Welcome to the NILnomics Newsletter!

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read NILnomics. After weeks of roster limit coverage, I’m happy to leave that behind (momentarily…) to explore the world of - politics. And more college hockey. On tap I have:

• Ivy League & international students - just how many international students are on the rosters of schools in the Ivy League Conference?

• College hockey - comparing the capacity of top Division I Men’s Ice Hockey arenas

Pour yourself your favorite drink. Get comfortable. Let’s get into it.

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International Students and the Ivy League Conference

In the last few weeks President Trump has escalated his attack on Harvard University (and elite, Ivy League institutions in general) by revoking the visas of all international students (as of writing the order has been stayed by a judge) at Harvard. Is it unrealistic to think the ban could expand beyond Harvard into the other Ivy League schools?

Higher education’s dirty little secret is it exists off the back of full tuition paying international students. But what impact could there be in the college sports space with this ban?

Quick Takeaways:

• Clearly, each school in the Ivy League Conference has enough international student athletes to feel a significant impact if these students are forced out.

• Harvard would lose the most student athletes (133) and the highest % of student athletes (17.3%).

• Columbia would lose the least number of student athletes (65) and, along with Cornell, the lowest % (9.1%).

Analyst’s Desk

I scraped the websites of each school’s athletic department, pulling the rosters for the latest team of each sport. I then categorized them as Citizen/Non-Citizen based on their reported home town. The sports I included were chosen based on those that will have roster limits imposed by the House Settlement. Detailed, sports specific numbers are below:

Quick Takeaways:

• The biggest lost across schools/sports is Harvard’s rowing team, which will lose 30 student athletes. On a percentage basis, Yale’s Field Hockey team is losing 12 out of 22 student athletes, or 55%.

• If you look at the top 10 of school/sports with the most Non-Citizens, Yale (ice hockey and rowing) and Harvard (soccer and rowing) both have 2.

• One interesting insight of this chart is just to see the disparity in participation of sports. That only Harvard and Dartmouth have skiing teams and Cornell and Dartmouth are the only schools with equestrian teams is an interesting observation.

Quick Takeaways:

• Being in the Big 10, where the top two schools on this list (Ohio State and Wisconsin) likely contributes to their huge size.

• Note that UND, at #3, is the home of the largest barn in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, the Big 10’s primary competitor for top conference in college hockey.

Analyst’s Desk

This isn’t a comprehensive list, obviously. I looked up the capacity of arenas for the top ticket sellers, based on last week’s analysis. In the future I’d like to get all DI/DII programs data. Also, I recognize Wikipedia is a sub-optimal data source. If anyone knows a better, comprehensive source for this type of data, please let me know!

🔉 What I’m Listening To 🔉 

Plenty of interesting audio content out there for any fellow podcast lovers. Here’s this week’s best listens:

• College Matters: I mentioned the Varsity Blues scandal last week. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a followup podcast on the story. Rick Singer, the main perpetrator, has been released from prison. Fascinating.

• Split Zone Duo: another great podcast talking to Blueprint Sport’s Parker Fleming all about the future of the modern college athletics department. Specifically, they go into different categories of GMs as it stands now.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for reading!

I feel for the athletic departments that have to figure out plans/contingencies for changes they don’t even know are/will happen. Much like all of college athletics as it waits on the House Settlement (we’re waiting Judge Wilken). It’s truly a crazy time.

If you haven’t finished your drink of choice, now is the time. I’ll do the same as I salute you!

Until next time,

Greg Chick, PhD

Data Analyst

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