The Power 5 college athletics' leaders want the NCAA to allow them to cut revenue-producing sports, forget about the requirement of 16, but the olympics sports coaches — volleyball, swimming, wrestling, and soccer -- warn against that

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… college athletics on the precipice

“ … schools with low endowments, whose overall budgets are tuition-driven, will be further affected, “and may have to drop sports, drop athletics, or close its doors.”

Bill Bradshaw, retired Div. I A.D. at Temple

The warning has been ominous for college athletes, coaches, and fans. The coronavirus will have an immense impact on athletics in the future. 

The major problem for college and university presidents is filling its seats this fall, and they hope to do that in-person. Athletics are not the major concern, even if the sports bring in millions of dollars to the institution. 

Everyone involved in athletics sees the problems on the horizon, and the picture is not bright, particularly if the college football season does not occur this fall. 

Even if it does, the ramifications of this pandemic will affect the lives of many people and institutions throughout the country. 

So, if their infinitesimal wisdom, the “Power 5” athletic directors, who see their fiefdoms being obliterated, now propose that they be allowed to drop every other sport except those that produce revenue, primarily football and basketball. 

That could devastate hundreds of thousands of athletes, and some of the non-revenue-producing sports are fighting back. 

Everyone knows that athletics will change

Writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist Mike Jensen interviewed many current and former athletic administrators to determine how they envision the problem evolving. 

The loss of millions of dollars of revenue from the cancellation of the NCAA basketball tournament and conference tournaments has had an impact, though it was assuaged by some insurance money that probably will never again be available.

The NCAA will give Div. I schools $225 million next month, but they had anticipated giving them $600 million,

… lost tournament dollars are just the tip of the iceberg. Most cuts won’t be announced in news releases. Interviews with more than a dozen conference and school administrators and coaches led to the same conclusion: The economic climate in college sports that existed pre-coronavirus, even just a month ago, was vastly different from the one that will emerge post-coronavirus.

The ramifications will be endless. Assume the facilities arms race that consumed big-time college sports for more than two decades could slow to a crawl. Athletic department budgets will be trimmed across divisions. Schools trying to stay open might question the importance of having an athletics program at all.

“If you’re losing money everywhere on campus and can’t make up the difference in enrollment numbers and retention -- if you can’t do it because of the changing state of our lives right now -- there’s not a lot of promise in there for athletics," said Drexel sports management professor Karen Weaver, former athletic director at Penn State Abington.

Mike Jensen, “College sports will be hit hard, and will not be the same economically after the coronavirus,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 27, 2020

Yes, some schools are fearful that they will not survive the effects of the pandemic, and even if they do, are questioning the educational value of college athletics. 

Non-revenue producing sports reply

In an op-ed in the publication University Business, four representatives of non-revenue producing sports replied to the A.D.’s who are focused on saving just football and basketball. 

Kathy DeBoer, the executive director of the American Volleyball Coaches Association; Greg Earhart, the executive director of the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America; Rob Kehoe, the director of College Programs for United Soccer Coaches; and Mike Moyer, the executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association were critical of the approach taken by the Power 5 conferences.

They make a persuasive argument,

Recently the Group of Five (G5) Commissioners—a coalition of athletic departments representing half of the conferences in the NCAA Division I—proposed a bleak solution to the pandemic-induced budget shortfalls looming over college sports: Allow a waiver to conferences and schools that would enable them to slash the current number of programs (16) that must be offered to retain Division I membership status.

In the simplest terms, this means the G5 wants the NCAA to allow schools to cut sports such as volleyball, fencing, soccer, baseball and tennis to allocate an even larger share of the remaining money for sports such as football and basketball.

Such a move would deal a devastating blow to thousands of student-athletes, their families, coaches and fans, and would amount to a permanent “solution” to a temporary problem, with lasting and shattering effects to those who love college sports.

Cutting sports is not the right answer and should be taken off the table in this time of unprecedented challenges. Even in budgeting terms, it makes no sense.

Kathy DeBoer, Greg Earhart, Rob Kehoe, and Mike Moyer, “COVID-19 and the future of college sports,” University Business, April 27, 2020

Revenue is essential for operations

As Jensen writes, the lost revenue from canceled NCAA and conference tournaments are important, but the reality is that fans and businesses that have supported the teams and schools in the past may not be able to do so.

Lost conference tournament revenue also is a major issue. Do the venues demand full payment? That’s an unknown, one veteran administrator said. “I’m sure there are some outs on both sides.” Also, longtime partners might handle such issues differently, wishing to maintain the partnership.

For most schools, the conference share isn’t the biggest bucket of revenue. Fund-raising, marketing and sponsorships, ticket sales, merchandising, all are buckets in addition to conference revenue. All will be affected.

Mike Jensen, Inquirer, March 27, 2020

Without the money from the major sports and from ticket sales and corporate sponsorships, could the other sports exist?

The non-revenue reps point out that the athletes in those sports are often better at donating to their schools than their scholarship counterparts. And with hundreds of thousands of student-athletes, this could have a devastating impact on the school itself if these sports were eliminated,

Student-athletes of all sports are young men and women whose graduation rates and donation rates are higher than their peers. Their contributions are key to building communities of life-long fans who, in turn, support our endowments and booster clubs. And they help build our college community as a whole. If we eliminate them, we’d be killing the pipeline that could produce our next World Cup soccer star. We’d be benching baseball players who might turn into little league coaches or even major leaguers. And we’d be sidelining volleyballers who might have stood tall on gold medal pedestals.

There are nearly 200,000 Division I student-athletes, and as we know, most of them go pro in something other than sports. In fact, many of those currently working in the health care industry are doing so because of the opportunities provided by intercollegiate athletics.

Our college sports teach problem-solving and team-building, sharpening the mind and body and creating more capable citizens and human beings. In times like these, we need that more than ever. America’s students have already had so much taken from them. Now is not the time for the NCAA to cut off yet another critical institution that makes university life so special.

Kathy DeBoer, Greg Earhart, Rob Kehoe, and Mike Moyer, 

University Business, April 27, 2020

What does the future hold?

Jensen ends his column with this analysis from a Villanova professor who has been very critical of college athletics in the past, 

“Depending on how long it lasts, the big-time programs may face the prospects of paying for bloated athletic budgets [including athletic administration] with depressed revenues," said Villanova sociology professor Rick Eckstein, who has written books on how sports stadiums have been funded with public dollars, and the impact of college athletics on girls sports.

“I’m not sure this is purely economic, but with the youth sport pipelines all but shut down, it’s going to be harder [and possibly more expensive] for schools to recruit in the traditional manner,” Eckstein said, adding that the traditional manner is often “pay to play.”

This might not affect big-time football and men’s basketball as much, Eckstein said. “But it will affect most of the other sports at every divisional level.”

Mike Jensen, Inquirer, March 27, 2020

Conclusion

The reality is that college athletics will never be the same as it has been over the years. They were riding a wave while in reality, those sports have little educationally-redeeming value. The most important part of this problem is that the schools recover and begin to again hold classes on their campuses — along with other activities. 

Athletics are not at the top of that list, nor should they be. I have enjoyed college athletics as a fan and a coach. However, what I price above that is the wonderful education that I have received at every level. 

That is much more important than the sports. 

Nevertheless, I really feel for the athletes who have worked so hard to excel in their sports and who are yearning to compete, whether they are scholarship athletes or those who love sports and compete in Div. III.