How University Athletic Program Success Associates with University Prestige Via the Halo Effect for Different Types of Universities

Athletic program success may be a way for universities to achieve prestigious status. The halo effect may allow perceptions of athletic programs to be extended to other aspects of the university. This process was hypothesized not only to occur, but to occur to a differing extent across university types. I predicted that universities that are new, secular, public, outside of the Northeastern United States, and that do not have name designations would show the greatest gains in prestige upon achieving high athletic success. Regression analyses tested the relationship between expert ratings of universities and athletic success rates of major football and basketball sports programs. Results indicated a positive association between athletic success rates and university prestige. This process did not significantly vary by university types. Results also showed expert ratings of universities highly correlated with those of non-experts, indicating that expert assessment is a good proxy for typical prestige perceptions.