University of Minnesota student-athletes recorded a Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 80 percent, according to the NCAA’s latest GSR report.

The GSR report, released by the NCAA today, represents data from first-time freshmen, student-athletes who entered at midyear, as well as student-athletes who transferred into the University of Minnesota between 2001 and 2004.

The 80-percent figure is a one-point increase over the GSR released last year by the NCAA for Minnesota. It is also the highest total posted by Gopher student-athletes since the NCAA began releasing Graduation Success Rate figures in 2005.

“Academic success and degree-completion are essential elements of the student-athlete experience and I am pleased that our overall Graduation Success Rate continues to rise,” director of athletics Joel Maturi said. “This improvement is the result of the collective effort, not just of student-athletes, but also our coaches, faculty and McNamara Academic Center staff. Together, we will continue striving to see that the graduation rates of our student-athletes keep heading in a positive direction.”

The NCAA also released Federal Graduation Rates in the report, which counts all student-athletes who transfer from or leave an institution for any reason as non-graduates from their initial school, even if they leave in good academic standing and subsequently graduate from another institution.

While the report showed that Minnesota’s four-class average Federal Graduation Rate remained steady at 66 percent, the Federal rate for the 2004-05 class (64 percent) did slip compared to the Federal rate for the 2003-04 class (70 percent). This drop, in large part, was due to an unusual number of student-athlete transfers from the university in the 2004-05 class and is not considered to represent a downward trend in student-athlete graduation rates.

As a result, the Federal Graduation Rates for student-athletes dipped below the Federal Graduation Rate for all University of Minnesota students (70 percent) for just the second time in the last 13 years. According to projections, however, this appears to be an anomaly of the 2004-05 class and Federal Graduation Rates for student-athletes are expected to return to the 70-percent level with next year’s announcement of figures for the 2005-06 class (the 2002-03 and 2003-04 cohorts graduated at federal rate of 71 percent and 70 percent, respectively).

“The figures in the Federal Graduation Rate portion of the NCAA announcement are disappointing, but not unexpected, due to the number of transfers we had in one class,” Maturi said. “Looking forward, we project this figure to rebound quickly next year based on the data available.”

Graduation Success Rates for Minnesota’s women’s programs continue to excel. Ten of 11 programs posted GSRs of 80 percent or better, with seven posting scores above 90 percent. Golf, tennis and volleyball each registered perfect scores of 100 percent.

On the men’s side, five of the 10 programs registered GSR scores of 80 percent or better, led by tennis (100), gymnastics (89) and cross country/track & field (88). Hockey (+11) made one of the largest improvements among the men’s sports, with football (+3) and basketball (+1) also making gains.

The Graduation Success Rate was created by the NCAA in 2005 to more accurately reflect actual graduation rates by including transfer data in the calculation.

For more information on Graduation Success Rates, please visit www.ncaa.org.

Notes:

• Minnesota’s overall athletic department GSR of 80 percent is an all-time high.
• Minnesota’s overall GSR has improved from 67 percent in 2005 to 80 percent today.
• Graduation Success Rates for Minnesota football student-athletes have moved up steadily since the NCAA began reporting graduation figures in 2005, jumping from 41% to 59%.
• Minnesota men’s basketball GSR figures have improved by more than double in the past seven years.
• Men’s hockey GSR numbers continue on a positive trajectory. Men’s hockey has added 25 points in the last five years to its GSR.

-UM-

By David Lieberman, USA TODAY

Radio stations are receiving a surprisingly strong signal from audiences and the financial markets this year, even as they face intensifying competition from satellite and Web-based audio services including Sirius XM Satellite Radio XM and Pandora.

 An average of 241.6 million people 12 and older listened to conventional radio stations each week last year, an increase of 2.1 million over 2009 — and up 4.9% vs. 2005, according to an annual study that media and marketing research company Arbitron released Monday.

 ”Radio is much stronger than the general perception of it has been,” says Carol Hanley, Arbitron’s executive VP of sales and marketing.

 The report follows the announcement this month of the biggest radio deal in years: Cumulus Media, the No. 2 station owner, agreed to buy No. 3 Citadel Media for cash and stock that values Citadel at $2.4 billion.

 Cumulus will have 572 stations if federal antitrust officials approve the union. That would trail industry leader Clear Channel, with more than 850 stations.

The industry still faces challenges. From 2000 through 2010, teens and young adults cut their radio-listening time in half as they became infatuated with the Internet, cellphones and video games, Edison Research reported.

For the entire USA Today article, click below. 

[Read More...]

By Diego Vasquez
Jan 18, 2011

Advertisers like to target college sports fans because they tend to be affluent and educated. But advertisers’ options aren’t limited to big-money sports like football and basketball.

College hockey games also draw an attractive audience for advertisers. More than three-quarters are under age 55, and nearly two-thirds make at least $50,000 a year.
 
With relatively low ticket prices and lots of weekend games, college hockey is a family-friendly sport, allowing advertisers to get in front of kids and parents alike.
 
Many games are also televised regionally, giving advertisers reach beyond fans in the arena.
 
To find out how to get your client at college hockey games, read on.
 
This is one in a Media Life series on buying out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.

[Read More...]

More than 39 million adult women across the country are fans of college football, whether or not they live in a location that has a major team. On a local level, women make up a significant portion of game attendees. For example, nearly half (48%) of adults who attended a University of Georgia football game during the past year were women.

This is a great thing to note for those of you that are trying to reach the female demographic. Download the article (PDF) here.

Here are some reasons for the recent comeback of radio: Radio attracts more ad dollars this year than it has in a decade.  National radio spending increased 19% during the past year, local a modest 2%, digital a solid 18% this year, contributing to an industry wide grand total gain of 6%, according to a brief titled “Radio Results Best in a Decade” by the Center for Media Research and published in the June 2, 2010 issue of Mediapost(1).  How can this be?  In the era of commercial free subscription radio, ipods and mobile TV, why do agencies and advertisers still see radio an important part of the media mix?  [Read More]

Radio is on its way to becoming a new medium called Audio, according to this study. Listeners are tuning in via many channels including Internet radio, podcasts and satellite radio, which are contributing audience growth. Not all newer digital audio technologies are growing audience however — the study notes that HD Radio continues to struggle both with the lack of audience and a static number of stations converting to the HD platform of delivery. [Read more...]

New Forecast Predicts Slow But Welcome Growth, Fed in Part By Growing Online Operations

By Nat Ives

Published: March 24, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The radio industry, one of the hardest-hit sectors of the media business in 2009, got another piece of good news today when a new forecast predicted not just a slight increase for 2010 but several years of compounding growth — fueled partly by growing operations on the web.

The predicted turnaround will be slight, leaving radio revenue in 2014 still shy of its 2008 level, but will be welcome nonetheless. The new forecast follows recent indications from other sources that radio’s several years of revenue declines could finally end in 2010. It also joins broader forecasts suggesting that the worst is behind other media sectors as well. [Read more...]

Some Good News About the Economy

Here are some excerpts from a recent piece on the economy from our bankers, Central Bank: 

• In response to massive coordinated policy responses around the world, financial conditions have largely returned to normal, thereby setting the stage for healthier earnings and a recovery in most of the world’s economies.
• If history were to repeat itself, the market would continue to rise in the coming year. Since 1949, stocks have posted an average second-year increase of 15% versus an average first-year advance of 32%. In support of this positive outlook, Zacks Investment Research is now forecasting a 2010 growth rate of 31.74%.
• We continue to expect a more significant pullback to occur followed by a recovery to new highs by year end. Top performing sectors through February include Industrials (+3.3%), Consumer Discretionary (+2.2%), Financials (+1.9%), Consumer Staples (+1.4%) and Health Care (+0.4%).
• The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.7% in February.
• The Fed Funds target rate remains in a range of 0.00% to 0.25% while the Discount Rate was raised to 0.75% in February, 2010. The Prime Rate is now 3.25% vs a level of 3.25% one year ago. Markets are now expecting the Fed to modestly raise rates later this year.

Great to see our Gophers on this list!  Another example of the great value and power that Gopher Men’s Basketball and other Gopher Sports provide!

METHODOLOGY: Forbes’ Schwartz noted college teams “have value in terms of what kind of dividends they pay to their stakeholders.” Dividend money is “what’s left for the team’s university (for academic purposes, including scholarship payments for players) and athletic department (to support non-revenue sports) after the cost of running the basketball operation in question.” It also includes “what’s generated for its conference (the distribution of tournament revenue) and the community around the university (estimated incremental spending by visitors to the county that’s attributable to the program).” The first two factors “were given the most weight” in the rankings.

Our long-time partners are aware of this loyalty.  The pageantry and passion of collegiate athletics lends itself tremendously to sponsor loyalty, as many of our fans have a direct tie to the University.  This is what differentiates Gopher Athletics from the professional sports, where there in almost all cases no direct tie.

Sweet-Spots-in-Sponsor-Loyalty[1]