APRIL 16, 2025 | composed by STEVE ULRICH

What administrators, coaches, parents and fans are reading. #whyD3
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TOP STORY
1. ‘We Have More Athletes Than We Have Fans’

by Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education

“Athletics is the main attraction at Lourdes University, a private institution in Ohio, which offers 11 sports for men, 10 for women, and three that are co-ed.

Over the past dozen years, Lourdes has built a robust athletics program to bolster its enrollment. In one sense, that strategy has worked: In the fall of 2012, Lourdes had just 139 students who played in a varsity sport. In the fall of 2022, that number had grown to 448.

The problem for Lourdes, and many other small, private colleges, is that athletics has done little or nothing to attract students who don’t play sports. Despite more than tripling the number of students who participate in athletics, Lourdes saw its full-time undergraduate enrollment tumble from 1,285 in the fall of 2012 to just 691 in fall of 2022.”

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