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/
How do colleges react to the lack of revenue through Covid-19?
The dominance of America in sports might find an end because of colleges cutting non-revenue sports.
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 like soccer or water polo might have a bigger impact then most of the people think. However, 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. The Washington post mentions that 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 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. According to the Washington Post the revenue made through broadcast rights, ticket sales, donations and enrollment are declining. Some colleges like Morningside which are relatively small are missing out on payouts too, but they might survive through the funding of the students on campus. Schools like Stanford which are way bigger see no other option than cutting sports that are not always in the public eye or sports that have no revenue at all. That affects for example Soccer or Men’s volleyball. 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.
Basketball and Football are the two sports that usually receive the biggest amount of money. They spend the money on scholarships, gear, trainers and just other costs that come with competing at college level. But the basketball and football programs of the 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 they are just not as much in the public eye as basketball or football.
David Ridpath, a professor of sports management at Ohio University told the New York Times 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.”