This research is the most accurate description of college sports’ participation patterns to date, shows that both men’s and women’s sports participation have increased over the past 25 years. It examines factors, including Title IX and athletic expenditure growth, impacting today's college sports participation trends, which vary widely by sport. Changes in high school sports participation, rising health care costs, increased numbers of international students, and college recruitment are explored, as well as the implication of these participation trends on college sports’ diversity.
Critics of Title IX regularly claim that men’s intercollegiate athletic participation has severely declined over time. But these claims could not be properly vetted in the past, because the research community had not produced the necessary body of evidence. In the past year, however, two separate and rigorous examinations of athletic participation data provided clear evidence that both men’s and women’s participation have actually increased during the last 15 years (Cheslock, 2007; Government Accountability Office, 2007).
Although past research has now clearly identified how athletic participation has changed, it has not provided as much evidence on the factors that drove these changes. Past debates usually attribute participation trends to two factors: Title IX and rapid athletic expenditure growth in men’s basketball and football. This report presents new evidence for both. The three lines of inquiry undertaken for Title IX all produce the same conclusion: Athletic programs have responded to Title IX pressures by increasing women’s participation rather than by decreasing men’s participation.
The analysis of athletic expenditures is limited by the poor quality of available data. Higher education institutions do not utilize clearly defined accounting standards and often underreport important costs, such as coaching salaries and the costs of facilities. These flaws make it difficult to directly estimate the effect of expenditure growth on participation opportunities. However, the available data can still provide insights into whether or not athletic expenditures are growing at unsustainable rates that make it difficult for athletic programs to expand participation opportunities or even maintain current levels. The findings in this report clearly suggest that expenditure growth is restraining participation opportunities.
Title IX and rapid athletic expenditure growth by themselves cannot explain why participation in certain sports like lacrosse and soccer has grown steadily over time for both men and women while participation in other sports (such as gymnastics, tennis and wrestling) has plateaued or declined. A complete explanation of these trends would incorporate the large number of factors that can simultaneously influence athletic directors and college presidents when they choose what sports to offer. This report does not examine every such consideration, but it does review the four for which available data provide meaningful insight: the influence of shifts in high school participation trends on intercollegiate sports offerings; the impact of rising health care costs on sports with high injury rates; the increased number of international student-athletes in particular sports; and the rise of enrollment management strategies that favor sports with athletes who are well prepared academically, able to pay high tuition prices, and diverse in terms of race and ethnicity. The findings suggest that a number of less prominent considerations in the Title IX debate have collectively influenced the rise and fall of individual sports.
The substantial variation in participation trends across sports has altered the extent of racial and ethnic diversity within college athletics. For men, some of the largest participation growth occurred in football and track and field, two sports that contain some of the highest levels of racial and ethnic diversity. For women, the initial sponsorship decisions after the passage of Title IX favored female sports with the highest levels of racial and ethnic diversity, but more recent sponsorship decisions favored female sports with fewer athletes of color. This latter shift is not surprising, because most of the female sports in which athletes of color regularly participate are already sponsored by most NCAA institutions. As a result, efforts to increase the extent of racial and ethnic diversity within many sports are needed to ensure that the participation levels for athletes of color continue to increase.