Ivy Director discusses the business of college sports … plus a twist

A reader tipped me off to a recent Bloomberg piece featuring Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris, among some other "all-stars" in a panel regarding the business of college sports. Lots of interesting points are made, and Ms. Harris represents the Ivy League quite well. She said college athletics' "biggest opportunity is to feature what makes us unique — our student-athlete stories," and a threat is the "greater emphasis on commercial aspect."

What's interesting about the segment, though, is the Princeton University backdrop. The Ivy League offices are located at Princeton, but one would assume that the Ivy League has its own banner to use rather than an individual school's, right?

Ms. Harris was kind enough to email me the following response:

We actually discussed internally the feasibility of having an Ivy League backdrop. However, we did not have time to create the digital display that the studio uses (as opposed to the banner backdrop that you typically see at press conferences). In addition, as we are located at Princeton, the ability to use the university's studio saved me travel time and saved the Ivy League any costs that other non-affiliated entities might charge. The university was very kind to make the studio available to the Ivy League (a non-university use) on a day when they had several other demands for its use.
I can also assure you neither I nor any member of the Ivy League staff have any bias toward any school. We treat all eight schools equitably and all eight schools share equally in the costs to operate our office and that we pay Princeton for the services they provide us.