I’ll also second @wesleyan97 … Wes decided to get serious about sports when Roth took over in 2007. Before then, I remember Wes as enthusiastically playing the role of the NESCAC doormat in just about every sport. They hadn’t won a Little 3 football title in 25 years or thereabouts. Ridiculous. Now they’re one of the best in the NESCAC in this big sport. They’ve also been very competitive in baseball.
Roth’s pitch when he took over was, hey, these things cost a lot of $$ to run. If we’re going to do something, let’s do it well.
It is also well documented, at all levels in the academic pecking order and amongst all divisions, that the better you are at sports, the more enthusiastic your alumni base tends to be and the more money you get.
Take the University of Oregon for example. Historically not a power house across all sports, and a football doormat. They also have had a relatively small endowment. They’ve drastically increased their athletic profile and are among the best all-around D1 programs. They also just whizzed by the $1 billion mark in their just recently announced $2 billion fundraising campaign. And that’s without the big donation everyone is expecting Phil Knight to make. I’m guessing they’ll blow by the $2 B mark rather easily. Most of that is going toward the academic mission. Sports is a big reason for the support.
So I think your question about sports is a rather relevant one. It gives people incentive come back for homecoming weekend and those visits stir up feelings of nostalgia, and few things are more powerful as motivators to write checks.