A student life comprising regular study time, coupled with investment in Sport (training or team coaching) and a few hours of salaried work, is a configuration favorable to academic success (understood as ability to get degree) in Sport studies (STAPS) at the University of Burgundy. But, against all statistical probability, students having registered without any selection in the branch campus of Le Creusot are more successful than those studying in the main campus of Dijon, despite individual characteristics similar or less favorable: in first year, emerges a territory effect. Using logistic regression models, based on various data (questionnaires of students enrolled in Sports in 2012-2013, applications and answers of higher institutions in the central admission system (APB), in-depth interviews with programme directors, interviews with students, administrative data from the information system Apogée) we show that the impact of the place of study on academic success survives over the years, according to a logic based on proximity and ease of exchanges with teachers and peers (possible assessment biases having been reduced). This hypothesis of a proximity logic questions the conditions for a democratic and democratized University and the weight of extra-mural associative activities and pre-professional investment in the field of Sports