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Ax is starting to fall: Schools to drop sports

Saboteur

Saboteur

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Jan 15, 2015
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Many places. but not all
Whether COVId is the sole, major or minor reason I don't know.
But the University of Cincinnati AD was on the radio this morning and announced that UC was dropping men's soccer.
COVId may have merely tipped the scale, but the AD was adamant: No Revenue will cost programs.
 
Saboteur said:
Whether COVId is the sole, major or minor reason I don't know.
But the University of Cincinnati AD was on the radio this morning and announced that UC was dropping men's soccer.
COVId may have merely tipped the scale, but the AD was adamant: No Revenue will cost programs.
Click to expand...

Wondering if we will mostly see this outside of Power 5? Regardless it is very unfortunate.

Did he say if the cut was being considered before COVID?
 
Power 5 could be in the beginning stages of creating their own organization. Maybe expand with a few more teams and then tell the NCAA to kiss off. They would expand football playoffs and generate more money for their 50-60 members. Everybody else can eat crumbs.

This could be the tipping point for the other schools to think about the real mission of higher education. Jettison some of the Olympic sports and have them go the club route. Have them play other schools in the same geographical area to save costs and then have a championship for all misfits
 
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Pitt track & field

No home track. No home field.

Goodbye Pitt track & field

Other minor sports survive at Pitt as the facilities are there.

Without bothering to research this, does Cincinnati soccer have their own facility or is it shared?
 
Las Panteras said:
Pitt track & field
Without bothering to research this, does Cincinnati soccer have their own facility or is it shared?
Click to expand...

Didn’t Cincy make big investment in soccer and doesn’t a pro team play in that facility?
Probably an effort to get in a power league?

weren’t they a Big 12 option one time?
 
Las Panteras said:
Pitt track & field

No home track. No home field.

Goodbye Pitt track & field

Other minor sports survive at Pitt as the facilities are there.

Without bothering to research this, does Cincinnati soccer have their own facility or is it shared?
Click to expand...
Looks like both of their soccer teams share a facility with their track and field teams.

I have a different opinion about track. Facilities or not, track and field (and cross country) is the easiest sport to maintain because you functionally get four sports worth of scholarships for the price of one. Just like swimming and diving gets functionally four sports for the price of one coaching staff. Track and field and cross country, in total, costs a school 30.6 scholarships between the four sports. Swimming and diving costs you 24.9 between the four sports. That's eight sports, and eleven total coaches, for a total of ~55 scholarships. It's almost impossible to beat that level of efficiency in terms of scholarship/sport/coach ratio.

If you're only looking at things in terms of raw dollars, as long as Title IX is a thing, there is a place for sports like track and field. I don't think Pitt would do it, but I think there are other sports that would be considered before mens track and cross country.
 
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Las Panteras said:
Pitt track & field

No home track. No home field.

Goodbye Pitt track & field

Other minor sports survive at Pitt as the facilities are there.

Without bothering to research this, does Cincinnati soccer have their own facility or is it shared?
Click to expand...

Pitt currently sponsors 18 varsity sports; 9 men and 9 women's plus women's lax on deck to start in 2021-22 as a 10th. The NCAA mandates 16 for FBS Div 1 schools, 8 of which must be women's sports and with a minimum of 6 men's sports. T&F effectively counts as 6 sports for NCAA purposes: men's and women's cross country, indoor track & field, and outdoor track & field. However, the scholarships are shared like it is only 2 sports (12.6 men's and 18 women's max scholarships combined). These six programs, at least at Pitt, also share coaching staffs (one full-time head coach for both men's & women's), have minimal travel costs because there is essentially no dual meet seasons anymore, minimal equipment requirements, and have competed respectably for 20 years without a facility. All other 14 ACC schools sponsor XC, indoor, and outdoor T&F. In other words, these are cheap sports to sponsor. At Pitt, it is by far the cheapest sport by operating cost per participant (under $4K). And they are needed to fulfill NCAA-mandated minimum sports sponsorship numbers. They're unlikely to going anywhere.

If Pitt wanted to, it could only cut 2 sports under current NCAA minimum sponsorship rules. It could only cut on the men's side and to cut 3 Pitt would still have to add women's lax first to stay at 16 total sports. If it did cut men's XC, indoor and outdoor T&F, the savings would be very minimal because it would still have to employ pretty much the same coaches and travel to many of the same places. In other words, it would be fairly stupid as a cost savings measure. It would be better just to let assistants go and roll back budgets and scholarships.

You are likely going to see belt tightening without cutting any sports at a place like Pitt. Non-power schools may cut more, or some power schools with 25+ sports might drop some sports, but P5 schools aren't likely to drop T&F.
 
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Some schools were very likely just waiting for a "good excuse". The pandemic has provided a paradigm shift that they feel can be used as justification.

How far - and where - it goes from here is still TBD.
 
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If and a very big if. If there is no fall football or no fan attendance
fall football. A lot of big schools like osu, ups, alabama, Michigan, and others are going to be bleeding money. Without the 100,000 in the stadium they will be looking at a $20 million dollar shortfall. Maybe some of the season ticketholders will let the schools keep the money, but
I see a lot f the fans demanding a refund. Plus this will kill a lot of towns that have built there profit/lose sheets on 7 weekends a year.
Hotel rooms will be dirt cheap. Restaurants will have new space requirements for eat in establishments if they do indeed survive.

The landscape may have just got hit by an earthquake that may never be the same.
 
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PittMan 72 said:
Some schools were very likely just waiting for a "good excuse". The pandemic has provided a paradigm shift that they feel can be used as justification.

How far - and where - it goes from here is still TBD.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think some are teetering and covid the ticket.
 
joefromlancaster said:
If and a very big if. If there is no fall football or no fan attendance
fall football. A lot of big schools like osu, ups, alabama, Michigan, and others are going to be bleeding money. Without the 100,000 in the stadium they will be looking at a $20 million dollar shortfall. Maybe some of the season ticketholders will let the schools keep the money, but
I see a lot f the fans demanding a refund. Plus this will kill a lot of towns that have built there profit/lose sheets on 7 weekends a year.
Hotel rooms will be dirt cheap. Restaurants will have new space requirements for eat in establishments if they do indeed survive.

The landscape may have just got hit by an earthquake that may never be the same.
Click to expand...
Agree, but don’t see the blue bloods worrying much yet. PSU etc fb PR machines going full bore right now.
 
joefromlancaster said:
If and a very big if. If there is no fall football or no fan attendance
fall football. A lot of big schools like osu, ups, alabama, Michigan, and others are going to be bleeding money. Without the 100,000 in the stadium they will be looking at a $20 million dollar shortfall. Maybe some of the season ticketholders will let the schools keep the money, but
I see a lot f the fans demanding a refund. Plus this will kill a lot of towns that have built there profit/lose sheets on 7 weekends a year.
Hotel rooms will be dirt cheap. Restaurants will have new space requirements for eat in establishments if they do indeed survive.

The landscape may have just got hit by an earthquake that may never be the same.
Click to expand...

Schools like alabama will tap into the university general fund to keep football going. That...and insane boosters throwing money at the AD.

Schools that don't behave in that manner, that lease an off campus stadium they do not have to maintain, with a donor base that has proven to be insufficient,

That is a school that is in serious trouble.
 
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TV contracts and conference networks drive the bus. They pay a fair share of the bills. That's why Cincy is a completely different story than a P5 school. Their conference TV deal is worse than the MAC school right up the valley from them. I'm not saying some P5 schools won't contract but I don't look for that to be a big trend. Especially when some schools value athletics so much.

Also, this fantasy about schools leaving the NCAA is silly. There isn't anyone interested in walking away from that money machine and there isn't any evidence that TV is going to pay them more if they did.
 
Las Panteras said:
Schools like alabama will tap into the university general fund to keep football going. That...and insane boosters throwing money at the AD.

Schools that don't behave in that manner, that lease an off campus stadium they do not have to maintain, with a donor base that has proven to be insufficient,

That is a school that is in serious trouble.
Click to expand...

You sound like you are rooting for trouble.
 
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Panthers2015 said:
Did the Bearcats build their soccer stadium with both teams in mind?
Click to expand...

No, FC Cincinnati plays in Nippert Stadium until their new field is built. The stadium is very old and I don't think their most recent renovations were soccer specific. But damn it is a beautiful little stadium that I hope to watch a football game in someday.
 
pittdan77 said:
Also, this fantasy about schools leaving the NCAA is silly. There isn't anyone interested in walking away from that money machine and there isn't any evidence that TV is going to pay them more if they did.
Click to expand...


Where the money would be if the schools left is actually not football, it's basketball. The schools and the conferences basically run football. The NCAA makes very little money from football. On the other hand, the NCAA runs and profits from the basketball tournament. And for the most part it's the P6 schools that CBS and Turner are paying those billions to televise. If the top conferences left the NCAA and decided to put on their own version of March Madness and they kept all the money for themselves the value of the NCAA tournament would drop to nearly nothing overnight, and the billions would follow the big schools/conferences.

Sure, the deal might not end up being for the same amount that the NCAA tournament currently brings in, but it will be close and the big schools/conferences won't have to share with the 250-ish schools that the NCAA shares the money with.
 
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Don't freak out!

Maybe it is the right time to look at activities that cost serious money ( travel, facilities, etc.) and bring very little revenue in to offset these activities. Intramural activities cost much less and are also an avenue to explore in lieu of.

Joe the Panther Fan said:
Are you seriously asking why a law that says that educational institutions have to provide equal opportunities for men and women is needed?

I mean yeah, let's get those women back in the kitchen where they belong!

o_O
Click to expand...
 
Joe the Panther Fan said:
Where the money would be if the schools left is actually not football, it's basketball. The schools and the conferences basically run football. The NCAA makes very little money from football. On the other hand, the NCAA runs and profits from the basketball tournament. And for the most part it's the P6 schools that CBS and Turner are paying those billions to televise. If the top conferences left the NCAA and decided to put on their own version of March Madness and they kept all the money for themselves the value of the NCAA tournament would drop to nearly nothing overnight, and the billions would follow the big schools/conferences.

Sure, the deal might not end up being for the same amount that the NCAA tournament currently brings in, but it will be close and the big schools/conferences won't have to share with the 250-ish schools that the NCAA shares the money with.
Click to expand...

Well said description of the problem/opportunity for P5 schools.
 
Joe the Panther Fan said:
Where the money would be if the schools left is actually not football, it's basketball. The schools and the conferences basically run football. The NCAA makes very little money from football. On the other hand, the NCAA runs and profits from the basketball tournament. And for the most part it's the P6 schools that CBS and Turner are paying those billions to televise. If the top conferences left the NCAA and decided to put on their own version of March Madness and they kept all the money for themselves the value of the NCAA tournament would drop to nearly nothing overnight, and the billions would follow the big schools/conferences.

Sure, the deal might not end up being for the same amount that the NCAA tournament currently brings in, but it will be close and the big schools/conferences won't have to share with the 250-ish schools that the NCAA shares the money with.
Click to expand...
So you are saying, if this would happen, the NCAA tourney would become the NIT. Because many people don't realize until some point I think in the 50's, the NIT was the more important Post Season tourney.
 
9nationalchampionships said:
Don't freak out!

Maybe it is the right time to look at activities that cost serious money ( travel, facilities, etc.) and bring very little revenue in to offset these activities. Intramural activities cost much less and are also an avenue to explore in lieu of.
Click to expand...


I'm not freaking out at all. I am pointing out the fact that there is no chance that the people who run the Colleges and Universities of America are going to push to repeal the law that says that there needs to be equal opportunities for men and women at educational institutions that take federal money, and that even if somehow they did decide to do that that there is no chance that Congress goes along with that.

If schools want to cut athletic department costs there are a lot of ways for them to do that that would be considered legal under the current law. The rule that schools need to sponsor a certain number of sports is just that, a rule put in place by the NCAA. That rule could be changed literally today if the NCAA member institutions wanted to. Schools that sponsor 25 or 30 sports could cut back to 15 or 20. Schools that sponsor 20 could cut back to 10. Or whatever. But the point is that if the NCAA changes an NCAA rule that every school in the country could cut money losing sports tomorrow, if that's a route that they feel they need to go.
 
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I am not talking about admittance to a school! Why not make scholarships equal for men and women and leave sports out of it?

Joe the Panther Fan said:
I'm not freaking out at all. I am pointing out the fact that there is no chance that the people who run the Colleges and Universities of America are going to push to repeal the law that says that there needs to be equal opportunities for men and women at educational institutions that take federal money, and that even if somehow they did decide to do that that there is no chance that Congress goes along with that.

If schools want to cut athletic department costs there are a lot of ways for them to do that that would be considered legal under the current law. The rule that schools need to sponsor a certain number of sports is just that, a rule put in place by the NCAA. That rule could be changed literally today if the NCAA member institutions wanted to. Schools that sponsor 25 or 30 sports could cut back to 15 or 20. Schools that sponsor 20 could cut back to 10. Or whatever. But the point is that if the NCAA changes an NCAA rule that every school in the country could cut money losing sports tomorrow, if that's a route that they feel they need to go.
Click to expand...
 
Panthers2015 said:
You sound like you are rooting for trouble.
Click to expand...

i dont think thats the case. We still dont know where this all is going. Without a donor base, and no real maintenance costs of an OCS, I agree that Pitt may be a little more vulnerable if this drags on

But still so much we dont know
 
Joe the Panther Fan said:
Where the money would be if the schools left is actually not football, it's basketball. The schools and the conferences basically run football. The NCAA makes very little money from football. On the other hand, the NCAA runs and profits from the basketball tournament. And for the most part it's the P6 schools that CBS and Turner are paying those billions to televise. If the top conferences left the NCAA and decided to put on their own version of March Madness and they kept all the money for themselves the value of the NCAA tournament would drop to nearly nothing overnight, and the billions would follow the big schools/conferences.

Sure, the deal might not end up being for the same amount that the NCAA tournament currently brings in, but it will be close and the big schools/conferences won't have to share with the 250-ish schools that the NCAA shares the money with.
Click to expand...

The NCAA is the schools. You're parsing. Regardless, the point is that TV will call the shots. Everyone is pretty pleased with the current arrangement so there won't be some big push to make changes because Cincy dumped soccer.
 
bubba31 said:
i dont think thats the case. We still dont know where this all is going. Without a donor base, and no real maintenance costs of an OCS, I agree that Pitt may be a little more vulnerable if this drags on

But still so much we dont know
Click to expand...
I think that's potentially a valid concern if Pitt wasn't in a P5 conference. There's no way that any P5 school is going to drop football, and if a P5 school is going to drop football, then it's probably going to drop membership in the P5 conference - either voluntarily or getting kicked out. Pitt doesn't do the ACC any good without football.
 
pittdan77 said:
The NCAA is the schools. You're parsing. Regardless, the point is that TV will call the shots. Everyone is pretty pleased with the current arrangement so there won't be some big push to make changes because Cincy dumped soccer.
Click to expand...


Well I agree that there isn't going to be any big push for changes. But it is not parsing to point out that if the P5 schools (or maybe P6 at the most) decided to really get greedy they could cut out the NCAA tomorrow (well, OK, maybe not quite that fast) and keep almost all that basketball money for themselves.

The NCAA isn't just Ohio State and Alabama and Kentucky. It's also Robert Morris and St. Peters and Arkansas Pine Bluff. And all those other schools get a share of money every year from the NCAA basketball tournament. If the big schools broke away then they keep all that money.

The minimum that any conference got from the NCAA in tournament money in 2019 was $1,681,800. There were 15 leagues that got that amount. That's a total of $25,227,000 right there. There were another 8 leagues that got $3,363,600 for a total of $26,908,800. We aren't even down to the P5 (or 6) yet, and we are already over $52 million per year. If we chop it down to the P6 the number is $79 million per year, and if we go to the P5 it's almost $87.5 million per year. And that's with the NCAA taking 40% off the top because that's where the money to run all the other sports comes from. Add that back in and you are at nearly $146 million per year.
 
I've said this in other posts, but the greed displayed by some of the bigger schools is disgusting. Instead of working together as group to further sell their schools sports, they want to focus on what is best for their own school. We are all aware of how much money and excitement "March Madness" generates and this helps out all of the basketball programs around the country. Can you imagine, just how much money and excitement a real NCAA football playoff would create?
Instead of "March Madness", we could have a "December to Remember" for all teams that qualify for that playoff.
 
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