I don't look at it as an income related thing but maybe they could run as club sports with smaller contributions from the university and donations. Just travel expenses across the country have to be quite expensive.
FC/OT: De-investing in non-revenue sports? OSU doing it…
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Wrestling would be gone except that it's popular in the BiG and PSU has excelled. SEC and Pac12 schools might drop wrestling but not the BiG.
Penn State would, almost certainly, be among the last universities to even consider dropping wrestling.
The issues w college wrestling center around how many programs there are - nationwide.
I think there are around 28 or so P4 schools that sponsor wrestling, along with maybe 4-5 non-P4 schools that have competitive wrestling programs (think Cornell and a few others).
That is not a lot, but it is enough.
As things evolve - especially with the newly modified NCAA guidelines - some of those schools are going to have to have real conversations wrt what they do with wrestling moving forward - think schools like Indiana, Maryland, Duke, Purdue, Oregon State, Stanford (which decided to drop - then re-instated, wrestling just a few years ago), Virginia, etc. Heck, even the Olympics gave serious consideration to dropping wrestling not so long ago.
Those schools are going to have to reckon with:
- what they are currently spending
- knowing that they will soon have to spend even more to maintain any level of competitiveness at the D1 level (and most aren't that competitive as is)
- know that funding required to keep their "money makers" competitive (Football and Men's Basketball) is going to rise dramatically
If enough of those schools decide the answer for wrestling is "No" (at least not at the current level), and you end up with 12 legit D1 competitive wrestling programs where does that leave the handful of schools (the PSU, Iowa, Oklahoma State, and others) that DO want to maintain high level wrestling? You've got to have competitors to play, Look at what happened to men's Gymnastics over the last couple decades - it is essentially a non-entity at the college level. and that happened without all of these new pressures.
College athletics is definitely entering a brave new world.
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As to my proposal to self-fund, I think we don’t really know who would step up to fund if it came down to it until it happened. I posited that certain sports have athletes that likely come from higher income groups as one factor to consider in the projections. As for PSU wrestling, I think it’s reasonable to think people would step up. We see that Iowa and Oklahoma State have benefactors that seem willing to carry those programs one way or another (meaning distribution of $$ among athletes, coaches and admin costs is likely flexible).
Only two SEC schools have wrestling teams, Mizzou and OU. Missouri wrestles in the Big 12 as will OU.
The SEC doesn’t have wrestling. D1 exists at the B1G, ACC, PAC 12, Big 12, and the Ivies. There are a few outliers that have D1 wrestling programs as well like Lock Haven, Edinboro, etc. Those schools, I would think, would be the most vulnerable to losing their programs.
I’m going to play naive here. What about big schools’ consideration to drop wrestling changes the small schools’ situations?
It is interesting because Iowa complains that PSU has way more funding than they do.
Agreed.
No one can predict the future, but I don't think that whatever challenges PSU wrestling might face moving forward would be internal.
As it is now, PSU wrestling could be financially in the black on the ledger simply by moving an additional match or two to the BJC.... and, if necessary, I think more than adequate external funding (donations) would be readily attainable.
I expect that PSU wrestling's challenges will come about - if they do - from external concerns (such as too many other Universities programs dropping out from the top levels of the sport)
They should have two divisions of non revenue producing sports then have a championship for the two best in each division. That way many teams would stay closer to home and it would cost far less. I do not agree at all to cut any sport that we have because it is not football. I would put more pressure on teams that do make money to make more. Basketball hasn’t been great here in forever. Football hasn’t made a playoff. Etc etc. so make more money in sports that generate money.
as a father who has/had daughters in track tennis and band I am totally against getting rid of these sports.
as a father who has/had daughters in track tennis and band I am totally against getting rid of these sports.
Not necessarily. Just means that ADs have to get smarter and more creative. That's a lot to ask, but.....
The irony of the past 40+ years being the era of "free money" is that for so long, we paid the coach peanuts, and allowed him to do the bulk of the fundraising for the athletic department as a whole... in return, he donated a sizeable portion BACK to the same University....
And yet, for roughly the same results (if not worse, by many measures)... we are now spending $10m a year on coaches, god only knows how much on facilities upgrades... and yet we're still no closer to winning a national title than before. If the era of free money is ending, we went all in at the very end for little.... incredible.
I expect we will see the exact numbers when the next EADA report comes out, but I expect that if you are talking about the entire football coaching STAFF, the "FIFY" I edited in is probably going to be close to correct. Maybe a little light now that the NCAA loosened the rules there.
But the things truly holding this program back are alignment, facilities, dorms, lazy rivers, etc.
My conversations with people in the Athletic Department is that no sports will be cut, but some will move to Club sports. Especially men's sports.
To me it seems moving a sport to club status is the same as cutting it since it would no longer fall under ICA. PSU currently has a number of club teams which aren't NCAA level however the sport is sponsored by the NCAA.
- Women's bowling
- Rifle
- Women's rowing
- Skiing
- Water polo
If ICA feels it's necessary to cut sports, that's their decision to make regardless of how popular/unpopular it may be. But they should be honest about what they're doing instead of spinning it like they're doing everyone a favor.
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Using Johns Hopkins as an example for this idea, I think the major conferences should only be for football, basketball, and maybe only 1 or 2 other sports. Everything else can and should be regional conferences to limit travel. Some schools may choose to have sports at D1/2/3 like Hopkins does.
I have no doubt some minor sports will be cut over time. Before any large scale culling is done, I would think the people in charge would come to their senses and realize that football is disproportionate to everything else and is severely tipping the scale to where it’s in a class of its own.
It seems the only sensible move would be to blow up the current distorted conferences (Stanford and Cal in the ACC) and go back to the regional play that was more common before 1993. Back to the days of the Big 8, PAC 10, SWC, and independents.
Softball, volleyball, lacrosse etc shouldn’t be flying out to Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Nebraska, much less California and Oregon.
Football (and basketball??) should fall into new super conferences with the palyoff. The rest of the sports should be playing regionally. They need to be de-emphasized rather than trying to force them into the football model.
It seems the only sensible move would be to blow up the current distorted conferences (Stanford and Cal in the ACC) and go back to the regional play that was more common before 1993. Back to the days of the Big 8, PAC 10, SWC, and independents.
Softball, volleyball, lacrosse etc shouldn’t be flying out to Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Nebraska, much less California and Oregon.
Football (and basketball??) should fall into new super conferences with the palyoff. The rest of the sports should be playing regionally. They need to be de-emphasized rather than trying to force them into the football model.
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In the ivory tower of Old Main, they drink brandy, smoke expensive cigars, and laugh at Johns Hopkins.
Don’t forget the onion dip. They had to mass order it during Barron’s time here. I’m sure it’ll take time to exhaust the supply.
With Bloomberg's money pouring in, nobody laughs at Hopkins. Mike's humidor is Cuba.
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There's a lot of sense to all of this. It's been argued here for years that a university's mission is education...sports is often outside of that. Spin the big money sports into a super league that is self sustaining. Maintain a university affiliation for PR and student recruiting purposes. And either cut the other sports or move them to club/donor-funded status.
The fact that Stanford was among the first schools to cut back (since reversed on some level) says a lot. It's an impractical and unsustainable model. Nothing about having 30+ varsity sports clearly maps to a university's core mission.
The fact that Stanford was among the first schools to cut back (since reversed on some level) says a lot. It's an impractical and unsustainable model. Nothing about having 30+ varsity sports clearly maps to a university's core mission.
Too late for Penn State (and many others) - the die has been cast.
Some could argue - rationally - that sports has become the #1 mission for PSU (for PSU leadership anyway).
When you have at least 4 ball coaches that are paid more than the University president (a university president who is herself extremely well-paid - among the most highly compensated public university presidents in the nation.... and, still, at least a fistful of ball coaches paid more)
And you approve of spending roughly $1 billion in just the last few years "building stuff" for athletics, while running budgetary deficits and while cutting back on things like faculty and academic staff. A pretty compelling argument can be made as to what is the highest priority.
Honestly, how do you rationally argue that it (sports) has not become the top priority?
Don’t confuse priorities with mission. They are often misaligned by poor management teams. PSU has a poor management team with zero accountability.
Bloomberg Law program had a good session on this with some great commentators. The way that Title IX gets bypassed is by having a rev sport like CFB be an independent corporation completely outside of the the Univ leadership. The players are employees and could be union under a CBA if needed. The school has a contract for service from the team and pays, and also licenses its brand. The players would not have to be students, but could be by paying tuition. there would be no NCAA oversight, but there might be a league management given anti-trust immunity. The players would sign contracts and largely live and operate outside the school like the pros they are. NFL model with contracts and salary cap. This removes the players from being counted as part of the Title IX pool. The non rev sports then stand on their own. Club sports can still be a model and survive.
This also means that there is an understanding that NIL is NOT pay for play. The comp would be pay for play, but a player could go get NIL contracts for say doing ads for Dr Pepper. That would be the NIL money that only a few could get.
If the team is an organization outside of the school... how long before the team realizes that it does not need to license the name/mascot? Just rename the team and save the cash.
If we get Penn State Football, Inc., will we lose the alignment that Franklin currently enjoys with Neeli and Kraft?