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How much does basketball success help with football recruiting?

Impact of basketball success on football recruiting?

  • It helps a lot

    Votes: 16 28.6%
  • It helps a little

    Votes: 32 57.1%
  • No impact

    Votes: 8 14.3%

  • Total voters
    56

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
There's no way to know for certain if the football team would have gotten 2 commitments this month and if the level of interest from all our recruiting targets would be the same if our hoops team sucked.

However...

1. Conventional wisdom is that it works the other way and that football success drives success in other sports through increased publicity and money. Basketball does that to, albeit to a lesser extent.

2. It is known that Embree has been utilizing the tremendous atmosphere of our home basketball games as a part of his recruiting weekends. This may be more important for us than other places since we could have weather issues during a December/January official visit and also because Embree backloads a lot of OVs to that time period.

3. The rise of the basketball program dovetails with a lot that Embree is selling to recruits. Colorado is seen as an athletic department on the rise in Pac-12 country (as Embo talks about). Also, a lot of the hoops success can be tied to a major upgrade to practice facility, training room, and home arena (exactly the plan that's on the table for football and about 10x bigger).

4. The fan base is energized now that we have a winner again in a spotlight program. That drives donations and other support. It also increases the impact of our success in Skiing, T&F and Women's Golf (along with adding WLAX) to further demonstrate that CU athletics are on a major upward swing. This momentum is something that the so-called Olympic Sports can't deliver on their own, but on the coattails of success in the big revenue sports they re-inforce the message in a big way.

I'm a believer that hoops success actually has a big impact on football recruiting. It's coming as a surprise to me, because I just thought of it. It wasn't something I'd really considered before.
 
I dont think you can discount the hype around the buffs and the C Unit during the P12 tourney. Probably not a huge help with the average recruit but if that recruit is getting mail from the buffs, I am betting he pays attention to that sort of thing. I have a feeling we will see alot of copycats on that move next year.

On another note it will be interesting to see if B Ball turned a profit this year.
 
It certainly seems to be helping.....

I would add that this past basketball season actually showed that the CU AD is committed to WINNING! It took a lot of years for many of our fans to believe that our AD had moved beyond the Hoffman era attitude that winning was not a priority. Sending fans to LA and ABQ sent a strong message to the country that if the teams can be competitive the administration is now willing to do whatever is within their means to help them be successful. I would imagine that the Hoffman quotes were still being used in recruiting battles until quite recently - not so much anymore!
 
2. It is known that Embree has been utilizing the tremendous atmosphere of our home basketball games as a part of his recruiting weekends. This may be more important for us than other places since we could have weather issues during a December/January official visit and also because Embree backloads a lot of OVs to that time period.

I think this is the biggest benefit. It really helps to give the recruits a feel for the game-day atmosphere, even during the off-season. That's a huge benefit.
 
I think this is the biggest benefit. It really helps to give the recruits a feel for the game-day atmosphere, even during the off-season. That's a huge benefit.

Yeah. Embree and his staff use a line that goes something like, "Imagine this only with 5 times as many students and fans after running out behind Ralphie."
 
Maybe. Ask Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona and Syracuse how much it helps.

I thought about this, but as everyone already knows, their football programs have historically been weak. On the other hand, Embree can point out to our recruits and say "We've been here before with football and we will do it again". We have national and conference titles, tradition to supplement the selling point.
 
Helps a some. Getting the CU name out when there is no football can never be a bad thing. Having recruits see the C unit during the PAC championship and the announcers really talking up the fan support during the NCAA is also great, but ultimately winning football games is what football players care about.
 
Maybe. Ask Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona and Syracuse how much it helps.
Cuse has a pretty similar tradition to ours in football except we have more conference titles where as they have more wins and one more bowl win among others. The rest though I agree with though.
 
Cuse has a pretty similar tradition to ours in football except we have more conference titles where as they have more wins and one more bowl win among others. The rest though I agree with though.

Yeah. Syracuse is a historically excellent football program. Their big issue has been that they haven't improved the Carrier Dome in a long time (plus it's a much better basketball venue) and they have handled coaching changes badly (Ray Rice was committed before the idots fired Paul Pasqualoni and hired Greg Robinson).
 
Its helps with football as much as football helps with basketball....a little....never heard a kid turn down Kentucky because their football program isn't very good, but have heard the basketball players say they like the environment of the football game
 
Its helps with football as much as football helps with basketball....a little....never heard a kid turn down Kentucky because their football program isn't very good, but have heard the basketball players say they like the environment of the football game

At the tail ends of the program prestige bell curve, I don't think it matters much. For the rest of the world, I think it's a different story.
 
It helps, but it's a moderate boost, at best. The biggest positives are obviously having recruits visit and seeing a packed Keg that highlights CU having the best fanbase in the Pac-12. Also, just getting the CU 'brand' out there more in general serves as a positive. I don't think it should be overstated, however.
 
I think it helps by showing potential football recruits that the school as a whole isn't a loser. It helps a positive CU brand, and shows that we do have some interest in winning.
 
I think any pub is good pub and helps some. Is a huge boost, not but Embo can sell the turn around and investment aspect. Helps him sell his vision. Both programs getting investment in facilities helps more but good press never hurts.
 
I agree good publicity can only help. Doubt there was any imlact on the first two commits, though.
 
Basketball success raises the overall profile of the school. While I think the positive impact may be negligible, it certainly does not hurt.
 
Basketball success raises the overall profile of the school. While I think the positive impact may be negligible, it certainly does not hurt.

This.

I don't know that it has a direct impact. It might get CU on the list of some guys who wouldn't have put them on the list before. Then it's up to the football coaches to close the deal.
 
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