Book Review #4

Citation:

Roy, Donald P., Timothy R. Graeff, and Susan K. Harmon. "Repositioning a University through NCAA Division I-A Football Membership." Journal of Sport Management 22.1 (2008): 11-29. Print.

Summary:

This source talks about the marketing and business side of having a NCAA Divison I-A sports team.  Most of the discussion is related to football, because football is a high exposure sport.

Author:

This source is from a scholarly, peer reviewed journal.

Terms:

Brand Awareness- Exposure, synonymous to many of the terms I have been already using

Brand Positioning- Identity, what the brand means to your target audience

Quotes:

“College football has an impact on several stakeholders, with three key stake holder groups being students, alumni, and local communities” (Roy 11).

This statement is the core of my argument, because it demonstrates the connection between Div- 1A sports and privatization.  Privatization means that less of a universities’ funding is going to come from the government, so the university must draw money from other sources.  Three main sources for the university to seek money from are student attendance, alumni donations, and support from its surrounding community.  The need to associate, and profit from these other parties show the importance of branding, and why universities must create a strong brand image.  The bottom line is always monetary,

“Brand Equity is the added value a brand gives to a product” (Roy 15).

“Brand image is defined as perceptions about a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in consumer memory” (Roy 15).

These two quotes are definitions I find myself using often in my writing.  I will likely add these definitions to the introduction of my paper, because they come from a scholarly source, and hold more weight than my own words.

“Brands that are familiar to consumers are more likely to elicit positive associations about the brand that make up the brand’s favorable image” (Roy 15).

“Such as image can extend beyond an institution’s athletic programs to become the overall image one holds for the institution” (Roy 15).

These two quotes will add more weight to my counter argument against Dowling’s “Confessions of a Spoilsport”.  They perfectly contradict Dowling’s argument he dubs “Everyone knows O.J.”.  Dowling suggests that athletics draws undesirable types of students to a university. He calls them party animals.  Here the author explains how athletics can boost the image of all aspects of an institution, even those unrelated to athletics, such as academics.

“By moving their football teams to NCAA Division IA football membership, universities can reposition their athletic brand using product category as a basis for positioning, benefiting from shared associations with established IA institutions” (Roy 17).

Product Category is a type of association that a university can use as a part of its brand image.  This means that a school does not have to be a top athletic program to benefit from IA membership.  Simply competing at the highest level causes a team that is not necessarily elite to be associated with the elite.  The association is made in the mind of the consumers, and increases the brand value in the mind of consumers.

Conclusion:

This source is very important for two important reasons. The first reason is that it gives credibility to the claims I make about flaws in the counterargument.  More importantly, is that this source will allow me to shed more light upon the financial and privatization aspect of my topic.  (The first quote I listed in the above section is what I am referring to.)

To sum it up simply, creating a favorable brand image helps to fight against the decrease in funding universities are experiencing, by opening up new avenues in which to receive funding.  I hope to find another source to help elaborate on this aspect of my topic.