The Anti Flutie Effect: The Impact of Athletic Malfeasance on the University

Abigail Cormier, Austin F. Eggers, Peter Groothuis and Kurt W. Rutthoff

No 21-04, Working Papers from Department of Economics, Appalachian State University

Abstract: Collegiate sports programs are often characterized as the front porch of a university serving to publicize the institution and draw students to the door. We analyze if athletic malfeasance captured in NCAA sanctions, either a postseason tournament ban in men’s basketball or a postseason bowl ban in football, negatively affects the profile of the sanctioned university. Our findings suggest that bans lower the academic quality of students as measured by test scores and class rank. Bans also decrease the amount of alumni giving and increases the student acceptance rate at the infracting university. Surprisingly, the school’s peer ranking, in U.S. News and World Report, increases at a university following a ban. Our results demonstrate that impropriety by an athletics program serves as a negative signal to prospective students and alumni regarding the overall quality of the university, but does not appear to affect that institution’s peer evaluators’ perceptions. Key Words: Education, (Anti) Flutie-Factor, NCAA, Athletic Malfeasance

JEL-codes: I2 Z2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-spo
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:apl:wpaper:21-04

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