April 2025
Collegiate Consulting Partners with Rice for Athletics Valuation Study
A recently completed valuation study by Collegiate Consulting found that the Rice University Athletic Department produced an advertising value of $562 million over the past three years. This branding and advertising impact is a result of athletic events via broadcast television, streaming and social media.
Collegiate Consulting gathered information from 2021 to 2024 via a mix of public and confidential data from Rice. The firm then created projections to substitute unidentified information to determine the total average annual economic impact of the Rice intercollegiate athletic program at $285 million annually and a three-year valuation of $854 million.
This study allows Rice to contextualize the value brought to the university’s athletics by branding and visibility, game-days, and the event valuation for Houston, and through personnel, student-athletes, and graduate’s economic impact.
Collegiate Consulting has conducted similar revenue and economic studies for several universities, including the University of Toledo and Valparaiso University, over the past 36 months.
Quick Bytes
- Florida State athletics brings comfort in response to tragedy
- In transfer portal, approximately 65% of DI basketball athletes either transferred down or did not find new school
- DIII Management Council supports deregulation of pro sports betting
- Stigma surrounding bowl opt-outs may have subsided
- Video review challenges approved in men’s and women’s soccer
- DII school Limestone to close campus & end athletics due to $30M debt
- NESCAC to participate in NCAA DIII Football Championship in 2026
- House settlement supplemental brief reveals U.S. District Court Judge’s concerns
- Academy of Art to discontinue athletics after academic year
- Trump’s Harvard foreign student ban would disrupt sports
- House bill seeks to prevent college athletes from being employees of schools
- Stanford softball sets NCAA single game attendance record
- University presidents, ADs, coaches & congressional staffers lobby for federal college sports bill
- Apparel makers face China exposure amid tariff Pause
- U.S. Representative files bill that would replace the NCAA
- NCAA Frozen Four men’s ice hockey semifinals’ crowd second-lowest in 21st century
What's the Word?
This month saw Collegiate Consulting turn 20! What started with one employee and one project in 2005 has become a firm recognized for the breadth and depth of its expertise across all intercollegiate athletics. Collegiate Consulting is proud of the last 20 years of success and excited for its next 20 years of growth.
Focused exclusively on working with intercollegiate athletic programs, athletic conferences and associations, Collegiate Consulting has worked with 750 institutions ranging from established, Division I programs, to assisting in building intercollegiate athletics from the ground up. Offered services include feasibility studies, strategic planning, operational studies, athletics valuation studies, executive search and placement, compliance reviews and sports sponsorship studies.
Collegiate Consulting has assisted 17 schools with their reclassification to NCAA Division I; 22 schools to Division II, and 10 to Division III or NAIA. Additionally, they have assisted with 45 successful coaching and athletic director searches. And for 10 years, their Annual Financial Reports had an annual circulation of 200 institutions across DI, DII, and DIII; and is the proud recipient of five NACMA Best of Awards.
Currently, Collegiate Consulting is working with 24 partners and recently began its first NON-athletic project. After 20 years, there is still plenty of time on the clock with unlimited eligibility for new projects.
ADs Reevaluate with Spring Seasons Nearing End
With spring sports winding down, many programs are using the time to get a jump on realignments, addition of new sports and key staff position hiring. Athletic departments adjust and adapt to change, but sometimes it requires a new leader. A vision sometimes has to be supported, verified and even justified to the board of trustees, alumni and the campus community.
Collegiate Consulting specializes in comprehensive Executive Searches and has the tools to provide an in-depth approach to making a thoughtful and beneficial hiring decision.
As we continue to partner with institutions of varying size and conference competition level, we are excited to explore opportunities for each new and existing clients. There are several moving pieces to research that give our university partners an expanded perspective for potential excellence.
We thrive on connection with our college athletic community, and we seek to champion their notable actions and achievements.
Please follow us so we can celebrate and elevate each other together.
