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Magnanimous

Expendable IU sports

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This isn’t going to be a pleasant thread, but with COVID-19 impacts looming this fall on college football, the lack of attendance revenue, and other athletic departments starting to make cuts, it’s a discussion every school is thinking about. Today Stanford announced they’re cutting 11 of their 36 sports programs after the 2020-21 season. Now not all them compete in the NCAA, and a few aren’t even offered at IU, but field hockey and wrestling both were eliminated. UConn also recently announced they’re dropping men’s cross country, men’s swimming and diving, and men’s tennis.

IU obviously benefits from having Big Ten media revenue, something Stanford, UConn, and a number of other universities don’t. We also do not have 36 varsity teams. However, every athletic department is vulnerable in one way or another, and we’d be kidding ourselves if we didn’t consider ourselves at least somewhat lucky to be getting all this BTN and Fox college football money with the “contributions” our team has made. At the end of the day, like just about every Power 5 school, we have two programs that bring in all of our AD’s money and largely subsidize the rest of our sports. Also like just about every Power 5 school, money in just about equals money out, and we operate our athletic department’s finances very near the margins every year.

The tough spot IU potentially finds itself in is that we are fairly strong in our non-revenue sports and/or just made massive investments in those programs’ facilities. We’re not dropping men’s soccer or any swimming and diving teams. We just built a new facility for wrestling and volleyball. Baseball and softball facilities are seven years old. Our new golf course was just finished.

Women’s water polo, field hockey, both tennis teams, and maybe some track and field/cross country programs logically seem like they’d be the most vulnerable, unless I’m missing something going for those programs related to new facilities or team success. There’s also Title IX considerations.

I’d be curious to hear others’ thoughts on this and what the logical order of dominos would be. 

Another thing, I think the Big Ten’s momentum in expanding the men’s lacrosse and ice hockey leagues has just hit a wall.

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Women’s water polo has been successful over the last decade or so ranking in the top 20 fairly consistently. Obviously they are not revenue generating, but they do at least represent IU well in the pool.


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Not sure if this fits in here or somewhere else but my “hot take” for the day is I doubt fall sports compete this year. I just don’t see how we’re expecting something to magically get better when we’ll be in prime flu season not long after those sports are schedule to start competing again. I’ll be shocked if you don’t see universities quickly go back to an online format mid semester too.


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Ya know, I really like a big group of my friends here! They might not like what I have to say but that ok with me. I think we need to play football! I think we need to play basketball! And I don’t give a rats butt what anyone else thinks! I can go through the list of you guys. Other than you Stu! Lol. Everybody chill the hell out! Let’s hope we got football, let’s hope we got basketball ! Come on! Be positive! Not Debbie downers!

next else thinks! Just my opinion ! So there!


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24 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

Not sure if this fits in here or somewhere else but my “hot take” for the day is I doubt fall sports compete this year. I just don’t see how we’re expecting something to magically get better when we’ll be in prime flu season not long after those sports are schedule to start competing again. I’ll be shocked if you don’t see universities quickly go back to an online format mid semester too.


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These schools are doing everything they can to ensure fall enrollment is high enough. They pull the plug halfway through the semester, an already angry and compliant student body may very well skip the spring semester if they don’t feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.

I feel like we’re in a holding pattern right now with how bad things are likely going to be this fall across the country. Right now it’s warm out and we’re outside, we’ve done enough to help support many seasonal summer establishments, and school is out. Let’s see how much longer this can hold up when it’s 45 degrees outside and numbers aren’t going down. I’m not trying to by hysteric. I get that this virus has a low mortality rate and you’re going to get higher positive numbers the more testing there is, but the reality is politics and public administration don’t care. 

I’m very worried about the financial wellbeing of college towns with no sports attendance or graduation and possible declining enrollment. Bloomington is no exception.

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35 minutes ago, Loaded Chicken Sandwich said:

Gotta make money. And those 2 obviously make by far the most. 

Football and basketball are obviously not going anywhere. Of IU’s non-revenue generation sports, which do you think would be first on the chopping block?

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Can anyone locate a breakdown of the overall athletic dept. budget by individual sports program? 

I have no idea what we spend on field hockey vs. water polo vs. golf vs any other sport.  With no frame of reference, I would expect baseball and softball to be big expense items based on numbers of participants, uniforms/equipment and lots of road trips with multiple overnight stays.  Not advocating that by any means but do you look to cut as few programs as possible to save the others or eliminate much lesser profile programs but in greater numbers?  I certainly hope we don't have to reach that point.

What would be the impact if McRobbie didn't suck B1G money for other purposes?

Bet Glass is counting his blessings every morning that he's no longer AD.

 

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1 hour ago, Magnanimous said:

Football and basketball are obviously not going anywhere. Of IU’s non-revenue generation sports, which do you think would be first on the chopping block?

I'd say you would have to put all women's sports except maybe WBB on the chopping block and then all other men's sports except maybe baseball. 

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2 hours ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Can anyone locate a breakdown of the overall athletic dept. budget by individual sports program? 

I have no idea what we spend on field hockey vs. water polo vs. golf vs any other sport.  With no frame of reference, I would expect baseball and softball to be big expense items based on numbers of participants, uniforms/equipment and lots of road trips with multiple overnight stays.  Not advocating that by any means but do you look to cut as few programs as possible to save the others or eliminate much lesser profile programs but in greater numbers?  I certainly hope we don't have to reach that point.

What would be the impact if McRobbie didn't suck B1G money for other purposes?

Bet Glass is counting his blessings every morning that he's no longer AD.

 

It’s also important to not just cut the biggest costs but by the net loss these departments run. Baseball probably gets more revenue than just about any sport outside the big 2.  
 

Soccer I think has to be protected as best as possible simple because the legacy also 

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