July 22, 2011

AKRON, Ohio – The University of Akron Department of Athletics has been announced as the national champion of the Excellence in Management Cup, presented by Texas A&M’s Laboratory for the Study of Intercollegiate Athletics. The Zips ranked No. 1 out of 120 Football Bowl Subdivision schools, including programs that compete in the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10 (now the Pac-12) and SEC.

View 2011 EM Cup final results in PDF format.

The purpose of the EM Cup is to raise awareness about NCAA athletics departments that are maximizing fiscal resources leading to championship victories. The Cup awards athletics departments that win the most conference and national championships while managing their expenses most efficiently.

The Zips earned this prestigious award thanks to one of most successful seasons in school history, winning UA’s first-ever NCAA team title and claiming a school-record-tying five Mid-American Conference championships.
 
“Winning this award is really a testament to the University’s support of intercollegiate athletics,” Akron Director of Athletics Tom Wistrcill said. “We are fortunate to have leadership on our campus who value how much a successful athletics program means to the University and the amount of positive exposure it provides our school. We also have outstanding coaches who recruit top-notch student-athletes, and this is an honor in which our entire department and University community can take pride."

The men’s soccer team highlighted the 2010-11 season by winning the national championship in December, concluding a storybook season that included a conference title along the way. Adding another first to the list, the men’s track and field program swept the indoor and outdoor MAC championships, capping a dominant season for the squad.
 
Winning its second conference title, the men’s basketball team made an exciting run through the MAC tournament to bring home another trophy and advance to the NCAA Tournament. Finally, in May, women’s tennis captured the final crown of Akron’s remarkable season by winning the first conference championship in program history after defeating top-seeded Miami (Ohio) in the finals of the league tournament.

The Excellence in Management Cup was established by the Laboratory for the Study of Intercollegiate Athletics (LSIA) at Texas A&M in order to determine who is the most economically efficient athletics department in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A). The unique yet simple scoring system awards more points to athletics departments for winning conference and national championships while efficiently managing their budget to do so. Other championship cups do not address natural competitive advantages given to universities that have higher operating budgets and play more sports, and thus have more opportunities to win championships.

Because athletics departments are unique from one another in size, economic strength and number of opportunities available to win championships, the EM Cup results are calculated using a formula to level the playing field. A database was created to tally the following information. National and conference champions are tallied for each NCAA and conference-specific sanctioned sport and awarded to the winners. More value is placed upon the national championships than conference championships in the formula. Then, each athletics department’s operating expenses and number of sports played at the university are entered into the database. This information was collected from the EADA reports and individual athletic department websites. In order to make the scores more manageable, the entire equation is multiplied by 100,000,000.

Excellence in Management Final Results Top 25:
1. Akron (MAC) – 2.517721953
2. Texas A&M (Big 12) – 1.901940513
3. Kent State  (MAC) – 1.714088643
4. Utah State  (WAC) – 1.624811522
5. Middle Tennessee State  (Sun Belt)  – 1.539971578
6. Louisiana Tech  (WAC)  – 1.299247545
7. Tulsa (Conference USA)  – 1.267803656
8. Boise State  (WAC)  – 1.258485842
9. Arkansas State  (Sun Belt)  – 1.093308645
10. Brigham Young  (Mountain West)  – 1.074595657
11. USC (Pacific-10)  – 1.068697131
12. UCF (Conference USA)  – 1.052526341
13. Fresno State (WAC)  – 1.043458411
14. Louisiana-Lafayette (Sun Belt)  – 1.011521718
15. Notre Dame (Big East)  – 1.000890107
16. Oklahoma State  (Big 12)  – 0.986840923
17. Stanford  (Pacific-10) – 0.978947837
18. Colorado (Big 12) – 0.96039901
19. Florida (SEC)  – 0.950246283
20. Toledo (MAC)  – 0.935649939
21. California (Pacific-10)  – 0.912047553
22. Western Kentucky (Sun Belt)  – 0.905748672
23. Maryland (ACC)  – 0.897614351
24. Northwestern (Big 10)  – 0.860664231
25. Connecticut (Big East)  – 0.856471027