<p>I personally don't think UT-Dallas should invest the time and money in D-1 sports (certainly not now) but I wonder if there will ever come a day when they would.</p>
<p>With 10 D-1 football programs and more schools that play D-1 in other sports, the field is already overcrowded. In order to be competitive, there would likely have to be some academic compromise that I don't think UT-D is willing to make for some athletes. However, if they were to choose not to lower the bar for anyone, the school likely would not even be remotely competitive at any D-1 sport while taking on great expense.</p>
<p>Would UT-D's profile be enhanced or diminshed by adding D-1 sports?</p>
<p>i dont think we’re big enough to be division 1 anytime soon. for sports to be profitable, you need a lot of people to go to the games, which i dont see happening at utd right now</p>
<p>Butler is in the final four with 4,000 undergrads. Basketball would be the biggest bang for our buck.</p>
<p>This is true. A basketball team only needs one or two great players and some depth…and you can compete. Football requires lots of great players, money etc. Huge investment.</p>
<p>Football is 10+ years away if ever.</p>
<p>Basketball is something to think about. The Dallas area has lots of great athletes and all you need a one or two players that are really good to be better than at least the dallas area schools (tcu, smu, unt). Small size gym would mean less required attendance to fill up and better atosphere for people that actually do so up. The cost/benefit is def. there imo…</p>
<p>except utd wont attract any good bball players if they wont give out any athletic scholarships</p>
<p>well yeah…this would be contingent on the school deciding to become D-II or D-1. I think it would be a good “icing on the cake” type deal. After the school reaches a level where it’s reputation matches the high quality education…I could see this happening…of course our school is unique in that many of our alumni may not care as much as the alumni of other schools. This will work once the reputation of the school catches up to the quality that students experience every day. Unfortunately, reputation is often the hardest feather to stick into your cap.</p>
<p>It will never happen. Well, at least not anytime soon. They’re trying to make UTD into a MIT/Caltech of the South. Like someone posted before, they won’t give athletic scholarships for the same reason MIT doesn’t give them, it hurts the school’s academics. I think UTD will be DIII in sports for a long time.</p>
<p>D-1 sports CAN hurt your academics…but that only happens when the school has a strong desire to make lots of money and win championships. Also, I think that a school can be successful in the “country club” sports like Stanford or UCLA and maintain it’s academic standards. The problem is when a school wants to keep high standards and have success in football and basketball. Rare is the school that has great academics and is always competitive in the big 2 money-making college sports.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think that while academics are the biggest consideration, financial motivations are also important. D-1 sports are expensive and we lack the donations/alumni base to sustain it. The vast majority of schools bleed money from their D-1 programs anyway.</p>
<p>There are good basketball players out there that are good students and would definitely choose a UTD type school over some of the others. It would only take one or two quality players to make a difference.</p>