The Full Court (Online) Press: An Analysis of NCAA Website Volume and Popularity

Abstract

Administering NCAA athletic programs can be profitable or expensive for many colleges and universities in the United States, with revenues or debts totaling in the millions of dollars (Smith, 2019). However, no research has analyzed the relative popularity of NCAA websites compared to each other across NCAA Division (I, II, and III) and institutional sector (public or private), further exploring how NCAA programs promote themselves in online spaces and how these programs may compete on the Internet. As a result, this study analyzes 250 NCAA websites across all three NCAA divisions (I, II, and III) and public and private sectors to explore the popularity of NCAA websites through a website volume and backlink analysis. Results suggest Division I NCAA programs have much larger and more popular websites than their Division II and III peers, yet regression analyses reveal no statistical significance among public and private institutions in terms of website volume or popularity. Additionally, larger websites were associated with greater backlink levels suggesting that wealthier NCAA programs may be better positioned to publish larger, and thus more popular, websites than peers, possibly continuing to stratify NCAA athletics. Implications for NCAA finance, equity, and future research are addressed.

Keywords: higher education, NCAA, athletics, marketing, advertising, Internet