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College football offers much more than a revenue stream, JU officials say in Times-Union article

Jacksonville University is planning a new football stadium that will seat 4,500 spectators and will be designed to be expandable to 11,000 seats.

A unversity football program’s value cannot be measured simply by the amount of money the team puts in the school’s coffers, Jacksonville University President Tim Cost and Athletic Director Brad Edwards said in a Florida Times-Union article published Feb. 24.

Rather, football is among many components of an instition that can positively contribute to the student experience and success of a university, Cost and Edwards said.

“I don’t think you can divorce our football program from every other  important aspect of the university,” Cost said in the article. “We don’t try to break off just  the College of Business or just the College of Fine Arts or just the library in  any way. It [football] enriches, a great deal, the life of students who are  already on this campus anyway.”

The topic was explored in the article as JU plans to uprgrade its football and lacrosse facilities and the University of North Florida contemplates starting a football program. A sports economist says in the T-U article that a football program’s benefits to a university includes providing events for current students and tapping into alumni pride; JU added football in 1998.

“We feel like football … like the library, like other programs, it’s helping  us attract new students …” Edwards said in the article. “For us, it’s not about gate receipts. It’s about growing our institution and  providing enhanced programming for our students. It’s a big social piece and it draws people together.”

Click here for the entire T-U article.