that stakeholders are not only affected by decisions, but may be able to affect the decisions an organisation can select (Covell, 2004). As research has shown, Steve would also have to account for each stakeholder group’s power (e.g., its ability or potential to impose its will on the situation), legitimacy (e.g., the validity of its goals in the eyes of others), and urgency (e.g., the importance and time sensitivity of achieving its goals) (Friedman & Mason, 2004). Thus, Steve met with each of the following East stakeholder groups: faculty, alumni, boosters, students, community members, local media members, and the athletic department staff. For the faculty, a large majority of its members acknowledged that athletics played an important part of campus life and they enjoyed attending athletic events themselves. However, they also clearly communicated that they supported whatever

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changes resulted in an immediate end to any subsidy for the athletic department. With the new selective excellence emphasis, many faculty positions were to be eliminated and department budgets reduced. Thus, the faculty was adamantly against all parts of campus having to still perform at a high level despite cutbacks while athletics continued to be subsidised and had yet to face any cutbacks in its operations. This frustratingly seemed to go against, in many faculty members’ minds, the educational mission and core values of the university that were publicly declared by the Board members and the president. As with most higher learning institutions, the East University core values are considered beacons for the university’s brand. While core values are intended to communicate foundational concepts and priorities in fulfilling organisational mission and vision statements, they also serve to operationalise expected behaviours of employee stakeholders (Begley & Boyd, 2001; Berry, 1996; Ferguson & Milliman, 2008). Yet, faculty members did not believe the university leadership’s commitment to athletics fulfilled or was consistent with the established core values, thus potentially disillusioning certain stakeholders and decreasing the university’s brand equity (see Collins & Porras, 1996; Ind, 2007; Sull & Spinosa, 2007). In fact, research in the university setting has revealed similar concerns regarding a lack of consistency between athletic department behaviour (and oversight) and the university’s established core values (see Cooper & Weight, 2011, 2012; Hutchinson & Bennett, 2012). The East alumni were evenly split in their opinions that they shared with Steve. Some alums, particularly those who lived in other parts of the USA, had grown weary of watching the yearly poor performances of the football team on television and the images of a mostly empty stadium at home games. Therefore, having a FBS program at East was no longer important to them. For those alums, channelling more resources into men’s basketball and other sports that had a history of accomplishment seemed like the more attractive approach. The other half of the alumni base, however, strongly desired a winning football program. Many of those alums still lived in the region and wanted to have opportunities to connect with their fellow alums on fall Saturdays. The one issue, however, that the entire alumni base agreed on was that East absolutely needed to remain classified as a Division I athletic department. Thus, reclassifying to the NCAA’s Division II or Division III was not an option for Steve. This position made further sense given that men’s basketball and many other sport teams had demonstrated that they could compete at the highest levels of Division I. Staying at the Division I level also meant that Steve could not necessarily reduce the number of sports since the NCAA required a minimum of 14 sports to be classified as a Division I athletic program (NCAA, 2014). Furthermore, the number of sports offered had to be nearly even between both genders (e.g., seven teams for men and seven teams for women or six teams for men and eight teams for women), which would also help in complying with Title IX requirements in the USA.6 The boosters took quite an opposite view from the faculty. Like most university athletic departments in the USA, the boosters were a relatively small group of people who held enormous influence over the major decisions affecting East athletics. Boosters are often among the most passionate fans of a university athletic department who not only hope that their school wins in all competitions, but demonstrate that passion by making extra investments to ensure their school’s athletic success. Whenever Steve needed a large influx of cash, he always turned to the boosters and their deep pool of financial resources. As a result, many of these boosters had direct access to Steve that most other supporters of the university did not enjoy. The boosters, who were also prominent members of the community, were adamantly against any course of action that removed East football from the FBS level of competition. Largely due to their loyalty and devotion to East University, they strongly believed that having a successful FBS football program was still feasible. A notable percentage of their contributions, from both their personal and business-related wealth, had allowed the East athletic department to make major upgrades to the off campus football stadium, construct a new football practice facility, pay the coaching staff more competitive salaries, and provide coaches with private airplanes for their recruitment of prospective student-athletes. The boosters’ contributions provided resources for all the other athletic teams as well. Unlike other East stakeholder groups that were more inclined to downgrade the commitment to football, the boosters had significantly invested in the football program with their own personal resources and did not want to see that investment go to waste. In one on one conversations with various boosters, Steve had heard the threat multiple times that financial contributions would be ‘‘altered’’ if the football program was no longer a FBS program and men’s basketball did not continue to enjoy its same level of success. The students at East University were mostly apathetic about what happened to the football program. Due to the history of substandard performance, a vast majority of the students did not attend East with the expectation of a successful football team or even spending fall Saturdays at home games. Every year, they were much more eager for basketball season to arrive and anticipated that some of their best college experiences would come through the men’s basketball team. Many students also supported the other athletic teams at East. While the student body held no strong views of the future of East football, it was adamantly opposed to any decision that resulted in student fees being raised. Tuition and other fees to attend East had risen almost every year over the last decade and a large majority of students were already financially strained to pay for the cost of attendance. Thus, when Steve held town hall meetings with the students, the majority communicated that they saw no significant benefit or reason to raise student fees to support the athletic department that appeared to already have sufficient resources.

6 In the USA, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is a national law that requires universities to ensure that both genders are equally accommodated and provided equal athletic opportunities in sport. Thus, there cannot be glaring disparities between the resources (e.g., number of scholarships, coaching salaries, facilities) devoted to men’s sports versus women’s sports.

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Many residents of the community who did not graduate from East still supported the school’s athletic teams for several reasons. Successful sport teams at East University provided a form of civic pride and sense of community, a conversation topic among residents locally and when travelling around the USA, visitor spending when residents of other cities came to town for East athletics events, and role models for young people to emulate in their sports. However, Steve found that many of these benefits were not realised through the football team and therefore the community was fine with either football no longer being a FBS program or existing entirely. For instance, due to poor performance and low attendance for several years, football was not a source of pride or an opportunity for community, which resulted in many community members regularly directing their attention and support towards other regional Division I programs. Football games also did not bring a substantial amount of visitors to the city. The community residents informed Steve that they would rather focus their discretionary spending, which was limited for most people, on men’s basketball and other athletic events at East. Steve was surprised at the input provided by members of the local media. Many journalists and editors privately communicated their desire to see the East football program become successful at the FBS level. First, they knew that the ascendance of the East football program would be a great story that would generate a significant amount of discussion around the city and across the country. They also realised that in the long-term their organisations would benefit from having a successful football team at East University. Across platforms (e.g., print, television, radio, web), the media had annually experienced a noticeable decline in their ratings from July until mid-October. This time period started with the conclusion of baseball season and ended with the start of basketball season. During those same months, football season was underway and yet coverage of East’s team generated very little audience interest, which resulted in an evident decline in revenue for all media organisations. In the minds of many media members, a successful East football program at the FBS level would lead to a smaller drop in revenue starting in the middle of the summer and a better financial performance at the end of the year. While the media members made a compelling case for which course of action they preferred, Steve did not believe their interests were as paramount as other East stakeholder groups, even though he hoped to have a healthy relationship with the media. Internally, Steve respected the perspectives of the athletic department staff. In desiring to be an honourable leader, Steve valued the contribution that each staff member made to East athletics. Through a combination of staff meetings and one on one talks, the athletics staff members expressed their desire to see football have success and remain a part of the athletic department. Since Steve was unable to make any promises, many staff members feared the discontinuation of football would result in a significant reduction of staff positions given the sizeable percentage of personnel that were presently needed to operate football and attempt to help it grow. By maintaining a football program, most staff members believed that job eliminations would be minimised. 4. Alternative courses of action Steve had foreseen the present challenge many years ago, but was hopeful that selecting a course of action could be avoided until the football program was resuscitated. After extensive discussions with all of East’s stakeholder groups, he realised that he would have to make a strategic choice regarding the football program that would significantly impact the entire East athletic department for at least the next several decades. The stakeholder groups had offered compelling, but conflicting arguments in favour of and against the continued investment in East football, which left Steve feeling quite indecisive regarding the best course of action. Steve recognised that football clearly had been a financial drain on the athletic department and the entire university. Those resources could be used to support men’s basketball and the other sports, and addressing football would likely demonstrate the athletic department’s contribution to the mission and core values of East University. Steve was familiar with a select few universities (Birmingham-Southern College, Centenary College of Louisiana, Northeastern University) recently de-escalating their commitment to athletics in part to better represent and fulfil the university’s mission and core values (see Hutchinson, 2013). However, he was also mindful of the significant investment that had been made in football over the past 10 years, the uncertain national perception of the entire athletic department moving forward, the likely forced move to a new athletic conference, and the lost sense of community among all stakeholders that could result. Extensive deliberations had been carried out and it was now time for Steve to make his decision on behalf of the East University athletic department. Steve’s three primary choices were to discontinue the football program, transition football to a non-scholarship sport, or continue to invest in football at the expense of other East sport programs. 4.1. Discontinue Division I football program The discontinuation of East’s Division I football program was a particularly difficult alternative to consider. Steve was aware of several FCS7 institutions having recently discontinued sponsorship of their football program, including Northeastern University, Hofstra University, St. John’s University, and East Tennessee State University.8 Yet, FBS institutions

7 While NCAA Division I is categorised into three subdivisions, the two highest and most commercial subdivisions are the FBS and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Amidst subtle differences, these two subdivisions are predominantly differentiated by the increased amount of media coverage and resources devoted to FBS athletic departments. 8 In 2013, East Tennessee State University announced official reinstatement of a scholarship FCS football program. Currently, the program is planned to begin play in the Fall of 2015 (Myerberg, 2013).

Please cite this article in press as: Hutchinson, M., Berg, B.K., Institutions of higher commitment: A case study of deescalation and American football’s decisive role in intercollegiate athletics. Sport Management Review (2014), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2014.09.002

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employing this approach were far less, as the most recent included a collection of California State system institutions in the early 1990s.9 While there were financial advantages to football discontinuation, Steve had to account for the potential impact of several negative consequences should he recommend such a direction. First, Steve needed to consider the uncertain financial effects of football removal that could come to fruition for the athletic department. With the geographic location of the university and despite the low attendance at home games in recent years, football was still a popular sport among most municipal and regional residents. Steve feared that discontinuing the football program might alienate parts of the alumni base who used football events as a source for regular university engagement. More importantly, Steve did not want to estrange valuable athletic department donors who may withdraw financial support in the instance of football program removal or perceive that the athletic department did not need the same level of financial support without football being offered. Over the past five years, the financial hardships across East University had led to continually decreasing subsidies from the university’s general operating fund. Consequently, allocation of financial resources for increased coaching compensation, student-athlete scholarships, and facility upgrades for all sports would still require new streams of revenue. Given the precarious financial position of the athletic department, as annual revenue generated and dollars donated did not exceed annual expenses, Steve found the notion of alienating even some of the athletic department donors to be high risk given their critical support of all East sports. Furthermore, along with the tangible financial concerns, Steve was still apprehensive over the ambiguous effects of no longer sponsoring a football program. For instance, the unconventional nature of this decision was feared to have a negative impact on the recruitment of student-athletes and athletics personnel (both coaches and administrators). While team performance should logically dictate commitment decisions, Steve was unsure if not offering the popular sport of football would indirectly impact student-athlete, coach, and administrator decisions to go to East. Due to the small number of Division I institutions having recently removed their football program, there were few examples to inform Steve of the potential consequences. Second, Steve was aware of athletic operating complications that may arise from such a bold decision. For instance, in East Tennessee State University’s decision to discontinue their FCS program, the Southern Conference no longer permitted membership due to a conference bylaw necessitating a football program. This required East Tennessee State to seek an alternative conference association, eventually landing them in the Atlantic Sun Conference (Bishop, 2009). In addition, many institutions discontinuing football sponsorship were confronted with challenging issues regarding the use of existing facilities (notably stadiums) as the result of program removal. Such football facilities are often large and prominent fixtures on college campuses in the USA, particularly those schools that compete in the FBS. For example, University of the Pacific administrators were charged with how to most efficiently use Stagg Memorial Stadium following FBS program discontinuation in 1995. While the stadium occasionally housed high school football games and women’s soccer matches in the past, it has remained primarily underutilised in the 20 years since (Meza, 2014). Although these consequences posed atypical and precarious circumstances, there were realistic prospects for East pursuing this course of action. Steve’s foremost concern was ensuring a conference home for athletics in the event of current membership termination. Although conference bylaws did not specifically mandate football program sponsorship, Steve was concerned with resistance from conference officials. To further complicate matters, the Big East Conference had been informally courting East as one of two potential new additions due to widespread conference realignment taking place among many universities at the FBS level. Compared to East’s current conference, the Big East provided several additional benefits, including increased prestige, visibility, and revenue. Contrary to former years, the Big East no longer sponsored the sport of football in order to focus on increasing performance in the sport of [men’s] basketball (Rhoden, 2014). This made East University an attractive candidate along with its noticeable television market into which the Big East could expand its presence. Although institutions could sponsor a football program while still being members of the Big East, those universities were required to find an alternative conference home in which only football could compete.10 This emphasis on basketball proved to be an appealing draw for Steve given East stakeholders’ preference for the sport. Since basketball was the primary sport at East, Steve considered the extent of resistance by university stakeholders in discontinuing the football program. Within the last 10 years, universities with more prominent sport offerings other than football, such as St. John’s University (basketball) and Northeastern University (hockey), had discontinued their football program in order to better focus on the overall success of the athletic department and these more popular sport offerings (Hutchinson & Bouchet, 2014b). More importantly, if Steve could ensure membership within a more notable (specifically basketball) conference, he believed there could be less stakeholder resistance to football program discontinuation. Regarding the closing costs or salvage value of existing football facilities, discontinuation was more financially feasible given East’s current facilities for football participation. Due to the urban nature of the university, East did not play in an on-campus, university-owned stadium. Rather, the university had long contracted a municipally-owned stadium, customarily agreeing on the basis of a six year time period. Currently, East was in the fifth year of this agreement with an available lump sum buyout provision should they opt to terminate the contract prior to expiration. The remaining on-campus facilities could easily be useful for other sport offerings in need of additional or upgraded space.

9

California State University-Northridge serves as the one exception in that they discontinued their FBS football program more recently in 2001. Big East Conference universities sponsoring a football program in another conference include Butler University (Pioneer Football League), Georgetown University (Patriot League), and Villanova University (Colonial Athletic Association). 10

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Although the unconventional nature of this alternative was indisputable, Steve could not discount the significant financial impact resulting from program discontinuation. Fundamentally, the absence of a football program completely modifies the financial framework from which an athletic department operates. For instance, Fulks (2013) reveals the extent of financial commitment annually to a Division I football program, as FBS and FCS median expenses totalled $15 million and $3 million for 2012. This significant expense difference is primarily a consequence of the maximum number of available football scholarships (85 for FBS universities versus 63 for FCS universities) and higher coaching salaries among FBS institutions. Research by Fulks (2013) has identified student-athlete scholarships and coaching compensation as historically accounting for nearly 50% of an athletic department’s total expenses, thus comprising several million dollars per year. For East and the majority of Division I football programs, the expenses far exceeded the revenue generated. The direct financial savings from no longer having a football program would also have an impact on other aspects of university and athletic department operations. Given an unprofitable football program, for example, the savings from discontinuation could likely eliminate the need for any university subsidy and would be funds that could be used in multiple ways to benefit many other stakeholders on campus. The savings would also result in added resources available to other insufficiently funded teams. Additionally, football program discontinuation would likely solve any outstanding Title IX compliance issues. Generally, sponsorship of a football program had presented challenging circumstances for administrators in balancing football’s large budget (notably, athletic scholarships and coaching salaries) with equitable resource allocation for female sport participation (Zimmerman, 2014). Given East’s history of questionable Title IX compliance, Steve could certainly appreciate the opportunity to no longer be concerned with gender inequity matters. 4.2. Non-scholarship Division I football program While football program removal would be an intrepid transition, another alternative comprised maintaining sponsorship of a Division I football program in a non-scholarship capacity. Steve was aware of recent trends among select universities to field a Division I football program with less of a financial commitment in not providing athletic scholarships for the sport of football. In offering a Division I non-scholarship program, the football team must compete in a football-only FCS conference separate from remaining university athletic teams that compete in a traditional scholarship-offering conference. For instance, Butler University’s football team is a member of the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League (PFL) while remaining athletic teams compete in the scholarship-offering Big East Conference. Until recently, there were only two conferences offering this non-scholarship football alternative: the PFL and the Patriot League.11 Yet, the PFL currently serves as the sole provider of a non-scholarship football alternative since the Patriot League began allowing universities to offer athletic scholarships to football student-athletes in 2013 (Novy-Williams, 2012). In the middle of his town hall meetings, Steve phoned the PFL office to inquire if joining the league was feasible. Fortunately, the league commissioner informed Steve that the PFL members would enthusiastically welcome East University’s football team as a new member. Admittedly, Steve was intrigued by this alternative course of action for several reasons. First, Steve was intrinsically drawn to the prospect of retaining the football team, albeit non-scholarship, in order to reap the benefits of sponsoring the sport. A chief motive pertained to the earlier mentioned desire to maintain an existing sense of community and connection among several stakeholder groups. Preserving the tradition of football as a sport offering was hoped to satisfy the craving among stakeholders who were football enthusiasts. Yet, Steve was aware that the game day environment would certainly change due to unfamiliar competitors and the lower level of Division I competition. This alone could be a significant deterrent to Steve’s principal concern of maintaining a sense of community and stakeholder connection. Second, the nature of fielding a non-scholarship football program provided several direct and indirect financial advantages. As discussed, athletic scholarships and personnel compensation account for approximately 50% of Division I athletic budgets. Therefore, elimination of athletic scholarships and the inherent reduction in coaching compensation due to the less competitive PFL12 served to financially encourage this alternative. These football-specific reductions would also impact often troublesome compliance with formerly discussed Title IX legislation. While less impactful than complete program discontinuation, the reduction in athletic scholarships and personnel compensation allows for clearer Title IX compliance. A final financial advantage pertained to the geographic location of PFL member institutions. With the exception of two universities,13 the PFL membership primarily resided in the eastern portion of the USA. Financially, Steve reasoned that (at worst) this paralleled the current time and resources devoted to team travel for the current conference’s competitions. While these considerations seemed to provide positive outcomes, Steve also had a few concerns in pursuing the non-scholarship course of action. To begin, Steve’s initial reservation resided in the type of member institutions within the PFL. Upon review, Steve noted the composition of PFL members as predominantly private universities with average

11 It should be noted that members of the Ivy League compete in Division I, but do not offer athletic scholarships. Each institution only awards academic scholarships on the basis of need. 12 According to Fulks (2013), the annual median compensation (salary and benefits) for both head and assistant football coaches of a FBS team was $4,323,000. The annual median compensation (salary and benefits) for both head and assistant football coaches of a FCS team was $796,000. While specific figures could not be located, it is assumed that compensation for PFL coaches likely accounts for less than the median FCS figure. 13 Excluding the University of San Diego (CA) and Drake University (IA), all PFL member institutions are located east of the Indiana-Illinois state border.

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enrolment figures well below 10,000 students. Steve wondered if association with such institutions would be a matter of apprehension by the Board members and the president due to East being a public university with enrolment at over twice the average size. This concern was further enhanced given the history of each university’s path to PFL membership, as none were former FBS members and several did not sponsor the sport of football until joining the PFL. Yet, there was also great benefit in associating with both PFL institutions for football and the Big East for all other sports, as most exemplified an image of high calibre academic excellence. Finally, offering a non-scholarship football program still required significant resource allocation. Beyond personnel compensation, funding a program still necessitated several existing costs, with facility rental/maintenance, travel, recruiting, and equipment expenses of notable consideration. Importantly, football’s non-scholarship status would not impact the potential opportunity to change conference affiliations for the remaining sport teams at East. Due to the Big East no longer sponsoring the sport of football, conference membership would not be compromised as it might be for other football-sponsoring conferences desiring a certain level of competition or performance. While the Big East also consisted of mostly private universities, Steve believed he could sell the Board and president on the enhanced image of the university as a result of associating with more prestigious academic universities and the more comparable enrolment figures of Big East members. Further, Steve believed he could convince the Board and president that the Big East would likely be expanding the number and type of member institutions regardless due to current trends with conference realignment among Division I athletic departments. While such a conference transition was exciting, Steve knew that the course of action decision needed to be determined without assuming a transition to the Big East. Even though the PFL commissioner had granted unofficial membership to football, Steve would need to ensure a conference home for the remaining East sports. Although it was highly unlikely that East’s current conference would discontinue their membership due to football’s absence, Steve wanted to be certain that a conference home was guaranteed regardless of the commitment to football. Thus, if the non-scholarship option was selected for football, Steve had shown some political savvy by putting East University in the position to be able to continue to compete at the highest level of Division I athletics in all other sports regardless of whether it stayed in its current conference or moved to the Big East.

4.3. Maintain existing Division I football program While the former two alternative courses of action offered football-specific modifications, Steve’s final consideration focused on maintaining the existing commitment to the football program at the FBS level. After all, Steve knew that the revenue potential for football was far greater than any other sport, including basketball, and that a successful FBS level football program could generate significant exposure for the university (Roy, Graeff, & Harmon, 2008). Yet, achieving on field success required a substantial financial commitment, including increasing coaching compensation, offering the maximum number of scholarships (85), updating to state-of-the-art facilities, and regularly recruiting on a national level. Unfortunately, Steve knew this was not a legitimate alternative due to the university’s inability to provide ample financial subsidy, insufficient existing revenue streams, a saturated donor base, and ensuring Title IX compliance. Theoretically, this left Steve with two alternatives: reduce commitment to other sport teams in order to maintain the existing resources available to the football program or reduce the extent of resources available to the football program. The initial consideration of reducing commitment to other sports could be accomplished by discontinuing select sport offerings. While East sponsored 18 teams (nine men’s and nine women’s), the NCAA only requires an athletic department to offer a minimum of 14 teams to maintain Division I membership (NCAA, 2013). Without a doubt, this alternative was not a desirable course of action; more importantly, Steve knew that this approach would need to account for certain criteria. For instance, although Steve could discontinue up to four sport offerings, any sport discontinuation would need to be from male sport offerings. Discontinuing a female sport(s) would result in East becoming out of compliance with Title IX.14 Pursuing this course of action would also prove to be a difficult justification to the Board and the president regarding their desire for selective excellence. In addition to a majority of men’s sport teams operating on inexpensive budgets, those teams further proved to be successful on a more regular basis. For example, in the last 10 years, men’s tennis, track and field, cross country, and golf all earned conference and national notoriety on an individual and team basis. Assuming the selective excellence strategy was to be a serious initiative and consideration by the Board and the president, it would be difficult to consider discontinuing several financially feasible and successful men’s sport teams in order to maintain the existing resource commitment to a football program that has had little success in its entire history. If teams were not going to be eliminated at East, Steve could also consider reducing the resources for all sports. He knew, however, that such cutbacks would not be well received by the coaches or student-athletes on those teams. Steve also worried if such across the board cuts would impact the competitive success many of the other teams regularly enjoyed and result in an overall substandard East athletic department. Based on the feedback he had already received, he knew that a vast majority of stakeholders would especially be opposed to harming the competitive ability of the men’s basketball team or upsetting its prominent head coach and giving him a reason to look for a position elsewhere. While the potential Big East transition would provide additional funds from the conference’s existing television agreement, it would be difficult for Steve to justify

14 Within Division I, the NCAA has stipulated that the minimum 14 teams must be distributed as seven men’s and seven women’s teams or six men’s and eight women’s teams. Further, athletic departments must offer at least two team sports for each gender.

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spending the new influx of money on the sport of football given the university’s selective excellence approach to departmental management. Maintaining the football program at the FBS level, therefore, would mandate modifications from its current state. Financially, this meant offering fewer scholarships, reducing coaching compensation, not updating facilities or equipment, and focusing on municipal/regional player recruitment. For football alone, which would be at the centre of this potential overhaul of the athletic department, Steve questioned how competitive the team could ever be given its previous lack of success with more resources and the decreased likelihood that highly talented coaches and players would ever consider joining the East football program. Therefore, given the lack of football’s historical on-field success, Steve reasoned that a decrease in resources allocated to the program would likely do little to worsen the already low involvement among stakeholders. Steve believed that the remaining highly committed stakeholders would continue supporting the program regardless of performance since they had done so for such an extended period already. Fundamentally, the football program could still fulfil the important university purpose of serving as a source for regular university engagement with fewer resources allocated to its operation. While this course of action had the potential to impact the extent of donor contributions, Steve believed that the likelihood for significant decreases in program support was minimal. Steve also needed to consider the impact of potentially transitioning to the Big East conference. While remaining sports would become members of the Big East, football would still need a conference home. Due to potential complications with only football remaining in their current conference, Steve believed that the most likely alternative would be for football to compete as an indefinite Division I FBS independent school.15 Certainly, this was not a desirable alternative for football due to logistical and program identity concerns. From a logistical standpoint, team travel to athletic contests would become an immediate complication. Due to a lack of membership within a particular conference, East would be responsible for finding universities willing to play them. This could easily result in much longer travel distances (i.e., higher travel expenses) due to the absence of available teams in a more regional location. This was additionally concerning given the potential for annual competitor turnover based on teams’ availability to schedule play in a given year. From a program identity perspective, Steve feared several negative consequences as a result of inconsistent competitors, notably the likely loss of long time football rivals. This in turn could potentially impact the involvement of East stakeholders, causing a select few to become alienated from the entire athletic department. However, Steve could also see an opportunity in the FBS independent designation, as different opposing teams had the potential to generate renewed interest in the football program due to the possibility of competing against well-known teams and the development of new rivals. Logically, if the Big East transition did not come to fruition, this course of action would simply equate to all sports remaining in their current conference with the football program receiving a reduced portion of resources. Amidst these considerations, Steve could not discount the primarily intangible benefits of continuing to sponsor a FBS program. Generally speaking, such benefits were based on potential rather than actuality as found at many universities in the USA. The football program did provide an additional avenue for university exposure, which could potentially increase if the team finally realised some modest success. While the tangible return for what was currently regional exposure was difficult to measure, Steve knew this avenue for both university and athletic department advertisement was an influential benefit. Further, Steve continued to be concerned over the sense of community that would certainly be impacted by a decision to alter the existing FBS program commitment. As already noted, maintaining the existing sense of community (albeit limited when compared to similar FBS programs) and connection among several stakeholder groups was of great significance. Finally, the intangible perception of higher status or prestige associated with sponsoring a FBS program was an additional consideration. While the program’s poor performance may negatively impact this aspect, Steve believed the association with FBS athletic programs was a valuable marketing tool for both prospective students and athletes alike.

5. Decision point In the wake of a new calendar year, Steve had spent the better part of three months evaluating the consequences accompanying each alternative course of action. With the January meeting a mere week away, Steve began to prepare his justifications for the selected course of action. Amidst the complex economic, social, and political environments within East University, Steve knew that his presentation to Board members and the president would be met with a myriad of questions and comments. Due to the controversial nature of this decision, Steve was prepared to address inquiries regarding both the selected and unselected courses of action. This decision of determining the most appropriate course of action for East University and the athletic department had been a thought-provoking task that allowed Steve to understand the institution and its stakeholders in an entirely new way. Steve knew that his entire career had prepared him to select the course of action. He also knew that his legacy as athletic director would largely be shaped by this decision. It was time to decide.

15 Division I FBS independent schools are university football programs not affiliated with a NCAA conference. The number of FBS independent schools has traditionally varied, as most use this independent status during a probationary period in becoming a FBS member or transitioning between FBS conferences. Only a select few football programs currently use the independent status as a more permanent ‘conference’ home (e.g., Notre Dame, Brigham Young University).

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Please cite this article in press as: Hutchinson, M., Berg, B.K., Institutions of higher commitment: A case study of deescalation and American football’s decisive role in intercollegiate athletics. Sport Management Review (2014), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2014.09.002