MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The recent success of the West Virginia University athletic programs has resulted in major financial contributions to the university.
WVU President Michael Benson reported to the Board of Governors during its regular meeting on Friday that the recent run for the baseball team and other athletic programs, such as the women’s basketball team, resulted in approximately $3.81 million in advertising media value over the course of the year.
This comes from numbers accumulated through the WVU Strategic Plans and Initiatives Committee, where over 154.6 million estimated impressions were accounted for through six different media sources.
“I had a chance yesterday (Thursday) with Elmer’s (Coppoolse) committee (to see) the messaging and our marketing communications and strategic communications,” Benson said. “You can see the estimated impressions, particularly as it relates to our singing, Take Me Home Country Roads. I mean, it just captured the world’s attention.”
According to Benson, the success of the baseball team making their first appearance in the NCAA College World Series for the first time in program history, combined with a Mountaineer in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament appearance, resulted in close to 62 million advertising value equivalents for WVU.
This is the result of over 140 million social media impressions as well as over 8.8 million impressions from online news stories that helped create approximately $3.29 million in advertising media revenue.
“We had a number of nearly 62 million in what we call advertising value equivalents, and nearly three-quarters were categorized as positive or trending positive about the stories,” Benson said. “That really says all the kind of critical mass of attention that was around our team.”
Along with the advertising generated as a result of the run from the Mountaineer baseball team, Benson added that the tens of thousands of Mountaineer fans who were in attendance for the regional and super regional tournament games hosted at Kendrick Family Ballpark in Granville contributed millions of dollars in revenues supporting Monongalia County-based businesses.
This was less than six months after the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament regional was hosted at the Hope Coliseum, which generated around $11.7 million in local economic spending.
“This follows on to, of course, the economic impact that an event like a regional and a super-regional has on Mon County and on Morgantown,” Benson said. “And it builds on what happened back in March when we hosted women’s basketball from the first and second rounds of the women’s tournament.”
WVU officials project that the university will make a strong impression as part of the 2026 Learfield Directors’ Cup as a result of the success of several Mountaineer athletic programs during the 2025-26 school year.
While not expecting to top the University of Texas, Benson told the WVU BOG that he expects the university to finish in the top 30, which would be an over-ten-spot improvement in comparison to last year.
The hope is that the positive momentum can continue so WVU and the surrounding community can continue to thrive.
“The 25th of June, which is next week, is when the Learfield Cup final standings will come out,” Benson said. “I don’t want to project or prognosticate because I don’t know where we’ll be, but I would think we’re going to be possibly in the top thirty or one of our highest finishes ever.”