Northern Kentucky University will add six new varsity athletics programs to its roster in an effort to aid enrollment.
At the NKU Board of Regents meeting Wednesday, the board voted to approve the establishment of the following new varsity athletic programs: women’s stunt, men and women’s swimming, men and women’s triathlon, and men’s volleyball in hopes of increasing enrollment by 150 new students by the 2026/27 academic year.
NKU Vice President and Director of Athletics Christina Roybal said the revenue line from these programs includes tuition of $8,000 per student, startup grants, National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA distribution, and ticket revenue. Roybal said expenses would consist of the operating costs of the sports.
“The proposed sports addition will contribute the following to the institution: $233,000 minimum in new contribution margin (seen in the 2027/28 academic year), enrolled students that would otherwise not attend NKU if we did not have these sports, high academic achievement students that persist to graduation, and new excitement and new experience for students on campus in the broader community,” Roybal said.
At the meeting, regent Ken Perry asked Roybal what should happen in 2026 if the university did not meet its numbers.
“I honestly don’t see us not meeting the numbers,” Roybal said. “The current coaches have done a tremendous job in recruiting. We’ve never faltered in the number of students in those programs. And I would say likewise, we’ve been hiring great coaches that could do the job to recruit these students.”
Of the university’s 250 student-athletes, 60 receive full scholarships, 55 are walk-ons receiving no athletic scholarship, and 135 receive a partial scholarship.
Roybal said as the institution began looking for strategies to help increase enrollment, she was asked how athletics could help in enrollment efforts.
Roybal said they looked at nearly 20 individual and team sports to determine which could be viable options and landed on sports where students would be recruited primarily from Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. They chose sports that utilize existing facilities, have “modest” equipment and operating budgets, and, in some cases, have coaches shared by multiple programs.
She said they also looked at where conference affiliations made sense geographically, the potential for startup branch private funding, national governing body support, and providing or reducing equipment costs.
NKU Faculty Senate President John Farrar spoke at the board of regents meeting as a “concerned faculty member,” not on behalf of the faculty senate, against the idea.
“The plan is rather discouraging as a faculty member to the faculty and staff in the face of the recent and continuing budget cuts,” he said. “We have had millions of dollars in cuts to academic affairs, and we have had 100 faculty or more in positions that we have lost. So, faculty and staff continue to do more with less and less. Now, the first proposal that we see to spend additional money is to invest in the athletics department rather than choosing to invest in our academic core.”
The expansion of track and field and other sports over the next few years is underway at NKU.
Roybal further explained the six new sports programs to the board.
“Women’s stunt—the popularity of stunts, an NCAA sport derived from cheer, is quickly growing in the state,” Roybal said. “The University of Kentucky added its stunt program, and in just a couple of years, their program has grown to over 40 students.”
Roybal said the men’s and women’s swimming program would not include the diving event, meaning one fewer assistant coach, and does not require a separate dry land trampoline facility. The conference affiliation would be the Horizon League, where the university already competes in its other sports.
The men’s and women’s triathlon head coach would also help coach track and field, and the assistant coach would help coach the swim teams.
“Men’s volleyball—boys volleyball is the fastest growing boys sport nationally,” Roybal said. “It’s already very popular here in Kentucky and in Ohio.”
The conference affiliation they are looking to enter for men’s volleyball is the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.
Farrar said while the university needs to consider new enrollment strategies, and he is not anti-athletics, he is concerned about incurring costs without a real return on investment.
“The proposal is to invest an additional $1.1 million annually in athletics through the expansion of the current programs and the addition of new varsity sports to include an additional 250 students,” Farrar said. “The suggested contribution margin is about $233,000 in the final year, assuming about $1.4 million in revenues from these four programs. However, the issue is that the margin assumes no instructional costs for these additional 250 students. That’s not realistic.”
He said it did not seem reasonable to suggest that an additional 250 students out of the university’s 11,000 would make a large difference in performance funding metrics or campus vitality. Farrar said he wondered how many students they could recruit if they instead invested the $1.1 million in recruiting admissions and financial aid for regular students.
“It would almost certainly recruit more than 250 students and yield a positive overall revenue rather than simply breaking even,” he said.
Perry said he recognized Farrar’s position and said it would be a very tough decision for him to make.
“One thing that I would ask for you to consider is, no matter how this goes today, because I don’t really know how it’s going to go, I would like for you to bring us a proposal on how to spend $1.1 million and show us how we can grow your side of the business,” Perry said.
When it came time to vote, regents Michael Baranowski and Cori Henderson asked the board to take more time on the item because they had additional unanswered questions.
“I want to be able to support this in good conscience, knowing that the numbers that I see are the best estimates that we can have at this point,” Baranowski said. “There were just too many questions for me to feel like I’d be exercising my fiduciary responsibility as a regent to support this at this point.”
Regent Nathan Smith made a motion to hear the item and not wait. The item passed with seven regents voting yes and three voting no.
Men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s triathlon, women’s stunt, and the expanded track and field will join the Norse lineup as varsity sports for the 2024-25 academic year. Men’s volleyball will be added as a varsity sport beginning with the 2025-26 academic year.
