Higher ed bubble? What higher ed bubble?

Red Alert Politics reports.

University athletics spend millions on stickers

As tuition continues to rise and student debt mounts, university athletics departments are spending millions on large stickers.

A USA Today investigation into “facility graphics work” of 29 football teams in the Football Bowl Series found the fad has grown exponentially since 2007.

Between 2007 and 2010, combined projects cost less than $500,000 a year. By 2014, it exceeded $3 million.

Mississippi State University Athletic Director Scott Stricklin compared the graphics work for a new facility to carpet for a new house.

“These visual accessories are now being treated as a standard cost component of updating facilities or constructing new ones,” Rachel Axon writes for USA Today.

The work isn’t limited to stadiums and publicly accessible facilities. Locker rooms, practice facilities, and office space has gotten the sticker shock treatment.

The graphics range from past achievements and motivational quotes to logo designs and branding.

Part of that push has come from schools trying to keep up with one another. Previously referred to as an “athletics arms race,” the pressure goes beyond top college programs. When a top-tier program has flashy graphic work, second-tier programs follow suit for recruitment purposes. If a flashy sports program is good for the top, the reasoning goes, it can pull up the middle too.

One company that does graphics work, Advent, shifted from corporate work to university work. Forty Nine Degrees, a competing firm, claims that 90 percent of its work comes from colleges.

Whether stickers attract athletes is hard to answer. Athletic departments claim that it helps, but no work has been done. While it’s doubtful a star running back would decide because he liked the graphics in the practice facility, the argument isn’t too far off. The investment in graphics could signal that the university has a lot of money siphoned to improve athletic success. Support could be there, if not a strong record at the end of the season.