Is sport success a good thing?

Recently, George Mason University has went from a school with very little public press to a school with overwhelming public press. One might ask the question if this is a good or bad economic position for a school to be in. It has been shown that after a very successful sports run (such as making it the final four) that enrollment in a university or college will have a significant increase the following year. A perfect example of this was shown in 1984 when Doug Flutie threw a hail mary to defeat Miami. Doug Fluttie was playing for Boston College at the time (a school with little sports recognition) and the following year enrollment saw a dramatic rise. Sure, one may view more enrollment as a good thing because more profits will be made, or will they? Looking at most successful sports programs it is obvious that the schools who spend the most money on the programs are generally the schools that have the most success(George Mason spends 10 million dollars annually on sports programs whereas Florida spends 63 million dollars). For example, if alumni and the university's themselves are funneling more money into a sports program then that means less money for academics. In addition to money issues one would have to look at academic success. If there is a large pressure for success in sports and athletics at a paticular university one would easily be able to understand how that could pose as a distration for studying and other educational events. Now I am not saying that it would not be great to be able to see every Ohio State football game or go to all the Duke basketball games but being an avid sports fan I know that I would be spending less time studying economics and more time studying and going to athletic events.