U of C: Promotionally hurting?

I have nothing but admiration for the University of Chicago, one of the world's best and best respected universities. I find it more than admirable that the U of C deemphasised sports more than a half century ago and that it has stuck to its guns as clearly stating its image as being education and research. That said, we live (unfortunately) at a time when image counts far more than it should. I have no desire to see the U of C change directions, but I do wonder: is the school's lack of commercial visiblity a hinderance (on any level)? For better or for worse (I'll go with worse), major Division 1A institutions use athletics to promote the academics of their universities. Athletics has been built to keep awareness of their institutions high. This is not only true of the Kansas State's, Alabama's, and Nebraska's out there. U of C peers such as Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, etc., are included. And, among state schools, the likes of Cal, UVA, UNC, Michigan. Even though the Ivy League operates at a lower level of athletics, its existence helps feed into the aura of its 8 member institutions. All these schools also benefit from the tremendous amount of profit and visilibilty gained by commercial/logo products that put their schools' names out there. The U of C keeps a very low profile in this area, too. The question is not whether the U of C should change directions (I'm not suggesting that for a moment). The question is: on some level, is the university hurt in terms of awareness due to the low athletic profile it maintains (so this is not a couda, wouda, shouda question).>