Zips Athletics Crowned National Winner of Excellence in Management Cup

The University of Akron Department of Athletics has been announced as the national champion of the Excellence in Management Cup, presented by Texas A&M's Laboratory for the Study of Intercollegiate Athletics. The Zips ranked No. 1 out of 120 Football Bowl Subdivision schools, including programs that compete in the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10 (now the Pac-12) and SEC.

The purpose of the EM Cup is to raise awareness about NCAA athletics departments that are maximizing fiscal resources leading to championship victories. The Cup awards athletics departments that win the most conference and national championships while managing their expenses most efficiently.

The Zips earned this prestigious award thanks to one of most successful seasons in school history, winning UA's first-ever NCAA team title and claiming a school-record-tying five Mid-American Conference championships.

UA win is shared by many

"Winning this award is really a testament to the University's support of intercollegiate athletics," Akron Director of Athletics Tom Wistrcill said. "We are fortunate to have leadership on our campus who value how much a successful athletics program means to the University and the amount of positive exposure it provides our school. We also have outstanding coaches who recruit top-notch student-athletes, and this is an honor in which our entire department and University community can take pride."

The men's soccer team highlighted the 2010-11 season by winning the national championship in December, concluding a storybook season that included a conference title along the way. Adding another first to the list, the men's track and field program swept the indoor and outdoor MAC championships, capping a dominant season for the squad.

Winning its second conference title, the men's basketball team made an exciting run through the MAC tournament to bring home another trophy and advance to the NCAA Tournament. Finally, in May, women's tennis captured the final crown of Akron’s remarkable season by winning the first conference championship in program history after defeating top-seeded Miami (Ohio) in the finals of the league tournament.

Maximum efficiency

The Excellence in Management Cup was established by the Laboratory for the Study of Intercollegiate Athletics (LSIA) at Texas A&M in order to determine who is the most economically efficient athletics department in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A). The unique yet simple scoring system awards more points to athletics departments for winning conference and national championships while efficiently managing their budget to do so. Other championship cups do not address natural competitive advantages given to universities that have higher operating budgets and play more sports, and thus have more opportunities to win championships.

Because athletics departments are unique from one another in size, economic strength and number of opportunities available to win championships, the EM Cup results are calculated using a formula to level the playing field. A database was created to tally the following information. National and conference champions are tallied for each NCAA and conference-specific sanctioned sport and awarded to the winners. More value is placed upon the national championships than conference championships in the formula. Then, each athletics department's operating expenses and number of sports played at the university are entered into the database. This information was collected from the EADA reports and individual athletic department websites. In order to make the scores more manageable, the entire equation is multiplied by 100,000,000.

Excellence in Management Final Results Top 25:

1. Akron (MAC) – 2.517721953

2. Texas A&M (Big 12) – 1.901940513

3. Kent State (MAC) – 1.714088643

4. Utah State (WAC) – 1.624811522

5. Middle Tennessee State (Sun Belt) – 1.539971578

6. Louisiana Tech (WAC) – 1.299247545

7. Tulsa (Conference USA) – 1.267803656

8. Boise State (WAC) – 1.258485842

9. Arkansas State (Sun Belt) – 1.093308645

10. Brigham Young (Mountain West) – 1.074595657

11. USC (Pacific-10) – 1.068697131

12. UCF (Conference USA) – 1.052526341

13. Fresno State (WAC) – 1.043458411

14. Louisiana-Lafayette (Sun Belt) – 1.011521718

15. Notre Dame (Big East) – 1.000890107

16. Oklahoma State (Big 12) – 0.986840923

17. Stanford (Pacific-10) – 0.978947837

18. Colorado (Big 12) – 0.96039901

19. Florida (SEC) – 0.950246283

20. Toledo (MAC) – 0.935649939

21. California (Pacific-10) – 0.912047553

22. Western Kentucky (Sun Belt) – 0.905748672

23. Maryland (ACC) – 0.897614351

24. Northwestern (Big 10) – 0.860664231

25. Connecticut (Big East) – 0.856471027

Media contact: Gregg Bach 330-972-6106 or gbach@uakron.edu.