Stanford eliminating 11 sports

[Artist Formerly Known As]

It sucks for the players and coaches, but what is wrong with a club level team when COVID clears?

Those programs that were cut don’t necessarily lead to careers, only the Stanford education does.

 

[TexasCane90]

Obvious it’s always been in the cards to cut these sports

This just provides the cover needed to do the grimy work

 

[Billy D Williams]

Simply require a sport to earn 80% of the revenue required to function, including scholarships, personnel, operations, facilities, equipment etc.

 

[Canesfan1899]

I honestly think we're getting pushed to the spring

I’m this instance did you let kids play out the season even if they declare for the draft? Baseball allows kids that are drafted to play college ball, as does hockey.

 

[grover]

Never let a crisis go to waste. What a great excuse to eliminate fringe programs.

 

[PSU Cane]

Simply require a sport to earn 80% of the revenue required to function, including scholarships, personnel, operations, facilities, equipment etc.

then you’d have 2 sports - men’s basketball and football.

 

[rok]

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Palo Alto.

 

[Artist Formerly Known As]

Obvious it’s always been in the cards to cut these sports

This just provides the cover needed to do the grimy work

Why is it grimy?

 

[aleahy]

A primary issue a lot of these schools find themselves in is heavy debt used to finance all of these facilities in the past 10 or so years. It’s been a massive arms race and now with the revenues drying up they are in a panic because the debt payments are still due.

There was an article a year or two ago that detailed the absurd debt many athletic departments had taken on based on the projection of constantly increasing revenue from football TV and the NCAA basketball tournament. Some were going to be in trouble just in the event that the increases didn’t happen. If the revenue just went away for a period of time? Big trouble.

 

[Tetragrammaton Cane]

then you’d have 2 sports - men’s basketball and football.

You’d have zero sports - Title IX is a reality that’s not going anywhere.

 

[OriginalCanesCanesCanes]

Title IX has not been suspended

 

[Tetragrammaton Cane]

Title IX has not been suspended

Exactly! That’s not the elephant in the room, that’s the room. That’s the space all collegiate sports are expected to fit.

 

[TexasCane90]

Why is it grimy?

Why are we talking about it if it didn’t get a rise out of folks and people taking about all the lost opportunities potential kids looking for a scholarship via sports lose out on..

I get it.. if I had a child who proved to be good at say Golf.. track... etc. and had a chance at a scholarship to Stanford I’d be through the roof... sucks but it is what it is.. I see more of this happening

 

[PSU Cane]

You’d have zero sports - Title IX is a reality that’s not going anywhere.

Right but I was simply responding to the original comment, which isn’t realistic in any sense. The only sports than can make that kind of money to support anything is men’s b-ball and football.....and that’s tickets, fan gear, endorsement contracts plus tv money.

Some schools might be able to suppport a hockey team, like BU, Denver, etc, or a wrestling/baseball team here or there. Just think of travel costs. How much do those flights and hotel stays cost on the road? Plus meals, coaches salaries, trainers, medical staff, equipment.

 

[Tetragrammaton Cane]

Right but I was simply responding to the original comment, which isn’t realistic in any sense. The only sports than can make that kind of money to support anything is men’s b-ball and football.....and that’s tickets, fan gear, endorsement contracts plus tv money.

Some schools might be able to suppport a hockey team, like BU, Denver, etc, or a wrestling/baseball team here or there. Just think of travel costs. How much do those flights and hotel stays cost on the road? Plus meals, coaches salaries, trainers, medical staff, equipment.

A lot of people don’t realize how much TV money changed the game. When Miami was an independent the best facilities in the nation were in the Ivy League (FSU‘s stadium barely looked like an erector set). The other schools were on par…at a much lower level (Miami had arguably the best swim/diving team in the nation, and the backstroke WR holder went to Harvard).

TV contracts didn’t just finance what is here today, it mortgaged it. That’s why these athletic departments are talking about financial ruin with just the prospect of losing one full season. And those “travel demands” that’s because of conference expansion (ACC used to be from GT to Maryland, now it’s Coral Gables to Chestnut Hill; B1G is Maryland to Nebraska …).

 

[GojiraCane]

A primary issue a lot of these schools find themselves in is heavy debt used to finance all of these facilities in the past 10 or so years. It’s been a massive arms race and now with the revenues drying up they are in a panic because the debt payments are still due.

There was an article a year or two ago that detailed the absurd debt many athletic departments had taken on based on the projection of constantly increasing revenue from football TV and the NCAA basketball tournament. Some were going to be in trouble just in the event that the increases didn’t happen. If the revenue just went away for a period of time? Big trouble.

Yep. Take away TV money for a year or two and college football will be significantly smaller when it returns. This is perhaps one area that UM may have an advantage on - we haven't spent hundreds of millions of dollars on stadium upgrades (like Texas) or giant, athlete-only centers with water slides and golf courses (Clemson).