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Subject: An Alternative Perspective on the State of Ivy League Athletics Author: IvySportsJunkie [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 19:06:14 07/21/25 Mon On another thread, it pointed out a criticism of the Learfield Cup rankings of the nation’s top overall university athletic programs. The Learfield Cup system does favor schools like the Ivy League and Stanford that have a greater number of varsity sports teams. This got me to explore how the Ivy League compares to the D1 power schools in overall athletics. While clearly the Ivy League is losing a number of prospective athletes in football and basketball to D1 programs with larger NIL sponsorships, the State of the Ivy League athletics still looks very favorable overall for our being an academic oriented conference. From my perspective, the Ivy League having so many varsity sports is a real advantage for the Ancient Eight. The Ivy League athletic programs average 34 varsity sports teams per school (17 men and 17 women) which is nearly double the 18 varsity sports per school average for the D1 athletic programs. Next, let’s look at our varsity student athletes as a percentage of the student body. In the Ivy League, our student athletes represent close to 18 percent of the student body with Dartmouth having the highest percentage - about 25 percent of Big Green students are student athletes. If you include the 33 club sports at Dartmouth, the school estimates that a remarkable 75 percent of its student body is engaged in some form of organized athletics. Compare this to a SEC powerhouse like the University of Alabama that only has 8 varsity men’s sports teams and its total number of student athletes on campus is only 783 athletes or less than 2 percent of its student body. Most of our Ivy campuses have more varsity student athletes than Bama, despite being a small fraction of its size. Yes, the Crimson of the South would crush the Crimson of the Northeast on the gridiron, as well as the Bama fan base is much larger and follow their teams more actively. Yet, if you analyze our athletic programs from a participation level, the Ivy League continues to have a rich athletic tradition on each of our campuses. The primary differences are that we have far more athletes on campus and that they also are just as likely to be from one of the Olympic sports (e.g., fencing, rowing, wrestling, volleyball, etc.) Most importantly, our athletes all graduate on time and they generally exceed at an even higher level in their professional careers compared to their accomplishments in their respective sports. I’ll take the Ivy League athletic model any day over the typical D1 power program that serves such a small part of their student body in terms of athletic participation. The biggest failure is their alarmingly high number of athletes who do not graduate and are ill-prepared for their post-college lives . [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: Re: An Alternative Perspective on the State of Ivy League Athletics Author: M3 [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 19:32:35 07/21/25 Mon Essentially the IL is going D3 for football and men and women's basketball Other sports may survive the financial incentives of NIL but mens ice hockey and lacrosse may be the next victims [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: I can understand the reasoning for FB and MBB Author: Go Green [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 19:49:33 07/21/25 Mon But WBB? Right after we got three teams in the NCAA? [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: I can understand the reasoning for FB and MBB Author: M3 [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 21:03:47 07/21/25 Mon $400,000 gets you talent https://www.streakingthelawn.com/2025/5/3/24423214/uva-womens-basketball-tabitha-amanze-commitment-princteon-tigers-coach-mox-transfer-portal [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> [> Subject: If it makes you feel better... Author: Go Green [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 19:41:41 07/22/25 Tue I can assure you that there are a LOT of good players currently in high school who are hoping to end up on playing Ivy League WBB. Really--I've seen them. :) [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: If it makes you feel better... Author: M3 [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:34:10 07/23/25 Wed Good-not great. And that is the crux of the problem Given the money involved great players and their parents in football/basketball/ice hockey/lacrosse are going to see spending 4 years at an Ivy League school for no money as a luxury decision The Ivy League argument "40 year plan" doesn't hold much water if you get say $500K when you are 18 and invest it. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: An Alternative Perspective on the State of Ivy League Athletics Author: IvySportsJunkie [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 12:38:50 07/22/25 Tue M3 and GG I 100% agree that NIL already has and will continue to have adverse impacts on our ability to recruit and retain the best athletes in football and basketball. We also will lose several elite athletes in team sports like baseball, such as Sean Miller, the Columbia Ivy Player of the Year transferring to Florida. That said, I am hopeful that the Ivies at least will retain their leadership in varsity sports participation and our relatively unique emphasis on academics for all of our student athletes. The ever growing NIL expenses is eating into most D1 colleges athletic budgets. Thus, the Power 4 conferences are looking at which non-revenue sports to drop. In contrast, I hope our Ivies use of our far greater financial resources (at least from endowment resources) will help us avoid or at least greatly limit the temptation to cutting back on our overall varsity sports. Unfortunately, the biggest threat to our overall sports programs may be related to legal challenges to recruited athlete preferences. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: HYP Endowment Taxes Are Enormous Author: An Observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 16:37:12 07/22/25 Tue I would imagine that for academic year 2025-26 and the foreseeable future, in Ivy League financial offices, it is panic time. The recently passed tax on our nation's largest university endowments will cost each of HYP about a quarter of a billion dollars annually. I've seen a back-of-the-envelope calculation which puts the tab for Yale at $280 million for a typical year's endowment return. What's that old saying? "A quarter of a billion dollars here, a quarter of a billion dollars there. . . pretty soon, you're talking real money." On top of that, research grants and other common federally subsidized expenses are at risk. I would guess that the last added Ivy varsity program, Princeton women's rugby (?), will be the last one for a long time. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: An Alternative Perspective on the State of Ivy League Athletics Author: FeartheQuaker [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 13:53:24 07/22/25 Tue I just enjoy the games. I am not too worried about the "talent" level. It is fun. And who knows where NIL takes us. I think the story on that front is far from finished. Go Quakers !!! [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: An Alternative Perspective on the State of Ivy League Athletics Author: Lurker [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 09:32:07 07/23/25 Wed The model of sit fy, play 3, transfer to FBS will continue to work for most of the IL’s best fb players. It has worked out well for several current nfl players [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: An Alternative Perspective on the State of Ivy League Athletics Author: Son of Eli [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 08:17:21 07/23/25 Wed The doomsaying on the impact of the NIL and transfer portal on Ivy League Football is overblown. Sure, some great players will be lost. But others will be gained as a result of less Power Four offers going to good players coming out of high school. Power Four programs now have reduced roster limits and transfers are taking up many of their roster vacancies. The Ivy League should be able to recruit better players from high school as a result. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: An Alternative Perspective on the State of Ivy League Athletics Author: IvySportsJunkie [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 09:30:04 07/23/25 Wed Good points Son of Eli. I mentor several Ivy athletes who overall express how very pleased they are with the state of Ivy athletics and their personal student athlete experiences. While they would love to earn more NIL money, they deeply appreciate several relatively unique aspects of the Ivy football experiences: 1) they bond with their fellow teammates since there are almost no transfers in and very few transfers out 2) they have better idea of when they will earn their respective turn at playing time compared to schools that continually bring in loads of new transfers each year 3) coaches are very supportive of the Ivy emphasis on academics and players taking prestigious summer internships with consulting, investment banking, private equity, and tech jobs that lead to highly coveted jobs 4) there is an unparallel network of alumni who help mentor players opening jobs to summer internships and post-graduate jobs (there is almost 100% placement of very good jobs after graduation) 5) a high percentage of players elect to go to graduate schools with similar pipeline advantages to MBA, law, MD and other professional graduate school programs. The Ivy football players earn less money during college, but they earn far more post graduation to allow them to more than make up for it within their first 10 years after college. The only schools that can compete with the above five advantages are the academic oriented D1 power conference schools (e.g., Stanford, Notre Dame, Duke, Vanderbilt, etc.) There is a relatively large pool of elite football players with Ivy type of academic qualifications who are just off the recruiting radar of these relatively limited options at academic oriented D1 power conference schools. We still should put out a fairly good football product that remains far, far above the D3 product. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: An Alternative Perspective on the State of Ivy League Athletics Author: sparman [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 09:55:38 07/23/25 Wed An initially startling, but upon consideration not unexpected, assessment of the value of college football teams (i.e., the price that would be paid to buy a "college" football program, which many surmise is the logical outcome of the current direction) as prelude to the forthcoming private equity college football era: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6500596/2025/07/21/college-football-program-valuations-rankings-2025/?source=athletic_pulsenewsletter&campaign=14262920&userId=11715779 Summary: Texas is #1 at $2.38 billion. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Hmmm.... Author: Go Green [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:13:50 07/23/25 Wed I'm guessing that Memphis has many of the same ideas... [ Post a Reply to This Message ]