That sounds good in theory, but break it down. What do all those things have in common?
-Enrollment
-University donations
-University event attendance
-Flyer pride...people buying Flyer gear at university stores?
All the direct financial benefits go to the University of Dayton...not the city. Obviously if attendance is up at games next year, some local businesses will benefit from game day traffic, but all the things you mentioned directly benefit the school financially. The school and the city are two different entities, are they not?
Wouldn't it be the same situation if Ohio makes a good bowl game in football and wins, then people go nuts celebrating and wreck the town. Couches ablaze, destruction of property, dogs and cats living together in harmony, mass hysteria. The school will get a payday from the bowl game...the city gets stuck with the bill to clean up what used to be the Palmer and Mill St areas. That bowl game money goes to the university, not the city of Athens.
Bottom line, 1) I think it's crap that the taxpayers have to foot the bill in Dayton and 2) I never thought of Dayton as a rowdy school/area that would react this way to a tourney run.
I think even though those things
directly impact the university, they
indirectly impact the community.
-Enrollment -- more students = more rental housing, more spending in the community
-University donations = more construction/capital projects, more jobs for local workers
-University event attendance = more fans, more taxable spending at local hotels, restaurants, businesses (I think we once deduced how much fans from a football game at Peden contribute to the local Athens economy -- it's really substantial)
-Flyer pride...people buying Flyer gear at university stores? Yep.
I hear you about taxpayers footing the bill for things that are caused directly by the university. It's the same kind of issue in Athens around Halloween, isn't it? Or even the bowl game scenario you mention. But sometimes that's the trade-off of having a university in your town. The overall benefits far outweigh some of those unexpected/unfair costs. Can you imagine what Athens or some of these other towns would be like if the universities shut down? Talk about dogs and cats living together...
