Impending Enrollment Cliff Turning Universities into Pro Sports Team Partners

Pro sports teams and local colleges are two of the highest-profile institutions in any city. But formal links between them have never been commonplace. 

That’s changing.

The increasing need to compete for applicants and the rising popularity of sports-focused majors, on one side, and a growing desire to boost revenues and recruit better employee talent on the other, are bringing schools and franchises together. The nexus is Cincinnati, where all three major sports teams —the Bengals, Reds, and FC Cincinnati— have struck partnerships with area universities over the past 11 months.

The Reds are the latest to do so, signing a 10-year deal with Xavier in January. Last March, the Bengals agreed to a four-year pact with Miami University, and last summer FC Cincinnati finalized a long-term partnership with the University of Cincinnati.

These transactions differ from traditional ad signage buys (think: when the University of Phoenix had its name on the Arizona Cardinals’ venue). In each case, the deal includes guaranteed internship spots and other work opportunities with the clubs, while also bringing franchise executives onto campus as guest speakers and in a mentorship capacity.

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There are plenty of examples of tie-ups between pro teams/leagues and schools. Earlier this month, 17 students from Nichols College earned class credit for helping the NFL’s operations teams in the lead-up to the Super Bowl. 

Club owners are often high-profile boosters for their alma mater too (see: Mark Cuban supporting Indiana University, alongside JohnWallStreet, at the CFP National Championship Game).

The Cincinnati deals are different. They are long-term pacts that include internship and job-shadowing opportunities, in addition to traditional marketing components like school advertising in stadiums.

Higher education “historically hasn’t been a category that [teams] have been involved with,” Chad Munitz (Chief Revenue Officer, FC Cincinnati) said. 

But with local rights revenues having declined (or under pressure), clubs are beginning to look outside the box for new sponsors.

Munitz declined to discuss financials, but local news reports peg the FC Cincinnati deal as being worth ~$2 million/year. The partnership between the Bengals and Miami, the school where team owner Paul Brown matriculated, is for four years at a reported $2.6 million per. 

However, the three Cincinnati partnerships all extend beyond in-stadium branding.

The UC deal aligns with FC Cincinnati’s core commitment to be good stewards for the local community.

“We do a lot with elementary and high school facilities in the neighborhood and continuing that up through higher education is important to us,” Munitz said. 

Roughly three-quarters of Cincinnati undergrads hail from Ohio.

More practically, the arrangement will place eight to 10 Bearcat students into school-exclusive internships with the club annually. 

“Talent is the key to any business…and [these partnerships] add to our pipeline,” Munitz said. 

Remember, the MLS club isn’t just competing with the other pro teams in the market for top talent. Cincinnati is the home to six Fortune 500 companies, including Procter & Gamble and GE Aerospace. 

“We have [needs for] accountants, HR professionals, IT, and [top candidates] could go lots of places for internships,” Munitz said.

The soccer club wants those individuals inside its organization.

Miami of Ohio said the Bengals originally pitched a traditional brand visibility campaign, but the school wanted an aspect of the deal to benefit its student body. 

“We have a running list of internship opportunities [included in the partnership] … and we have specific academic programs, [including our] sports leadership and management degree (SLAM) program, that get to engage with the [the NFL franchise as part of it],” Ande Durojaiye (VP, Strategy and Partnerships, Miami University) said.

The school’s sports nutrition, marketing, and communications students also do some work for the team.

Historical data is hard to come by, but there has been a discernible jump in sports management and analytics majors in recent years. That has certainly been the case at Miami where Durojaiye said SLAM has become among the fastest growing programs at the university. 

The University of Cincinnati tells a similar story. Its sports administration major saw 494 students enroll last year, up ~50% from a decade earlier. 

For context, ~500 students are more than the school’s English, chemistry, sociology, and physics departments had—combined. 

Today, 722 schools offer some form of a sports management major (excluding sports medicine degrees), according to the College Board. These in-demand programs provide students with a pathway to work in one of the most visible and culturally relevant industries. And they are a way for colleges and universities to remain relevant with and differentiate themselves amongst Gen-Zs and Gen-As. 

“It’s an increasingly crowded market in higher education because of the demographic cliff,” Durojaiye said. “We want to use [sports management] as a recruiting tool, but we also want to use it as a tool for retention of our students once they are here as well.” 

2025 is expected to mark the peak in high school graduates for at least the next 15 years.

The hope is that sports management programs will help to spur renewed interest from teenage males, in particular. A decade ago, applicants were essentially divided evenly between genders. Last year, just 43% of applications at Xavier and 45% at Miami of Ohio and Cincinnati were men.

“We’ve got a finite amount of dollars we can invest. We want to invest them in places that are going to have the strongest ROI. With the Bengals, [we expect] that’s going to be pretty strong ROI for us,” Durojaiye added. 

Remember, the average in-state student pays between $27,000-$36,000 before financial aid at Cincinnati and Miami, both public schools. Xavier says its average student spend ~$35,000 a year after financial aid. 

In other words, each newly enrolled student adds meaningful dollars to the top line.