Missed Marketing Opportunity

[SWC2010]

Campbell's TX Football compliments the academic achievement of TCU while ignoring the graduation accomplishments at SMU. WHY? Because the ncaa measurement standard was for the 3 major sports of football, basketball, & baseball. WHile we do NOT need to add BB, we should be selling our academic accomplishments.

A missed marketing opportunity.

QUESTION: why is SMU FB not 'advertising' (thru the media) our graduation rate v. TX, A&M, OU, etc?????????? Where was the press releases when the ncaa was meeting recently in Grapevine. Someone, please take charge.

http://texasfootball.com/05coll_0124.html

Edited due to an insightful comment from EastStang...

[EastStang]

We are the only Division 1 school in Texas with a soccer program. That means any kid who wants to stay in state and play soccer pretty much has to come to SMU. Do you want to dismantle that successful program, too? For what so we can have another lame attempt at baseball and have to compete with UT, UH, Baylor, TCU, A&M, TT, and of course Rice for baseball players. I love baseball, I even tried out for the SMU team, but unless some swinging Richard has $70-100 Million to throw into endowing a baseball, softball, and women's lacrosse program, it ain't gonna happen. But hey, if you want baseball that bad, talk to Copeland and start a fund raising drive. After all, DC got its business community to agree to a tax so that the Expos would come to DC. Oh that's the other problem, Dallas has a professional baseball team, its called the Rangers. So, you have to compete with them for entertainment dollars and not only that, but baseball season overlaps with the NBA (and possibly the NHL) so you have those teams competing as well. Last time we had baseball there were about 20 fans per game including girlfriends. That isn't going to pay a lot of bills.

[OC Mustang]

Only Div. 1 program with soccer?

Uh, no.

UT, TAMU for starters.

[JasonB]

Only Div. 1 program with soccer?

Uh, no.

UT, TAMU for starters.

They don't have men's teams at the d-1 level.

[SWC2010]

Only Div. 1 program with soccer?

Uh, no.

UT, TAMU for starters.

College "Club" teams do not count, BUT the point of the thread was to get a reaction about the lack of Marketing 101 @ SMU FB. We should have been selling our athletic academic graduation rate the minute the recommendations came out of the ncaa meetings in Grapevine. I believe we are sometimes our own worst enemy when it comes to bragging about what SMU AThletics has to offer.

[Diamond Girl]

If the athletic department doens't have the people power to put together an academic profile of the football team, or any of the other teams, could someone else, like the Mustang Club, do it, or does it have to go through the AD? Just a thought.

[EastStang]

Just a question for some of my lawyer friends here. Doesn't Sarbanes-Oxley prohibit disclosures of personal information like this without advance warning. I wonder if Universities inform prospective athletes that their academic progress will be released to the NCAA and to the media and to other prospective recruits. I can see that lawsuit happening from some athlete to stop disclosures that could cause the NCAA to hammer a program that is found academically wanting.

[tryon]

Sarbanes Oxley? Did you mean to ask about something else? Sarbanes-Oxley relates to the inernal controls of public companies. As a public accountant I can tell you it has nothing to do with a university and it is making my life suck right now.

[jtstang]

Wasn't that the congressional knee-jerk to Enron?

[SWC2010]

Just a question for some of my lawyer friends here. Doesn't Sarbanes-Oxley prohibit disclosures of personal information like this without advance warning. I wonder if Universities inform prospective athletes that their academic progress will be released to the NCAA and to the media and to other prospective recruits. I can see that lawsuit happening from some athlete to stop disclosures that could cause the NCAA to hammer a program that is found academically wanting.

East, although not Sarbanes, you are on the right track that there are laws relative to privacy issues (remember UT Coach Penders releasing grades of Luke Axtell).

But the players are made aware that as the watchdog, the ncaa has rights to verify eligibility of players and schools. As far as publishing grades, it is my understanding that what is proposed is to published the school/team collective gpa, hours, etc., not individual records.