NCAA tournament puts IUPUI on new 'threshold'

During this year's NCAA basketball tournament, IUPUI not only found out it's still a league apart from the nation's top basketball programs, but school officials also discovered they have far to go to achieve desired brand identity.

Many people, even casual sports fans, first become acquainted

"Most of my exposure to East Coast and Midwest schools at a young age were the ones I saw playing sports on the weekends," said David Carter, principal of Los Angeles-based Sports Marketing Group, who also teaches sports businesses classes at the University of Southern California. "It has the potential to increase interest, applications and enrollment, and that helps you build a better student body."

But IUPUI has added challenges thanks to its name. I think there's a learning curve," Carter said. "What is IUPUI? And what does it stand for?"

Several national publications, including USA Today, carried columns and articles about IUPUI's first appearance in the NCAA basketball tournament. A USA Today writer asked if IUPUI was a school or the first line of an eye chart.

And the combination of two major university's on a separate campus also seemed to confuse journalists and basketball fans. A writer for the Orlando Sentinel called the school "schizophrenic," even pointing to IUPUI's marketing tag line, "Why not both?" in reference to attending either Indiana or Purdue university.

IUPUI's name is a blessing and a curse, marketers said.

"I'll be honest, I'd never heard of the school before the tournament," Carter said. "But I'll tell you, with a name like that, I won't forget it. It's a great trivia question. They were the school with the longest name in the tournament, and I think the country."

IUPUI's acting chancellor, William Plater, hopes the university will reach beyond the realm of basketball trivia following its showing in this year's tournament, where the Jaguars lost, 9564, in the first round to the University of Kentucky.

"There's no doubt the attention we received was enormously helpful to the understanding of this university," Plater said. "The name is as interesting as our basketball team. [The tournament appearance] helped a large population know who we are and what we stand for."

This year's success also will put renewed vigor into discussions for a large multi-use convocation center and basketball facility, Plater said.

Though he wouldn't specify a timetable, Plater said the need for a new playing venue remains on the front burner at IUPUI. The time may be right to start soliciting city, state and corporate support for the project, he added.

"We're one of the few universities that has a 1,500-seat basketball arena and 5,000-seat natatorium," Plater said. "We have 29,000 students and understand we must upgrade our facilities. I think the success of the basketball team helps people understand a need we've had for 25 years. But at the same time, we have competing needs and wouldn't want to take funding from other initiatives such as life sciences to fund a multi-use convocation center."

Plater also understands the curiosity with the school's unique moniker, but admits, "I still bristle at people having a little bit of fun with our name."

Plater hopes IUPUI, long known locally as Ooey-Pooey, has entered a "right of passage" to a higher plane. Plater, who disdains the Ooey-Pooey moniker, rejects the notion of renaming the school or referring to it as anything other than IUPUI.

"We want IUPUI to be as well-known as UCLA or UNLV," Plater said. "We want people to know us not just for athletics, but that we're a renowned school for law, dentistry and medicine, the informatics program and as the home of Internet II."

IUPUI has invested considerable money to become an NCAA Division I program, including $45,000 in 1998 to hire a New York firm to help recast the school's nickname after almost three decades as the Metros.

That investment has paid off in increases in enrollment and campus pride, Plater said, adding that additional money will be earmarked for marketing to build on the recognition IUPUI received after winning the Mid-Continent Conference and playing in the NCAA tournament. Plater would not speculate how much the university might spend on increased marketing.

"We certainly need to do more to make sure our name is more widely understood," Plater said. "We're at a threshold point."

But Andrew Zimbalist, a professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., and a noted sports economist, thinks IUPUI should be cautious in its approach.

"Everyone thinks it will have a big payoff, but it doesn't always," Zimbalist said. "I don't think it's easy to capitalize on [athletics success]. Still, they would do well to spend at least a little to back up their tournament showing."

Carter said it's understandable, even acceptable, for sports to be a money loser at certain universities, if the losses are offset by gains in other areas on campus.

"School officials need to be careful. Going into Division I athletics big-time can be a real anchor," Carter said. "It opens a big debate on campus as expenses rise.

"You have to build a Division I program very cautiously," he added. "You have to be deliberate or you end up throwing away a bunch of money. But any attention helps build the brand, potentially giving a regional campus a national identity. That can't be undervalued."