It isn't my intention to dismiss anecdotal evidence, and your example wasn't exactly what I was referring to. I have read articles in sports publications and heard people discuss on sports radio how Alabama's campus is expanding and their application numbers have gone up. They directly attribute this to success in football and suggest that other schools should spend as much on football to get similar results. Like the old saying correlation doesn't prove causation. That line of thinking ignores schools like GT. GT's campus is expanding. 25 years ago it was thought that GT could not expand because it was land locked. It has expanded a little bit into the Home Park area, but a lot into the Midtown area where there is very expensive real estate. GT's applications numbers have gone up dramatically. There are many universities without football programs who are expanding. However, just like the previous statement non-correlated situations don't disprove causation.
To actually prove causation, someone would have to figure out the average growth rates of universities, then compare the growth rates of schools with successful sports programs to schools without successful programs. In fact, the comparisons would have to be broken down even more to account for other factors such as: STEM/non STEM schools, areas of the country, size of schools, etc. that have been increasing/decreasing. I don't think there is anyone who cares enough to actually do a study. I don't care enough to spend the time. Sports publications and radio shows don't really care, they just want to drive ratings/clicks.
