Reporter tells Paul Finebaum that colleges are considering cutting staff and even sports amid coronavirus outbreak
It’s an unprecedented time in college sports, as things have pretty much been shut down due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The NCAA Tournament — both men’s and women’s — were canceled, and that’s a huge revenue hit for the NCAA.
Could we see some drastic measures being taken across Division I athletic departments? Michael Smith of Sports Business Journal joined “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Monday and said he’s heard a source say some schools are considering cutting staff size and potentially even cutting sports:
.@smittySBJ tells @finebaum he talked to a source consulting with two athletic departments today. "Both of those conversations include cutting staff and cutting sports. I hope that's not where we're headed, but it very well could be."
— Brandon Zimmerman (@BZSEC) March 30, 2020
More @SmittySBJ on the possibility of reducing the 14 sports required to be Division I. "I can't help but wonder if this will be an opportunity for the NCAA to go: 'I wonder if 10 is the right number.'"
— Brandon Zimmerman (@BZSEC) March 30, 2020
There’s still time likely before any decisions like that would be necessary, but it is still a concerning line of thought.
Hopefully, we can get past the COVID-19 outbreak and get back to normal, but this pandemic might put a bit of a halt on the outrageous spending some college athletic departments have enjoyed during the boom period.
Without a football season, this could definitely become reality.
I wonder which 2 men’s sports along with which 2 women’s sports would most schools cut?
A conference is a stability tool. It allows programs to spend more money and have a better chance of keeping the investment in black ink. But it’s not essential. I personally think it’s nuts to fly or bus non-income producing sport’s teams all over the nation to compete. The most compelling reason is that it has a serious effect on the quality of education these students get. Keep this in perspective, it’s not more serious than keeping grad asst.s from teaching classes or having class sized smaller than 30-40, but all these things need to be improved to really get back to ‘higher’ education vs on-the-job-training. So back to my point….have the non-income producing sports compete in-state or locally, and keep more students in class. If no local programs can keep the contest competitive, then cut grants in aid, that’s dumb for non-income-producing sports anyway. If the schedule still isn’t competitive have more than one squad, giving more students a chance to play, and dilute the talent till it’s a fair contest.