A brisk Sunday morning, the smell of grass and the feeling of a cool breeze whisking through your ears. This is football weather, and this combination of elements draws millions of people to football fields throughout the country every weekend, but not at Cabrini.
Last month, our crosstown rivals, Eastern University, announced that they would be sponsoring an NCAA Division 3 football team beginning spring 2023.
“We look forward to the many ways this will positively impact the student experience at Eastern,” Eastern University athletic director, Eric McNelley, said. “With the addition of football as well as cheer, dance and a pep band, students will have more opportunities to engage with our athletic department in a variety of ways.”
This announcement and the positive reasoning behind it begs the question, should Cabrini University offer football?
To answer this question, I set out to gauge public opinion on this issue as ultimately it would be nearly impossible for Cabrini to sponsor a football team without support from the student body and faculty.
The first person I spoke to was Cabrini student Sean Beers. Beers is a freshman attacker on the Cabrini men’s lacrosse team and loves the idea of the school sponsoring a football team.
“I think it would be a good idea,” Beers said. “Everybody wants football and bringing a tailgate type mentally to Cabrini would be a positive thing for the student body.”
It’s really hard for me to argue with that sentiment from Beers and the consensus among some of my fellow students that I spoke to off the record was very similar.
Football brings people together, and a lot of students believe that this would be a good thing for Cabrini.
I then sought out to hear what the Cabrini faculty had to say about this proposal.
I spoke to longtime Cabrini communications professor, John Doyle, to get his take on if he believes that sponsoring football would be a good move for the university.
Doyle, while recognizing the positives that football could bring to the school, was much more cautious in his approach to the school adding a football program than the majority of the students I spoke to. Doyle was clear to acknowledge the potential positives that football could bring to Cabrini, and to the Communication department.
It has been a big point of emphasis among the department to expand their live streaming capabilities and to produce more original content. Therefore, it is an exciting prospect for Doyle to have another event for the department to collaborate with athletics to live stream.
However, Doyle said that he would like to see the financial investment placed into starting a football program show a return on that investment with the revenue from the investment being placed into academic aspects of the college, like income and enrollment.
This comment by Doyle opened my eyes as I had not even thought of the financial implications of starting a football program.
This led to me doing my own research and breaking down the numbers, and the financial implications of starting a football program at Cabrini.
According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the average cost annually to support a Division 3 sports team is just over 72,000 dollars. This yearly median investment leads to a median yearly return of around 160,000 dollars.
Judging by the numbers, Division 3 football is a cost effective option for a school like Cabrini, which objectively speaking is not exactly a wealthy institution.
Cabrini University has an endowment of 38.9 million, which is honestly not the greatest amount of money for a 4-year private college.
However, Eastern University has an endowment of only 30.5 million, and they are the local school starting a football program after all.
So if Eastern can do it, why can’t Cabrini?
By looking at the statistics, this could be a cost-effective way for the university to make a little bit of extra cash without investing tons of money into a program.
Combining this with the fact that a football team would boost school spirit and that the majority of the students I spoke to would like a football team, it seems like a slam dunk proposal to me.
Starting a football program would be a good idea in my opinion and definitely something that Cabrini should consider.
