A Reinvestigation of the Relationship Between Big-Time Basketball Success and Average SAT Scores

Irvin B. Tucker and L. Ted Amato
Additional contact information
Irvin B. Tucker: University of North Carolina-Charlotte
L. Ted Amato: University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Journal of Sports Economics, 2006, vol. 7, issue 4, 428-440

Abstract: The advertising effect argues that a high-quality athletic team creates a positive spillover beneficial to the academic mission. This article reexamines the proposition that a university having a successful basketball program improves the quality of incoming freshmen measured by their average SAT scores. If true, large expenditures of universities on big-time basketball and negative publicity from scandals might be justified. Previous literature provides contradictory evidence that is based on only 2 academic years. This article revisits the issue using data for academic years 1993-2002 and concludes there is no consistent evidence a highly successful basketball team has a favorable advertising effect on average SAT scores. Conference fixed effects reveal positive impacts from being in a major conference, a result that supports previous findings regarding the importance of being affiliated with a Bowl Championship Series (BCS) football conference.

Keywords: basketball; advertising effect; SAT scores; athletics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002505275096 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jospec:v:7:y:2006:i:4:p:428-440

DOI: 10.1177/1527002505275096

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Sports Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().