With two national championships in the past four months, the University’s athletics program is among the elite. Staying there, though, is no simple task.
Two years ago, the athletics department designed its first comprehensive plan to fully incorporate sports programs under the Duke umbrella.
The plan, commissioned by President Richard Brodhead in September 2007, was intended as a model to fuse the University’s academic and athletics departments. Completed in April 2008, “Unrivaled Ambition” emphasized collaboration among coaches, admissions officials and administrators to ensure the ongoing success of the program in a “rapidly evolving athletic universe.”
“The landscape of college athletics is constantly changing,” the plan reads. “Without a new model for funding athletics... we will not be able to retain our position and defend the brand that is so important to Duke’s continuing athletic and academic success.”
The plan proposed a $325 million campaign to enhance sports programs and implement renovations to compensate for increasing costs in student scholarships, recruitment, facilities maintenance and staff salaries. It tentatively recommended directing $75 million to the Iron Duke fund, $100 million to capital projects and $150 million to scholarship endowments.
But more than two years after the plan’s introduction, its goals have gone largely unrealized. The economic downturn sharply cut into athletics funding, squeezing individual sports program budgets by 7.5 percent, administrators said.
“The whole strategic plan is sort of on the shelf right now,” said Deputy Director of Athletics Chris Kennedy. “Not surprisingly, charitable giving has really taken a hit everywhere.... So all that stuff was put on hold.”
But the University’s legacy has long been bolstered by the continuing success of its athletics program. In the new age of shrinking costs, maintaining the strength of the Duke brand is becoming more about innovation—discovering new points of success without driving up costs.
A race to the top?
When Wallace Wade Stadium opened in 1929, the arena was equipped with 33,941 seats and admired for its innovation and design.
But until about two years ago, the stadium had not seen substantial improvements for almost 80 years. Its seating capacity remains at its 1929 level—the smallest in the ACC after Wake Forest University.
But in the age of the facilities “arms race,” having high quality facilities is all but necessary to ensure successful recruitment and a high fan turnout.
“When the University of North Carolina revamped its football stadium... it set in motion a tidal wave that swept across the ACC, reaching Duke in the late [’90s],” the plan reads. “The facilities message is simple: more or less continuous improvement is central to the ability to attract the best coaches and athletes and thus to win.”
For the most part, however, Duke has largely abstained from this arms race, choosing instead to direct funds at developing individual programs.
“We have been laggers in the arms race and we’ve done a lot but we haven’t done much compared to other people,” said Executive Vice President Tallman Trask. “The most obvious issue is Wallace Wade—the chicken or the egg problem. Do you fix it before [the fans] come, or do they come before you fix it?”
Improvements to Wallace Wade have, however, become a priority for the athletics department, Cragg said. Currently, members of the Bostock Group—consisting of influential donors and alumni including Roy Bostock, Trinity ’62—are considering plans to completely renovate the stadium, a project that could cost between $80 and $90 million, Trask said. Although the complete transformation of Wallace Wade may not be realized immediately, Cragg said improvements to the football program have yielded positive results on and off the playing field, which have led to financial donations.
“We’ve been fortunate for a lot of projects, no matter what the sport... to have donors and alums that have supported our priorities and efforts at capital improvement,” Cragg said.
Recruitment revamped
Crucial to protecting the Duke Athletics brand is continuing to attract world-class athletes—and it takes more than having high quality facilities.
Recruitment is often a lengthy process and costs upwards of $1 million annually. In 2006-2007, the athletics department spent about $1.2 million in recruitment, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Recruitment spending declined slightly to $1.09 million in 2008-2009, which Kennedy attributed to economic effects and regular fluctuations in the number of available spots on the teams.
Athletic recruitment, however, is a two-way street. On average, men’s basketball alone receives more than 1,000 athlete solicitations per year—including videos, letters, phone calls and e-mails, said David Bradley, recruiting coordinator for men’s basketball.
“I’m sitting in my office with stacks of letters and DVDs,” Bradley said, adding that parents often market their children. Bradley said he receives a lot of material from parents of students in middle school, and once received a letter from a parent of a second grade “athlete.”
In recent years, attempts to humanize the players on Duke’s teams seem to have paid off, Bradley said. Athletics personnel launched the Duke Blue Planet website in 2007 to market the softer side of the program to appeal to a wide range of recruits and fans.
“With us going into any recruiting situation, a lot of schools start with a clean slate. But everyone knows about Duke and everyone knows about Coach K,” Bradley said. “Our program has an image of intensity but there’s a different side [of Krzyzewski] when he’s away from the court.”
Evaluating Costs
Before the strategic plan was released, Athletics only received funding from two branches of the University—the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and the Pratt School of Engineering. After the plan’s approval, its funding base expanded to different schools of the University, allowing increased funding to the athletics department.
“[The] old assumption is that athletics is an undergraduate activity,” the plan reads. “This model, which was stretched to the breaking point in years past, now is clearly broken and needs to be replaced.”
Responding to this need, the University increased its subsidy for athletics from $7.2 million to $15 million in May 2008, drawing funds from various parts of the University.
Most of Athletics’ funding comes from the Iron Dukes fund, which covers about 80 percent of all athletic scholarships, according to the Iron Dukes Mission Statement and Purpose. Last year, the Iron Dukes donated about $10.7 million out of a total $13.3 million directed to athletically related student aid, according to the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act form.
Duke, like most of its peers, does not have financially profitable sports programs. According to a June 17 report released by the Knight Commission, only seven schools nationwide have been profitable in each of the past five years. Most schools with profitable athletics programs have 70,000-seat football stadiums and 30,000-seat basketball arenas, Trask said.
Cragg, however, said continuing athletics programs is important for fostering University culture and providing opportunities for “every class of student.”
“Historically, college athletics have always been run that way,” Cragg said. “Very few schools have the opportunity for revenue in most sports. It’s not just about the revenue producing.” Revenue does not capture the full value of the athletics programs, Cragg added.
As Trask noted, students at Duke do not pay an athletics fee to attend games on campus.
“We give students probably the most valuable seats in college basketball,” Trask said, estimating that individuals who sit on top of the student section donate about $25,000 per year.
Cragg pointed to the recent addition of the women’s rowing team, which is one of several Duke sports programs that do not generate revenue. The program, however, provides a niche for high school rowers who are looking for strong academic programs.
“It’s not just about the revenue producing of football or women’s basketball,” Cragg said. “It is an across-the-board appreciation for sports and opportunity. At no school in America is there just a cost-benefit analysis simply based on money. That’s not how it’s been done here.”
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