October 28, 2024
by Baylor Instant Impact
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Dr. Jeffrey Petersen used his Centennial Professor Award to travel to the University of Notre Dame, which houses the world’s largest collection of sport documents including printed media guides for NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball and football.
Oct. 28, 2024
Dr. Jeffrey Petersen, professor of sport management and program director of the MSEd in Sport Management, received the 2024 Centennial Professor Award for summer research projects and focused his project on the finances of collegiate sports through research at Notre Dame University.
The Centennial Professor Award, created by the Baylor Class of 1945, annually honors two tenured faculty members with a $5,000 Centennial Faculty Development award for research projects that facilitate their development and contribute to the academic life of the University. These projects often include travel for study or research, the development of innovative teaching materials, or other professional development activities.

Dr. Petersen and graduate student Rachel Hickey on the Notre Dame campus.
Petersen and sport management graduate student Rachel Hickey dug into the archives at Notre Dame, which houses the world’s largest collection of sport documents including printed media guides for NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball and football. Using historical staffing levels as a proxy for athletic budget levels, their research will provide insights into the evolving landscape of NCAA sport management and operations.
The study, titled “Projecting the Future of NCAA Athletics: A Historical Analysis of Team and Athletic Department Staffing,” will analyze team and administrative staffing structures through a longitudinal analysis of media guides from the advent of television coverage in the 1950s to the present, seeking to identify shifts in support staff roles and contextualize these changes within larger societal and economic trends. Petersen also intends to project future trends based on the changing financial situation in college athletics. Continue Reading →