Did you look at the source? Or just read the chart?

1. Leadership alignment = buy-in from the top down of the institution. For example, #1 on the list is Clemson because several years ago their university’s leadership team decided investment will be made in football and they would shut down several non revenue generating sports. They did that knowing a championship or national presence in football would lead to donor support, endowment, applications, enrollment, brand awareness, and brand exposure in-turn leading to higher GPA of applicants, higher GPA in enrollees, better facilities, and an attractive brand. Check Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, ND...they have all done this before Clemson.

2. Institutional Brand Perception = “Perceptions about the quality of the institution’s brand”. Brand awareness is largely driven by brand exposure. Ask a non-sports viewer on the west coast to name the conference Duke is in and name the conference VT is in. They could probably answer for Duke and tell you how good the academics are...not the same for VT. This is largely driven by sports exposure (Duke in b-ball).

3. Compliance = “Perceptions about the potential for serious compliance & NCAA rules violations”. Key word here is ‘potential’. I imagine that UNC has a much larger compliance department than we do. This was displayed in the Brock Hoffman case and the UNC academic case. We get crushed by NCAA, they don’t. Unfortunately this is likely driven by $$$. UNC has a lot of it. Why? Because of sports and their brand.

What else?