SPORTS SPONSORSHIP AND PROGRAM EQUITY ISSUES

1. Sports Sponsorship and Broad Based Programs.

Approximately 86% of responses indicated support or strong support for maximizing the number and variety of athletics opportunities for students. Responses to adjusting sports sponsorship based on enrollment were mixed, with approximately 30% in strong support or support, and approximately 30% in strong opposition or opposition. (The responses to increase sports sponsorship requirements were similar.) If an alignment of sports sponsorship and institutional enrollment were to occur, would it be more appropriate to require institutions with greater than average enrollment to increase sports sponsorship beyond five for men and five for women, and/or for those with less than average enrollment to drop below five and five?

· Programs may become diluted; quality may be decreased. Why is there a minimum? How did those numbers come about? Filling the void with “fluff teams” can happen. Waivers should be granted for institutions that can demonstrate the need for sponsorship less than the requirement. Where do we draw the line? What would happen if we lower the commitment? What are the negatives? Should there be a minimum enrollment for an institution to belong to the NCAA?

· No, five seems to be an appropriate number. Increasing sports sponsorship should be left up to institutions/conferences to go beyond five/five.

· Size of enrollment should not determine the number of sports an institution offers.

· Such a requirement would encourage institutional autonomy.

· Enrollment may be based on night school/adult education which does not reflect traditional students.

· This needs to be based on traditional students (18-23 years old)—those who actually participate.

· Myth about bigger schools win all championships

· Keep minimum (do not lower), otherwise membership will grow too fast.

· Five/five is reasonable minimum sports number.

· Not less.

· What is the medium range?

· How many would be affected by raising from five/five?

· Do not tie to enrollment.

· Five/five should be the baseline for all DIII members regardless of enrollment.

· Increase the minimum number of sports sponsorship more than five sports. Reward the schools that have more sports.

· Expanding opportunities may be limited because of geography and cultural emphasis of sports (e.g., baseball up North).

· Regionalization limits educational framework for students—now institutions are interconnected to the world with programs that interact on a world basis. Why limit sport sponsorship then for a particular campus.

· Differences among sports are often culturally based. Should the NCAA spend time and energy trying to “dictate” or encourage policies that may go against the culture of a particular campus?

· Increase to seven/seven.

· Is five/five a broad based for schools over 1,000 students? No

· Institutions with small enrollment or other circumstances should be able to appeal.

· All five sports must be legit.

· High school divisions where school selects to play up a division.

· “Five sports is not that challenging”, but do depend on size of school and percent of student-athletes.

· Increase to six and six, or seven and seven at larger institutions. There is a limit (e.g., 12 and 12 at the very highest for larger schools).

· Different requirements for different size schools?

· If it is increased above five and five, will “wipe out” ¼ of provisional members. Effect on provisionals?

· Do not increase the minimum number of sports sponsorship across the board unless it is tied to enrollment. I would prefer to leave the minimum requirement where it is.

· Do not assume that larger institutions can sponsor more sports. There are other factors—location, institutional mission, community demographics and issues of locale.

· Does an increase really accomplish anything related to controlling membership growth?

· Should not go below five no matter what the enrollment is.

· Believe requirements are low.

· Larger institutions should have more offerings.

· May divide present conferences.

· No other options based on geography.

· Realignment would be difficult.

· Keep the five/five minimum as rule, but state encouragement for proportionality between enrollment and number of athletic opportunities/teams.

· Minimal standard yes, beyond this is institutional autonomy.

· Offer a minimum but not a maximum.

· No less than five per gender.

· Different sport sponsorship requirements presents too many challenges. Needs much more consideration.

· Do not like tying enrollment to sports sponsorship.

· Pressure on small schools with limited sources to have five/five as minimum.

· Allow schools with less team average enrollment to drop below five/five.

· Requirement guards against institutions allocating resources to very few sports.

· It is an economic issue.

· Must raise minimum of five/five. Must be higher. 86% agree with broad base—let’s show it. Should be seven/seven or eight/eight.

· Agree only if grandfather current members with five/five.

· Should be sliding scale of enrollment with sports sponsorship.

· Split DIII into higher sponsorships in one division and lower sponsorships in the other.

· Forcing increased sponsorships would create more problems with championships access ratio.

· Continue to leave current sponsorship policy and leave team numbers to institutions.

· Should be a higher level than 5. Number of sports not correlated to size. Enrollment should not influence number of sports sponsorships. Too complicated to include enrollment.

· Ten sports is doable.

· Ambiguity in question as far as what is average.

· Five/five moving target—variance because of fluctuation in attendance.

· Economic variable might be more critical for each program than enrollment.

· Different ways to fulfill athletic competition (e.g., intramural).

· Five/five should continue to be the minimum regardless of enrollment.

· Should increase to assist with equity.

· Five count usually “major” sports. Too many programs = less successful.

· Helps with championship sponsorship.

· May decrease interest of some schools in joining DIII. Slow growth.

· Across the board would be different for small schools.

· If new schools coming in have percent of teams by enrollment—required current schools grandfathered in.

· No. As long as they meet the NCAA minimum requirement, it should be left up to the institution how many sports they sponsor.

· No sentiment for requiring institutions with greater enrollment to increase, nor those with less to drop below.

· Increase enrollment may force schools to increase the minimum requirement for sport sponsorship 8 or above. Problem is with smaller schools.

· Danger/hesitancy of tying enrollment to requirements.

· Perhaps all should sponsor six.

· Enrollment drives budget of recruiting.

· Consistency is good, prefer status quo.

· DIII standard should prevent DIII from being the _____ for schools that can not go to any other NCAA division.

· DIII too easy to join, standard too low? Versus why raise number from current five/five?

· Oppose tiering sport sponsorship to proportionality of enrollment.

· Encourage sport sponsorship which promotes broad based opportunities. Do not mandate more.

· Are other budget issues.

· If they want to drop a sport, how do they dictate?

· Implicit that same money can be dealt with.

· Leave it alone. Do not change. Do not want more imposed on conferences.

· What would the average numbers used?

· Representativeness issue?

· Interest in raising minimums to mitigate large colleges concentrating money in few sports. Make sponsorship a ratio of enrollment.

· Finances limit the number of sponsored sports opportunities at particular institutions publics). No further limitations in sponsorship (five/five).

· Depends on who/how many students play.

· Depends on who could do the programs.

· Coming from a small school, but playing larger schools is there an advantage when dealing with money? Recruitment.

· Solving conference institutions from within public/private and gender difference.

· Physical reason (athletic trainers, administrative support, enrollment).

· Standard change as enrollment goes up.

· Worth looking at what impact raising it to six would have, possibly talk with those currently at five or six right now.

· Non-factor. Schools with small sport sponsorship do not tend to dominate the championships.

· Increasing sponsorship could have a financial impact on institution regardless of student body size.

· If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

· Raising number of sponsorships could help control membership, but would also possibly eliminate smaller institutions.

· A problem is that enrollment fluctuates.

· Is there a variance built in? Perhaps take a five year average/

· Economic variables are critical also. More teams means more traveling, which leads to a higher cost.

· Do not necessarily need to add a varsity sport, perhaps more intramural options.

· Regulate, do not manage this because then we take away from the DIII autonomy.

· Geography is an issue.

· Might be difficult for when schools or schools with large commuter populations.

· Not broken enough to make changes.

· Basic requirement by the NCAA is best because institutions are so different. Five is a bare minimum for sports. Enrollment should not be the main factor. Bigger schools should be encouraged to adopt more sports.

· Mistake to go below five. Needs to be a minimum, but admittedly do not know what works for smallest numbers.

· Budget issue—school should decide.

· Is there any way to discuss if teams are representative of students?

· If we are going to change rules, maybe split division.

· Maximization does not seem to be an NCAA issue.

· Five/five should remain minimum and encourage others to expand as possibility to support broad based philosophy and serve student-athletes better.

· Concern that minimum qualifiers are trying to bring everyone else down to minimum level, thus negatively impacting student-athletes.

· This is a funding issue. Just because they have lots of students does not mean they have the money. This is a dangerous issue to push. Also ____ ______ have lower level percentage of student participation.

· How do you factor in demand for student participation? May not desire this.

· Flexibility based on enrollment.

· No. Enrollments can change. Would need a large variable o enrollment to manage it. Disruptive to student experience, retention and enrollment pieces. We are struggling enough with those. Bad idea. Tail wagging the dog. Do not want NCAA staff, committees making decisions for our institution. Most women’s sports in fall, few for women. Maybe some smaller schools that could benefit from this. Move from eight to ten a subtle step toward institutional autonomy.

· Depending on total student ratio.

· Could be a way to subdivide if necessary.

· Possibly a ratio according to institution enrollment.

· Regional competitor’s facilities need to be factored in.

· Broad based program support is goal. Raising standard for sponsorship would help with goal for all members or within subdivision.

· Keep two team sports/season so you have opportunities each season.

· They do not feel it would be difficult for larger schools to add sports due to larger enrollment, but they would need appropriate time to gather finances, appropriate facilities, etc.

· There is concern about the financial and practical/logistics impact that may be created if large schools now have to go back to the university to try and grow their program even further—it make look bad to CEO.

· Small institution (400 enrollment) would be in favor to adjustment.

· Economic hardship (fragileness) of small institution.

· Important to have at least two sports.

· From an institution of 400 enrollment: We have 100 student-athletes on campus (25%) of overall enrollment. We struggle with filling the 10 sport requirement. We offer six women’s sports and five men’s sports. 80% of our enrollment is female and we cannot fill cross country and golf teams for our women on a consistent basis. I ask for consideration for percentage of student-athletes overall at the institution.

· Enrollment not the only criteria. Perhaps seasonal requirement.

· Yes on one side—the fixed costs.

· Enrollment is a limited scope at looking at this area. Other factors. Not broad enough look.

· Reason behind five/five, but sympathize with enrollment issues.

· Relationship of dues to number of sports sponsored? If more championships—higher dues? However dues so small as to be of no consequence.

· Does small enrollment mean fewer resources? Resources may be a problem.

· Smaller amount may be a problem for students (want to be involved).

· DIII philosophy wants to maximize opportunities for student-athletes.

· Concluded this is not an option.

· Should larger schools carry more sports? Depends on own university. It is a school decision. In a “football” institution, there should be one more women’s sport then men’s. DIII kind of deals with it as best as possible, different than DI.

· One gender institution: thought would be to increase sports. Best to provide maximum opportunities.

· Gender specific schools: how do we address when institution only have one gender. Can only have six sports?

· Minimum would be fair, but should there be a maximum.

· Finding the line between which institution would qualify for either ratio might seem arbitrary. Going below five/five is very difficult.

· Since institutional enrollment can fluctuate the ratio, it should be left up to them to decide.

· It is better to subdivide based on philosophy and not numbers.

· Increase sponsorship for high enrollment schools.

· Perhaps four/four would be better, with no regard to which sport. Conferences could have mandates for sport sponsorship tied to membership.

· We have to divide competition somehow if we get out of control.

· Like proportionality

· Conflict to some schools with season requirements. Spring weather almost non-exist in some locations.

· 42% women participation not including 1999. Must sponsor five/five. One in each season. Average number of sports: eight for men; 8 ½ for women.

· The 30% in support and 30% in opposition indicate deep philosophical differences. I think this goes back to the issue of the composition of the membership is so broad that natural philosophical differences will occur. I don’t think enrollment should be ties to sponsorships because some small schools may have the money, facilities and interested students to sponsor more sports but a larger school may not. This would be another reason to split. Schools can make a choice to further refine what their philosophy is and to have more opportunity to compete against like minded institutions.

2. Sport and Program Equity.

a. Survey responses indicated support for the concept of implementing a policy to encourage sport equity or discourage tiering. How should the division manage this issue?

· SAAC is a good source to discuss sport equity and tiering. Sports equity is already stated in DIII philosophy and should be encouraged through institutions and conferences. Tiering is an institutionally based issue.

· Difficult for the division to legislate for institutions.

· Just encourage broad based programs.

· Financial aid audits should catch inappropriate tiering—just give this return time to work.

· Some schools don’t believe in tiering.

· How do you control tiering?

· Some sports have varied number of coaches because of limited resources.

· Some schools do it—how do you control it division wide?

· May be logistically difficult for NCAA to control tiering/sport inequity.

· EADA review would be appropriate to ensure sport equity.

· Bottom line: Provide equitable experience, even if money is not completely equal. Create coaching caps or student-athlete caps.

· Most schools will often tier both sports (i.e., men’s and women’s basketball) together.

· Look at cost per student-athlete—not per sport.

· Cost in monitoring tiering

· Make a philosophy statement.

· Should be up to institutions.

· There are campus priorities.

· It is a conference by conference issue, not divisional.

· While I support this concept and to not want to see DIII members tiering sports, it should not be handled at the national level. It should be addressed at each institution at that level.

· How do you make schools increase their funding for women’s sports? Increase women’s sport participation at the championship level.

· Philosophical agreement with equity.

· Institutions have different missions. It may cause differences regarding gender equity.

· Qualifying for championships should require compliance of Title IX.

· Add AQ principle.

· Single gender institutions.

· Be required to complete a similar document to prove sport equity.

· No tiering of sports until after you have 20 sports.

· For AQ, must be in compliance with Title IX.

· Tiering is not program equity.

· How does the NCAA oversee this?

· It is an institutional question. Sometimes related to questions of enrollment.

· Perhaps this may better serve at a conference level. Set conference wide level with certain parameters.

· Perhaps there is a national “report” that might prompt change.

· Attempt to create sport specific SAAC’s.

· NCAA marketing and publications for championships and general distribution should be very much the same.

· NCAA staff assigned to sports and championships could be handled better. Don’t put the “new” people on “lower profile” sports. This maintains “lower profile” label.

· Sponsorship levels the same (no extras for basketball).

· Awards/sponsor programs for coaching (part time vs. full time).

· SAAC’s for each event.

· NCAA championship committees tie in with coaches groups for better recognition.

· Getting rid of tiering—do away with it on national programs.

· Basketball promotional.

· Staff working on sports/newer sports new reps.

· Tiering an issue with part time and full time coaches. Sponsor training sessions to help with education.

· Strengthen ties with recognitions/coach group (e.g., FHOC).

· Minimum number of sports is a safeguard against tiering.

· NCAA can not control this.

· It is subtle at best.

· NCAA can only encourage sport equity.

· Schools have to have underlying integrity without question as to promoting—always moving toward equity. Legislation to this effect would cause great difficulty and be improbable due to individual campus issues (i.e., 70% women), budget concerns based on student fees and other limitations.

· Provide clear guidelines and allow institutions to monitor their programs.

· Clearer language in what is DIII philosophy so it will help diminish interpretation discrepancies.

· Tiering not understood.

· Believe in equity, treat all athletes the same.

· Should look at “per capita” expense—hold dollar and cents issues—are the individual student-athlete’s needs met?

· Sport sponsorship could be the single criterion for subdivision.

· Institution autonomy.

· Should not have a NCAA policy on tiering.

· Tiering can be a student perception.

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