Texas Christian University Chancellor Daniel Pullin speaks during a panel on Nov. 3, 2025, at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth.
Angela Piazza/Staff Photographer
TCU’s Horned Frogs are headed to Ireland later this week for the first international game in the football program’s history.
So is a TCU admissions officer. And a group of TCU Neeley School of Business students. And Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker.
Universities have long used their sports teams as a chance to introduce the rest of the nation to their academic programs, woo prospective students and enhance their reputation. TCU’s football team’s win over the Wisconsin Badgers in the 2011 Rose Bowl, for example, vaulted the school onto a new level of national recognition.
Article continues below this ad
Now TCU is taking its athletics, academics and brand to the global stage.
TCU will go up against the North Carolina Tar Heels on Aug. 29 at the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin. But that’s just the tip of the itinerary.
TCU Chancellor Daniel Pullin will address at least a hundred local Irish business leaders, while Parker sits in on economic development meetings with Irish officials. TCU’s enrollment team is set to talk with secondary school counselors that could send students to the Fort Worth private university. TCU Neeley students will compete in a business case competition at the Google Dublin headquarters.
“We’re bringing the best of TCU and the best of our region to make sure that there’s a return on investment in this opportunity,” Pullin said.
Ahead of TCU’s game, Pullin shared more about how the school plans to take advantage of their time in Ireland. This phone conversation was edited for length, clarity and readability.
Article continues below this ad
TCU has a history of building its brand off of athletic momentum. What makes this opportunity different?
This opportunity is the first time in 153 years of TCU football history, that we have the chance to take an international field. We’re designated as the home team, and so we have been spending a lot of time thinking about how we make this much more than a game. We’re going to carry TCU’s brand, our values, our spirit, and our ambition for all the world to see.
What do you hope to accomplish with TCU’s time in Ireland?
We are very focused on the power of sports diplomacy.
Article continues below this ad
We are going to have an amazing football game, and it will be highly competitive, and there’ll be great value and spirit for all those that attend. But we’re also bringing the best of TCU and the best of our region to make sure that there’s a return on investment in this opportunity.
Our medical school dean will be delivering a keynote address at an Irish medical symposium, focusing on TCU’s unique empathetic scholar model of how we train doctors. Our chief investment officer will speak to the Investicon conference, which is a global investment symposium for financial leaders all over the world.
TCU’s Neeley School of Business is participating in a business plan competition that’s focused on sports diplomacy. Our students will develop recommendations for city leaders, government agencies and businesses as Ireland prepares to host both the Ryder Cup golf tournament in 2027 and the UEFA Euro soccer tournament in 2028.
Separately, we know there are a lot of students in Ireland specifically that love to come to the United States to study. Our enrollment teams are having a session for the most prominent high school counselors in the country to talk about what makes TCU great and how we might be a good outlet for their students, particularly at the graduate program level, which is in line with our expectations to grow our graduate studies.
What is the goal for the sessions between TCU’s admissions team and Ireland secondary school counselors?
Article continues below this ad
The goal is to expand TCU’s footprint as the global university of choice.
Ireland is known as having many great universities and really strong government support for the tuition and fees for students from Ireland for undergraduate programs. We also know that there is a propensity for Irish students to have interest in completing their graduate work in an international environment, whether it’s at the master’s level or for a Ph.D. program.
Related: New visa limits leave North Texas international students weighing next steps
As we continue to scale some of our existing programs and launch new Ph.D. programs, like our Ph.D.s in business, computer science and artificial intelligence that start this fall, we want to make sure that those opportunities have awareness for the best and brightest students we can find, whether that’s right here in town or it’s halfway around the world.
The number of high school graduates, or would-be college students, in the U.S. is declining. Is international recruitment as part of TCU’s enrollment picture growing or changing? Why?
Article continues below this ad
I think it has the opportunity to. As we strengthen our academic programs, the student experience, the learning outcomes, the opportunity for more students at all levels to engage with our amazing faculty on groundbreaking research, we think the desirability of the TCU education will grow along with that.
We’re the strongest we’ve ever been academically, and when you see that ascendance, it becomes even more relevant to a broader aperture of scholars, whether it’s students or faculty. And while we’re taking TCU and North Texas to the world, we also expect to create conversations and relationships that allow the best and brightest in the world to come to North Texas and TCU.
Why is this an important opportunity for Fort Worth?
Mayor Mattie Parker in Fort Worth will be attending in her capacity as the Fort Worth mayor. The Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership has a session with their Irish counterparts and a variety of Irish companies.
Related: Fort Worth’s ‘Landman’ effect: Mayor touts film industry as city’s next big thing
Article continues below this ad
We already export $13 billion of goods and services to Ireland from Texas every year. There are already 40 Irish companies that have locations here in Texas and likewise 74 Texas companies that have locations in Ireland.
Our good friends at Visit Fort Worth will be talking about the benefits of visiting the Metroplex and continuing to grow the number of visitors to our community. What began as a football game has truly evolved into an invitation for our region to engage in business and community with the whole world.
Could you describe what potential return on investment you see in this opportunity?
Some of it is very tangible in the way our students benefit from seeing a new country, a new culture, a new economic system. They strengthen their career narrative as they march toward graduation, and they’ve done something that is broadening and matters beyond just the confines of our beautiful campus here in Fort Worth. So it makes them more attractive, more marketable.
If you think about some of our faculty, including our deans, the chance to build TCU’s brand and share the substance of the academic rigor and the thought leadership that we have is a remarkable opportunity to raise the academic profile of our programs here.
If you think about our commitment from our strategic plan to continue to excel in intercollegiate athletics at the highest level, having millions of eyeballs on this game as the very first one of the season is an opportunity to really share with millions the commitment and the excellence that exists at TCU across every dimension of our university.
If you think about the work of the Fort Worth Chamber and the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership to make sure there’s a very healthy pipeline of economic activity flowing to and from both our state and Ireland and across Europe, that’s going to benefit the economic vitality and vibrancy for all of our citizenry.
So at every turn, there is an amazing return because we’re collaborating, we’re doing it together, and we’re taking a step toward innovation that we’ve never had the chance to do before.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.