Something to Chew On: Schools Cutting Sports

[SelectionSunday]

 

[BleedGopher]

This is going to become a major topic and development. A few sports have been cut already, but once one of the big schools does it, it will give cover to more and more schools.

In addition, budgets will be significantly cut across the board.

Louisville chimes in:

Louisville athletic director Vince Tyra said his department will cut 15% from its sports budgets and furlough staff this week in further economic moves resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

Tyra said furloughs would be announced Wednesday, but he did not specify details to the University of Louisville Athletic Association (ULAA) board in a Monday video teleconference. Earlier this month, the AD announced 10% pay cuts for head coaches and senior staff, including himself, and included his forgoing $300,000 in bonuses.

The department aims to trim $15 million from the 2020-21 budget to be submitted this week, and it hinted at other cost-cutting moves, including furloughs.

"We regret that we have to make some of these very difficult decisions,'' Tyra told the ULAA board. "But for us, to be honest to the situation and where we are as an athletic department, we're not sitting with a large reserve, as some may be.''

Tyra warned that the economic outlook would change if the current shutdown of sports worldwide extends into college football season.

He reiterated his view of the sport not being played without spectators in the stands and added that starting up without a vaccine "makes it more difficult.''

Louisville to cut athletics budget, furlough staff

Louisville athletic director Vince Tyra said furloughs for his department would be announced Wednesday and that the next school year's sports budget with be cut by 15%.

www.espn.com

Go Gophers!!

 

[Holy Man]

Not good. Northern baseball may go extinct. Country club sports could be gone. Anything with a lot of bodies and expenses and not much revenue is at serious risk.

I wonder if the NCAA steps in for its "member institutions" and just declares it won't sponsor certain sports any more and takes the pressure off individual departments. I remember when they tried to axe golf at the U, and it was a PR disaster. Multiply that three or four times if they go after baseball or track.

 

[MplsGopher]

The NCAA sets a minimum number of sports (and scholarship equivalencies for those sports' participants) that schools have to sponsor in order to be FBS, which I think is 16 total sports (where you can count cross-country, indoor track, and outdoor track as three separate sports, for each gender). Also requiring I think a minimum of 8 female sports, something like that.

So those rules would have to change, before any kind of huge, wholesale changes could take root.


If they did, I think one interesting thing to think about would be if schools might be more interested in single-sport conferences. One for football, one for basketball, one for hockey (this is already largely true), etc.

 

[alchemy2u]

Not good. Northern baseball may go extinct. Country club sports could be gone. Anything with a lot of bodies and expenses and not much revenue is at serious risk.

I wonder if the NCAA steps in for its "member institutions" and just declares it won't sponsor certain sports any more and takes the pressure off individual departments. I remember when they tried to axe golf at the U, and it was a PR disaster. Multiply that three or four times if they go after baseball or track.

If any of this happens then the virus was just an excuse to cut something they never had the nerve to do in the past. B1G schools have revenue still coming in from the B1G network. Yes, the ticket sales have gone down, but so has a good portion of the costs, such as travel, equipment , etc.. It will be a tough stretch, but they should have no problem keeping programs alive if they want to do it.