Posted: Friday, November 6, 2009
MOSCOW, ID - The resurgence of the University of Idaho football team is giving a boost to the local and state economy. Glenn Mosley reports.
The anecdotal evidence is all around in Latah County, Idaho—a better Vandal football team has boosted home game attendance, which translates into more home game tickets being sold, more dinners being purchased in local restaurants, and more Vandal T- shirts being sold.
But there are other, more long- term, benefits, as well.
Petersons: “Definitely having competitive teams enhances the economic viability of universities.”
UI Business and Economic professor Steven Peterson has been studying the economic impact of the university’s athletics department on the local and regional economy for about ten years.
Peterson: “The real benefit of it is the exposure it gives the university to the state of Idaho, the enhancement of donations across the board that we receive, that visibility also helps with student enrollments.”
Peterson says university athletics contributes more than six hundred jobs and about $32 million to the local and regional economy every year, numbers, he says, that would only rise with the fielding of competitive football teams every year.
Copyright 2009 Northwest Public Radio