Four-year colleges facing budget shortfalls stemming from the pandemic are approaching an unwelcome milestone: In coming days, the number of eliminated sports programs will almost surely pass 100.
Research by The Associated Press found a total of 97 teams eliminated at four-year schools through Friday. The count includes only teams cut with the coronavirus outbreak and its impacts cited as all or part of the reason.
Of the 78 teams lost in Divisions II and III and the NAIA, 44 were from three schools that closed at least in part because of financial fallout from the pandemic.
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No Power Five conference school is known to have dropped any sports. Most of the 19 Division I teams cut — 15 men’s, four women’s — are from schools in the so-called Group of Five conferences.
Some of the cuts might not have been made, critics say, if decision-makers had considered the benefits those sports brought to the schools as a whole.
“College presidents are just not thinking this through,” former University of Idaho president Chuck Staben said. “I cannot believe they are making all these probably bad financial decisions for their university when what we need them to do in the face of this pandemic and pending budget cuts from tuition shortfalls and state funding shortfalls is to make good financial decisions that benefit students.”
Staben argues athletes often pay more than the value of their partial scholarships for tuition, room and board and books, and in many cases bring diversity to campuses. This, he said, is especially important at a time when enrollment declines are accelerating as budget woes hit higher education.
Akron athletic director Larry Williams was ordered to chop 23%, or $4.4 million, from his budget. Akron depends on student fees for 40% of its athletic budget and enrollment is expected to be down 20% this fall. The school dropped men’s cross country and golf and women’s tennis two weeks ago, and there will be other spending and staff reductions.
Williams noted the accounting system used by his and other universities often consider the athletic department a cost center and revenue is generally not considered.
“So we in athletics don’t get credit for any of those tuitions that are paid by the walk-ons. The university does,” Williams said.
Williams said deep cuts to football would not be a good idea for Bowl Subdivision schools because the sport typically supports the rest of the athletic department. Akron, for example, draws revenue from the Mid-American Conference’s television contract, guarantees for playing nonconference road games, ticket sales, sponsorships and donations.