Noah Aniser
Sources:
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/sports/sports-coronavirus-impact.html
- https://fortune.com/2020/04/02/college-football-coronavirus-ncaa-d1-sports/
- https://www.voanews.com/student-union/desperate-play-coronavirus-impact-college-sports
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/04/27/fearing-cuts-non-revenue-college-sports-look-ways-to-weather-this-storm/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/25/colleges-dropping-non-revenue-sports-jeopardizes-us-olympic-model/
Is Covid-19 the End for Non-Revenue Sports in College?
Through the pandemic, colleges started cutting non-revenue sports like women’s water polo, men’s volleyball or soccer. The virus had an undeniable impact on sports in the United States and Colleges are facing a significant decrease of their annual revenue.
Cutting non-revenue programs might have a bigger impact then most of the people think. According to the Washington Post, four of the of the last Gold Medals that the U.S. won at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro were won by athletes from sports among the 11 programs that Stanford decided to cut. Overall, Twenty-nine U.S. athletes who had ties to Stanford won combined 27 medals for the United States, more than any other university’s contingent.
The American system is different from the systems that countries like Germany have because in the U.S. model, sport is tied to school. Out of the 558 members of the 2016 Olympic team, nearly 80 percent participated and competed at a college level. The success of American athletes at big sport events is undeniable and almost scary but the dominance might come to end. If more colleges like Stanford start cutting sport programs, the U.S. Olympic model is lost.
The coronavirus pandemic is threatening the revenue streams that help athletics departments to survive. The revenue made through broadcast rights, ticket sales, donations and more is gone. Schools like Stanford see no other option than cutting sports that are not always in the public eye or sports that have no revenue at all. Even though some college sports don’t generate as much revenue as football, basketball or baseball, they are important and very much needed.
Since the N.C.A.A. cancelled the Men’s Basketball National Tournament in March, coaches knew that it could affect their sport. For all the people who are not familiar with college sports in the U.S. here is a quick crash course of how the athletic departments or in general how the N.C.A.A. operates.
Basketball and Football are the two sports that usually receive the biggest amount of money. They spent the money on scholarships, gear, trainers and just other costs that come with competing at college level. But the basketball and Football programs of that country are also the sports that generate the most profit. The revenue is generated through ticket sales, broadcast rights and sponsorships. That helps fund all the sports that are not able to finance themselves because the are just not as much in the public eye as basketball or football.
David Ridpath, a professor of sports management at Ohio University said that even before the pandemic “it was a very fragile system” and that he thinks “anybody like me who’s been around it for 30-plus years knew that a tipping point was going to come one day.”
That question that a lot of people ask themselves is why schools rather cut several different sport programs across the nation instead of putting less money into athletic departments like football or basketball. Wouldn’t it be the better way to have several different athletic departments and therefore a broad-based athletic program?
The college system in the United States is facing a big decision and it will be very interesting what they choose. One thing is sure though, some athletic departments will suffer.