{"id":1413,"date":"2025-06-12T15:33:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T15:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/?p=1413"},"modified":"2025-06-12T15:33:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T15:33:21","slug":"university-of-saint-francis-revitalizing-athletics-with-data-driven-insights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/2025\/06\/12\/university-of-saint-francis-revitalizing-athletics-with-data-driven-insights\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Saint Francis: Revitalizing Athletics with Data-Driven Insights\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The University of Saint Francis (Ill.) has experienced a significant revitalization of its athletics department, thanks in part to the data-driven insights provided by Return on Athletics\u00ae<\/sup> <\/sup>(ROA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 academic years, the University of Saint Francis saw an 11.16 percent decrease in student-athlete net tuition and a 25.90 percent decrease in net return. Despite stable student-athlete enrollment, this suggested the university was spending significantly more on the same number of students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of expanding athletics offerings to address this trend, the University of Saint Francis turned to ROA data to enhance the efficiency of its current programs \u2013 a decision that ultimately led to a significant increase in student-athlete net tuition and net return during the subsequent two years.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When discussing ROA\u2019s impact on this financial turnaround, the University of Saint Francis\u2019 Vice President for Administration and Finance, Julee Gard, noted, \u201cTo us, it has been very, very valuable in the way we can slice and dice it (ROA data). It helped us uncover how much we were spending and how much money we weren\u2019t making at the end of the day on some specific teams.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can learn more about the specific ways the University of Saint Francis utilized ROA data to optimize its athletics offerings in the case study here.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Return on Athletics\u00ae (ROA) is the only resource available to maximize the business performance of NAIA athletic departments. Through the collection and analysis of member data, ROA leverages simple and consistent calculations across 250 small colleges and universities to provide the most complete athletics department financial data available.\u202f<\/em>Please see here to learn more about ROA and what it can do for your institution.<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The University of Saint Francis (Ill.) has experienced a significant revitalization of its athletics department, thanks in part to the data-driven insights provided by Return on Athletics\u00ae (ROA).  Between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 academic years, the University of Saint Francis saw an 11.16 percent decrease in student-athlete net tuition and a 25.90 percent decrease in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[191,12,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-member-spotlight","category-return-on-athletics","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/university_of_saint_francis_revitalizing_athletics_with_data_insights-600x400.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/university_of_saint_francis_revitalizing_athletics_with_data_insights-600x600.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Ally Hecht","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/author\/ahecht\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/university_of_saint_francis_revitalizing_athletics_with_data_insights.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ueXi-mN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}