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Given the importance of image matching as a rationale for sponsorship investment, this paper examines the extent to which image matching occurs in U.S. intercollegiate athletics. Utilizing student-athlete education and athletic program ethics as image dimensions, while controlling for winning, the authors find that individual corporations tend to sponsor athletic programs that project very different images. The authors then prescribe an approach that prospective sponsors could use to determine appropriate image matches.

Many of the largest athletics programs in the United States today are dependent upon revenue streams to sustain their teams. While still in the earliest stages, athletic professionals are finding ways to deepen the engagement with potential and current fans and donors with their department's mission and values. Social media is being used to put fans in the seats as well as create new paid content. No longer limited to the column inches in a newspaper or 30 seconds of highlights on the local news, athletics programs are breaking new grounds in the world of social media.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between growth in social media engagement, as defined by annual percentage increase in Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers, of US college athletics departments and outcome metrics of attendance and ticket revenue.

Regression models were developed to determine the amount of variance in dependent variables (attendance and ticket revenue) could be explained by several independent variables, including team success, team history, conference affiliation, Facebook Likes, and Twitter Followers. Four years of data were collected for each variable.

The regression models predicted between 53 and 88 percent of the variance among dependent variables. Social media measures, however, were not statistically significant predictors of attendance or ticket revenue.

The number of Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers were used as a proxy measure of social media engagement. While growth in Likes and Followers are a popular and convenient gauge of social media engagement, they represent a single measure of a multi-faceted construct. Also, data were limited to public university athletics departments, which are required to disclose annual ticket revenue. Findings may not be generalizable to other sport organizations.

The findings suggest growing social media interactions may not necessarily achieve marketing objectives related to increasing attendance or ticket revenue.

While numerous studies have examined the impact of social media on sport organizations, no prior studies have attempted to draw empirical connections between social media marketing efforts and revenue measures within sport organizations. This study represents the first to begin to examine this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to examine higher education institutions’ participation in association for the advancement of sustainability in higher education’s (AASHE’s) Green Athletics category in the sustainability tracking, assessment and rating system (STARS) sustainability report while assessing how well collegiate athletic departments engage with their respective aspects.

This general review used quantitative content analysis to determine the number of NCAA Divisions I–III institutions that actively report Green Athletics categories in their AASHE STARS reports. The data collection process compiled current reports from the STARS website and the National Collegiate Athletic Association database. Green Athletics categorical and accumulated point attempts and outcomes were analyzed.

Of the 335 institutions that actively use the STARS reporting tool, the NCAA accounted for 247 rated institutions of which only 50 attempted points in Green Athletics while only 21 institutions succeeded. This paper discusses the lack of participation from institutions in Green Athletics and propose an alternate to better engage collegiate athletics in STARS reporting.

This study is one of the first known examinations of the tangible results of collaborations on college campuses to integrate the athletic department’s sustainability efforts into the overall sustainability reporting of the institution. This study can better inform STARS on how to more fully engage college athletic departments and boost the sustainability efforts in all corners of campus.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how flourishing is achieved among sport employees working at intercollegiate sport organizations in the USA. To do so, a model is constructed that examines the impact of pride and path-goal leadership on job engagement and then flourishing. The model is grounded in the Human Resource Development (HRD) paradigm to extend the literature on positive performance outcomes in sport organizations.

Quantitative methods were used to analyze the data. Altogether, 282 useable surveys were completed by sport employees working in intercollegiate athletics departments. The hypotheses were examined with structural equation modeling to provide robust calculations of the relationships within the model.

The findings of this study demonstrated that both path-goal leadership and pride enabled job engagement, which in turn supported flourishing among intercollegiate athletics employees (e.g. equipment, marketing or facility/event positions). Job engagement is positioned as an important variable as it linked path-goal leadership and pride with flourishing.

This study examined mechanisms (i.e. path-goal leadership, pride) to enhance intercollegiate athletics employees' personal resources (i.e. job engagement, flourishing) through the HRD paradigm. The HRD framework posits that improved employee functioning leads to a superior organizational performance and has yet to be assessed within intercollegiate athletics. The findings add to the HRD literature by focusing on employees' workplace experiences and generating pathways to improved job engagement and the subsequent influence on intercollegiate athletics employees' ability to flourish, which is also understudied.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact that athletics participation in both revenue and non‐revenue intercollegiate sport had on the engagement of students as measured by the National Survey of Student Engagement. In addition, the study reported results to the institution's athletics department for application as a tool for program review.

The study employed a factorial design using self‐reported data from a cooperating institution. The independent variables examined were participation in intercollegiate athletics (athletes vs non‐athletes) and the sport type (revenue sports vs non‐revenue sports). Measures of student engagement were the dependent variables in the study.

Descriptive analysis revealed that athletes were as engaged as their non‐athlete peers and suggested that revenue sport participants were not as engaged as their non‐revenue sport counterparts. Univariate ANCOVA analyses uncovered significant differences between both categories of independent variable – athletes/non‐athletes and revenue/non‐revenue sport participation.

The study was limited by the degree to which all participants answered the questions in the National Survey of Student Engagement honestly and accurately. Since athletics participation is determined by self‐selection, inherent differences among athletes and non‐athletes may exist and were not explored in the study.

Through examination of institutional data, athletics practitioners may gain information to guide policy and practice.

The study illustrates how institutions may capitalize on institutional research data to evaluate, review, and improve specific programs.

Intercollegiate athletics is a tremendous part of today’s society and encompasses numerous American lives. Its wide spectrum attracts various people from gender, race, ethnicity, cultures, religion, and sexuality. Black male student-athletes, a target of higher education institutions, are affected by sociological, institutional, and athletic factors. This population is highly sought after by college coaches due to their athletic abilities and ability skills in their specific sport in order to elevate their respective sports team, athletics’ department, and university into the national limelight. Current institutional and intercollegiate athletics’ trends that are incorporated to recruit Black male student-athletes are explored. Specific recruiting techniques utilized by college coaches to persuade this population are examined. The sociological issues in current intercollegiate athletics are analyzed with their direct effect on the college selection choice of Black male student-athletes.

As the pressure to win and generate revenue and as the allegations of out-of-control spending continue to increase, there exists much interest in intercollegiate athletics. While researchers in the past have investigated specific issues related to athletics success, revenue generation, and graduation rates, no previous studies have attempted to evaluate these factors simultaneously. This chapter discusses the development of a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model aimed at measuring how efficient university athletic departments are in terms of the use of resources to achieve athletics success, generate revenue, and promote academic success and on-time graduation. Data from National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) universities are used to evaluate the relative efficiency of the institutions. The model identifies a series of “best-practice” universities which are used to calculate efficient target resource levels for inefficient institutions. The value of the proposed methodology to decision makers is discussed.

This chapter focuses on the career paths of African American women in collegiate athletics. Through a review of literature and policy analysis, three overarching themes emerged and is the focus of this chapter: (1) challenges and barriers African American women encounter in pursuing careers in collegiate athletics with a particular focus on extant inequities of African American women in administrative and head coaching positions; (2) professional sport development programs tailored to improve career opportunities for African American women and other minorities; and (3) strategies to alleviate challenges and barriers African American women endure in collegiate athletics.

In the 1980s, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) passed several eligibility rules to address concerns about the academic and personal development of its participants (Gaston-Gayles, 2009). Despite garnering publicity, fostering school pride, providing entertainment, and generating billions of dollars in revenue for the Division I-affiliated institutions they attend (Sylwester, M., & Witosky, T. (2004). Athletic spending grows as academic funds dry up. USAToday.com , February 18. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2004-02-18-athletic-spending- cover_x.htm), student-athletes are prevented from receiving compensation beyond athletic scholarships by the NCAA’s amateurism principle. Consequently, the ethical question at the center of college sports is: how do participants benefit from the college experience relative to their non-sport peers? While the NCAA typically reports benefits, research that disaggregates the data by sport, division, race, and sex reveals long-standing and pervasive inequities (Harper, Williams, & Blackman, 2013). Accordingly, this chapter juxtaposes NCAA’s rhetoric, principles, and espoused goals with the lived realities of the most populous demographic group within high revenue-generating collegiate sports, Black male student-athletes.