Will other teams be dropped now?

[Cementmixer103 51]

With the loss of all March Madness revenue and the recent dropping of Old Dominion's program, is this the start of a terrible trend we're going to see this spring and summer?

It actually upset me to start this topic but I would like to know.

Is there any programs already "on the ropes" so to speak? I don't want to jump the gun but is there anything we could do as a community? Maybe one formal letter to send to AD's letting them know the importance of their wrestling programs, how hard these student-athlete's work, etc.? 

It's been one punch below the belt after another. Sad times, for sure.

You all stay safe.

[Cementmixer103 51]

Also - I'm not naive enough to think a letter saying "Please don't drop your men's wrestling program, if you're thinking of doing so. These kids work hard and I'll be mad about it" is going to work, on it's own. 

Obviously it's all about the money but maybe if we make enough noise, they'll reconsider?

Edited April 4 by Cementmixer103
Spelling

[JerryCallo 41]

Someone on another thread made the point that if the 2020 college football season is wiped out the revenue lost from that would be devastating to many college athletic budgets - and that could have a significant impact on those sports, like wrestling, that may be "on the bubble" to borrow a March Madness term. 

I guess time will tell.

Edited April 3 by JerryCallo
add info

[MizzouGrad 19]

Football will be played. It might be on a high school field in the middle of a dessert, but it will be played. Why? Because if it isn't, every single Power 5 school will be $30-80m in the red overnight. 

Right now, the lack of March Madness hurts the smaller schools. No football destroys everyone. 

If you are a fan of a non-Power 5 school, I'd be worried about the wrestling program. The big schools can absorb a $1-3 million dollar hit, the smaller schools cannot.

[MSU158 1,495]

10 minutes ago, MizzouGrad said:

Football will be played. It might be on a high school field in the middle of a dessert, but it will be played. Why? Because if it isn't, every single Power 5 school will be $30-80m in the red overnight. 

Right now, the lack of March Madness hurts the smaller schools. No football destroys everyone. 

If you are a fan of a non-Power 5 school, I'd be worried about the wrestling program. The big schools can absorb a $1-3 million dollar hit, the smaller schools cannot.

Liability is the issue here, first and foremost. If social distancing is still being called for there is NO WAY football is played. Even if you barebones the teams, staff and officials, you will have roughly 100 people absolutely susceptible to exposure from 1, let alone multiple, infected people. 

1 lawsuit could cost them more than 1 lost season. It sucks, but this situation is going to have long lasting effects on everyone!

[Pinnum 792]

1 hour ago, MizzouGrad said:

Football will be played. It might be on a high school field in the middle of a dessert, but it will be played. Why? Because if it isn't, every single Power 5 school will be $30-80m in the red overnight. 

Right now, the lack of March Madness hurts the smaller schools. No football destroys everyone. 

If you are a fan of a non-Power 5 school, I'd be worried about the wrestling program. The big schools can absorb a $1-3 million dollar hit, the smaller schools cannot.

The very real scenario here is that football is delayed a few weeks and the first three weeks of the season are cancelled.

This is particularly significant because it would help salvage the budgets of the top programs as their conference games, championships, and bowls are the big events.  But it would remove the non-conference games and be devastating for the non-P5 programs that rely on the non-conference to help balance their budgets.

I will give one wrestling program example of how removing non-conference games and not playing the first three or four weeks of the season would have a significant impact on the budgets.

Buffalo
- Week 1: $900k from Kansas State
- Week 3: $1.8 Million from Ohio State

To put that into perspective, each school in the MAC gets around $700k a year for the TV deal for all their sports--including basketball and football--from ESPN.  They would be better off financially cancelling their conference games and playing non-conference games.  

I chose Buffalo because they are pretty safe due to the recent elimination of their baseball, soccer, and swimming programs.    So Buffalo is now at minimum number of sports to stay in D1.  I didn't want to call out any programs which I think are most at risk.

But there are many other programs that aren't as safe.  And this isn't just the programs that are dependent on P5 football guarantee games.  FCS programs will see the impact from G5 programs not being able to pay them what they are use to.  And non-football schools will see their basketball guarantees start to dry up which will put their basketball budgets in free fall.

And this all assumes that there isn't a significant drop in enrollment or student fees.  The one saving grace may be that more people are likely to enroll in college in an economic crisis, so an increase in enrollment would provide more student fees to fund sports (thanks to cheap government backed student loans). 

 

Edited April 3 by Pinnum

[teach 161]

Keep in mind the ODU program was not even "on the ropes".

[klehner 367]

5 minutes ago, Pinnum said:

The very real scenario here is that football is delayed a few weeks and the first three weeks of the season are cancelled.

This is particularly significant because it would help salvage the budgets of the top programs as their conference games, championships, and bowls are the big events.  But it would remove the non-conference games and be devastating for the non-P5 programs that rely on the non-conference to help balance their budgets.

I will give one wrestling program example of how removing non-conference games and not playing the first three or four weeks of the season would have a significant impact on the budgets.

Buffalo
- Week 1: $900k from Kansas State
- Week 3: $1.8 Million from Ohio State

To put that into perspective, each school in the MAC gets around $700k a year for the TV deal for all their sports--including basketball and football--from ESPN.  They would be better off financially cancelling their conference games and playing non-conference games.  

I chose Buffalo because they are pretty safe due to the recent elimination of their baseball, soccer, and swimming programs.  (Wrestling made the cut because the MAC sponsors wrestling--otherwise soccer would have been saved and wrestling cut.)  So Buffalo is now at minimum number of sports to stay in D1.  I didn't want to call out any programs which I think are most at risk.

But there are many other programs that aren't as safe.  And this isn't just the programs that are dependent on P5 football guarantee games.  FCS programs will see the impact from G5 programs not being able to pay them what they are use to.  And non-football schools will see their basketball guarantees start to dry up which will put their basketball budgets in free fall.

And this all assumes that there isn't a significant drop in enrollment or student fees.  The one saving grace may be that more people are likely to enroll in college in an economic crisis, so an increase in enrollment would provide more student fees to fund sports (thanks to cheap government backed student loans). 

 

So, they lose a couple of million in revenue, when in 2018,

"Football led in team budgets at $7,796,405, three times as much as any other UB team. "

https://www.ubspectrum.com/article/2018/04/ub-athletics-budget-breakdown

Seems to me that if the football schedule is cancelled, Buffalo suddenly has a bundle of cash they can use for far more important things (doubtful that wrestling is one of
those things).

[Pinnum 792]

11 minutes ago, klehner said:

So, they lose a couple of million in revenue, when in 2018,

"Football led in team budgets at $7,796,405, three times as much as any other UB team. "

https://www.ubspectrum.com/article/2018/04/ub-athletics-budget-breakdown

Seems to me that if the football schedule is cancelled, Buffalo suddenly has a bundle of cash they can use for far more important things (doubtful that wrestling is one of
those things).

How do they suddenly have a bunch of cash when they still have their expenses?

Even if they cancel football, they have to pay their football expenses.  

[Cementmixer103 51]

23 minutes ago, teach said:

Keep in mind the ODU program was not even "on the ropes".

Didn't know that. So out of the blue and sudden.

I'm hoping programs that haven't had much success recently (Binghamton, Maryland, Duke, Hofstra, etc.) don't hit the chopping block next.

[JasonBryant 1,627]

Been told by a former employee that Spartanburg Methodist, a junior college in South Carolina, will be dropping tennis and wrestling. MacMurray closed - the entire school - and with it men's and women's wrestling goes away too. 

[Cementmixer103 51]

10 minutes ago, JasonBryant said:

Been told by a former employee that Spartanburg Methodist, a junior college in South Carolina, will be dropping tennis and wrestling. MacMurray closed - the entire school - and with it men's and women's wrestling goes away too. 

Terrible.

[IronChef 689]

I think the virus just provided cover. This decision was in the works in some form or another for awhile.

From the article
"The decision in part developed from the findings of a six-month study of the athletics program by an outside consultant. The comprehensive report reviewed the national college sports landscape, identified current and future financial challenges and evaluated Title IX compliance, which led to the recommendation to discontinue a varsity sport. Once completely implemented, it is estimated that athletics will have an expense savings of approximately $1 million."

[jdalu75 67]

My thinking too.  COVID-19 is the fall guy now, the way Title IX was 25 years ago.  There are quite a few weak Div I teams but since they've struggled so hard to maintain their programs I don't know that this will add to their burdens; cutting those programs wouldn't save the schools much.

Any thoughts on which teams will be picking over the carcass of ODU's program?  Killian Cardinale has two years' of eligibility remaining; the roster shows eight RS-freshman, seven true freshmen including two Top 100 recruits, and Intermat's commitment list shows eleven incoming freshmen, including two more Top 100s.  That's a lot of young talent suddenly available.

[bnwtwg 390]

20 minutes ago, jdalu75 said:

Any thoughts on which teams will be picking over the carcass of ODU's program?  

10 wrestlers and 1 assistant are from IL, and Steve Martin's son wrestled at U of I. Wouldn't be surprised to see many of them head back to Illinois-area schools like Illinois, Northern Iowa, Northern Illinois, SIU-E, and Mizzou

Edited April 3 by bnwtwg

[BobDole 963]

How long will it take the NCAA to drop the number of required sports for DI? 

[Schuteandscore 53]

2 hours ago, JasonBryant said:

Been told by a former employee that Spartanburg Methodist, a junior college in South Carolina, will be dropping tennis and wrestling. MacMurray closed - the entire school - and with it men's and women's wrestling goes away too. 

They had just started up when I was in college, I feel like around 2002 or 2003, And really had some talent, that is terrible.

[wrestlefan57 8]

18 minutes ago, BobDole said:

How long will it take the NCAA to drop the number of required sports for DI? 

I believe the limit is 21 schools must participate to be a sanctioned sport. Men's gymnastics is the exception to that rule and has a waiver from the NCAA as an Olympic sport and are partially funded by USA Gymnastics.

[Pinnum 792]

11 minutes ago, wrestlefan57 said:

I believe the limit is 21 schools must participate to be a sanctioned sport. Men's gymnastics is the exception to that rule and has a waiver from the NCAA as an Olympic sport and are partially funded by USA Gymnastics.

I think he means the minimum number a school needs to be a D1 school.   It is currently 14 sports (8 women; 6 men or 7/7) with each gender playing at least each of the three seasons (fall, winter, spring) and at least two sports per gender being classified as team sports (can’t just play basketball and all individual sports). 
 

FBS schools have other requirements like minimum scholarships.  

[JasonBryant 1,627]

10 wrestlers and 1 assistant are from IL, and Steve Martin's son wrestled at U of I. Wouldn't be surprised to see many of them head back to Illinois-area schools like Illinois, Northern Iowa, Northern Illinois, SIU-E, and Mizzou

Nephew wrestled at Illinois.

[bnwtwg 390]

11 minutes ago, JasonBryant said:

Nephew wrestled at Illinois.

Sorry its been 15-20 years. Glad to see you are alive today on the board. This is a damn shame what's happening to our sport.

[fullnelson 112]

Many programs are cutting back on salaries and funding for the sport, anywhere from 80% to 2/3 of the budget. All sports are taking a hit apparently.

[TexRef 63]

3 hours ago, Cementmixer103 said:

Terrible.

Check this out! Augustana just added a women's program. Here is a school that cost over $50K a year. They are a D3 school which means no athletic money available. In the last 3 years since Eric Juergens left as the Head Coach, they are 3-28. The outlook doesn't look good. 

[mspart 184]

Feeling run deep.  BYU cancelled their program.  I haven't given to them since.  Still upsets me to think of it.

mspart

[Sparky 27]

7 hours ago, BobDole said:

How long will it take the NCAA to drop the number of required sports for DI? 

That's the really scary question.