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The news that Erie Sports Commission will be hosting the National Club Basketball Association Men’s and Women’s Championships in April came at an opportune time to prove a key point.
That point: Multiple colleges are cutting sports but there are still chances for colleges to host sports at a lower cost and to market themselves to prospective students who want to play. These programs also present a unique revenue stream for destinations – as well as event owners.
Club sports present avenues for college athletes who are being displaced by the cuts to their programs. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of those in the news. (Student athletes are fighting back too; seven members of the Sonoma State student body, for example, have sued the school, claiming its decision to cut a number of programs, both athletic and academic, was kept under wraps, and that the school, in not announcing the cuts earlier, engaged in deceptive marketing practices to prospective students.)
Many of the sports being cut are labelled “non-revenue” sports; in other words, they don’t pack in the fans that basketball and football can. One of those is swimming; something to be aware of, however, is that the entire developmental pipeline for USA Swimming runs through college programs. In fact, according to Sarah Wilhelmi, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee's director of college partnerships, a whopping 88 percent of American summer Olympians in Rio had played their sport in college, and in the 2018 winter games, one-third of Americans were former college athletes.
Fortunately, college club programs are offering opportunities to students who want to continue being active and competing. One avenue for college swimmers displaced by program cuts is College Club Swimming, a program sponsored by US Masters Swimming that hosts a centralized database and provides rules, a calendar of events, results and other key data. A full list of the participating colleges can be found at this link.
Students who want to run have been gravitating toward the National Intercollegiate Running Club Association (NIRCA), the governing body and central point of communication for the college running community. The grassroots organization promotes networking and friendly competition amongst collegiate running, cross country, and track clubs. NIRCA coordinates many events, including a fall cross country season, Cross Country Championship Series, Road and Track Nationals and all-club conferences.
Tennis, another sport that is often on the chopping block, despite its NCAA championship status for both women and men, is welcoming student athletes to its Tennis on Campus club program. The program offers co-ed team-based play and sponsors championships for those wishing to compete at higher levels.
The PGA, for its part, sponsors the National Collegiate Club Golf Association, an initiative dedicated to the organization and promotion of collegiate club golf. More than 400 schools participate, according to the program.
The National Federation of Collegiate Club Sports Leagues, L.L.C. (CollClubSports) is a compilation of governing bodies which oversee collegiate club athletics in basketball, softball, football and baseball (the latter has separate programs for Divisions I, II and III.)
The U.S. Collegiate Ski & Snowboard Association hosts competition across 11 conferences in the United States, culminating in six Regional Competitions and the USCSA National Championships in March of each year.
And that’s just a few of the sports. USA Fencing | USA Parafencing offers its Collegiate Club Fencing program. For students who want to play club soccer, multiple organizations exist. And NIRSA, which oversees rec sports, has a championship series in soccer, flag football and basketball; it also partners with the USTA for Tennis on Campus.
The Collegiate Cricket League, announced in late 2024, will offer competition to a sport that is currently unregulated at the NCAA level. USA Triathlon offers its Collegiate Club Triathlon program. USA Pickleball offers a program for college clubs as well. And the list just keeps going on. The Collegiate Club Lacrosse Leagues program offers options for both men’s and women’s teams.
And all these are just examples. There are more, obviously.
All this presents a prime opportunity for event owners in various sports to market to an entirely new demographic. Generally, club participants enjoy the chance to compete against new opponents in order to keep their skills sharp. And provided event owners keep the entrance fees affordable (these are college students we’re talking about, after all), there’s a good chance they’ll keep coming back – maybe with friends. (Bonus point: Create a good relationship now and once they age out of college, those former students may come back to participate in future events or even just show up to volunteer.)
Marketing a program to club participants means learning about the colleges in your area, and then making outreach to them. Doing searches on the name of the sport followed by the term “college club” will generally lead to some good information.
Why are club sports such a good bet for event owners? The reason often has to do with the students themselves. Sometimes, the participants love their sport but do not have to commit to the rigorous schedule a varsity program would demand – although make no mistake, some club programs are very competitive in nature. And not having quite an intensive a schedule of practices and travel allows students to compete in tournaments and other events taking place in or near their area.
In some cases, students join club teams because their schools lack a program in that sport (or because that program has been cut), while in other cases, the school has both the club and the varsity program (defined as something governed by the NCAA or NAIA, for example) – and they attract different students.
The only point to note is that because fees for participation are generally borne by the students themselves, college club participants may not have the same type of funding as NCAA programs. That means high enrollment fees can be a deterrent to participation. A lower or discounted fee for club and rec programs, as well as money-saving options for lodging, can help to create a broader appeal. For example, some programs have encouraged local residents to act as host families for students during their stay at a tournament. Concordia University, for example, published these tips.
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