I have a feeling that more low to mid majors are going to follow suit in the next year or so. I sure hope not but after seeing what happened at Furman and now at CSU - it it is a such a shame for the student/athletes and the university.
Wow. My heart breaks a little each time I hear about this. If a school is going to eliminate a sport, they need to go ahead and do it quickly so those students can decide what to do about it.
Horrible. And according to the article, they are replacing baseball with soccer?
Yeah, that's really twisting the knife. Of course, there are equipment cost differences but roster sizes aren't that different and I would think all other costs are relatively same. How much can they really be saving?
The way I see it - they've only had 3 winning seasons in the past 55 years. At a certain point, the board has to sit down and say - what're we doing here. It is very obvious the athletic department was unfit to navigate the baseball program to success. You either need a complete ath dept overhaul or get rid of baseball.
IMO they made the right choice. Yes it sucks, but I'm not blindly going to support bad baseball so 30 more kids can say they played D1 baseball each year. Long overdue and I see many programs following suit. Whether that is justified or not is a different discussion, but when you lose 100 games in 2.25 years it's hard to put a good argument together.
The way I see it - they've only had 3 winning seasons in the past 55 years. At a certain point, the board has to sit down and say - what're we doing here. It is very obvious the athletic department was unfit to navigate the baseball program to success. You either need a complete ath dept overhaul or get rid of baseball.
IMO they made the right choice. Yes it sucks, but I'm not blindly going to support bad baseball so 30 more kids can say they played D1 baseball each year. Long overdue and I see many programs following suit. Whether that is justified or not is a different discussion, but when you lose 100 games in 2.25 years it's hard to put a good argument together.
Holy Kr@p... knew it was bad but not that bad and not for that long... Never mind. Hack away.
Ten other D1 choices in Illinois, nine in Indiana and seven in Kentucky is probably adequate. Although only one each in Iowa and Wisconsin and four in Missouri?
I still wonder, though... who's fault is it that they have such a long history of losing baseball? And, what will be different with soccer?
The way I see it - they've only had 3 winning seasons in the past 55 years. At a certain point, the board has to sit down and say - what're we doing here. It is very obvious the athletic department was unfit to navigate the baseball program to success. You either need a complete ath dept overhaul or get rid of baseball.
IMO they made the right choice. Yes it sucks, but I'm not blindly going to support bad baseball so 30 more kids can say they played D1 baseball each year. Long overdue and I see many programs following suit. Whether that is justified or not is a different discussion, but when you lose 100 games in 2.25 years it's hard to put a good argument together.
I believe New York Institute had similar issues with respects to finding a local conference before becoming a Independent.
Moving down to NCAA-D2, created some natural rivalries in the East Coast Conference.
Maybe some of the following schools will look at dropping down.
The way I see it - they've only had 3 winning seasons in the past 55 years. At a certain point, the board has to sit down and say - what're we doing here. It is very obvious the athletic department was unfit to navigate the baseball program to success. You either need a complete ath dept overhaul or get rid of baseball.
IMO they made the right choice. Yes it sucks, but I'm not blindly going to support bad baseball so 30 more kids can say they played D1 baseball each year. Long overdue and I see many programs following suit. Whether that is justified or not is a different discussion, but when you lose 100 games in 2.25 years it's hard to put a good argument together.
I think that is a bad take. How could this possibly be a good decision that has positive effects on baseball when bad programs close? Sure losing is not great but contracting the program means less college players and baseball jobs lost.
I mean a program is just a name and you could in theory turn any program into a winning program given enough resources and willingness to change personnel. Or if that is not possible a move down to D2 or D3 would also have been much better than contraction.
Some people view the coming contraction of milb and college baseball as "more efficient" but the reality is baseball as a whole is contracting (youth participation and now also college and minor league ball) and long term this isn't good for baseball.
Sure baseball won't die and mlb is still making good money but it is an aging and shrinking market that mlb tries to milk to the last drop.
I'm not saying shrinking can't increase efficiency and profitability but very often it is just an adaptation to a shrinking or even dying market.
Baseball isn't dying and still going strong but the age of fans and the shrinking of the levels below mlb imo isn't a good sign.
Odd timing for this announcement, considering that 24 players Chicago State were in the transfer portal 2 weeks ago. This must have been the worst kept secret in college baseball.
I have had former players that I have coached play at CSU and they had the ability of playing D1 baseball and get an education which I am extremely proud of. I actually went through the same thing where I played D1 baseball and used it to get a degree but our school dropped all of athletics in the late 90s. I understand that CSU did not perform well in terms of wins and losses (and being in the WAC was a huge mistake financially). It upsets me that it is going to happen to other schools in the future. I know from a different thread - teams are going to have 35 to 45 man rosters in the Fall. Where are they going to go? JUCOS, NAIA, D3 are going to reap the benefits but then they are going to be in the same boat as D1s. The whole recruiting thing is going to be a mess for a couple of years until things settle down. IMO
I understand it's not going to be a popular take but I actually don't think we're too far off on our thinking. You're right, any program can become a winning program with the proper resources, relocation, etc. Unfortunately none of that was happening. Chi St has the minimum amount of sports to remain a D1 school, by replacing baseball with soccer they can stay D1. Remaining D1 clearly seems to be a priority. If they aren't going to support the baseball program the way a D1 team needs nothing is going to change.
With that being said, I'm not putting as much blame on the baseball team as much as I am on the athletic department. They're clearly unfit to oversee a baseball program in general, let alone a winning program. If you're on the board and were told: the team hasn't had a winning season since 1971 and we're unable to provide any additional resources that will change that - why would you vote to keep it?
Do I want to see schools cut baseball? No. Do I disagree with schools for cutting baseball? Also no. Chicago State should not be a D1 program for any sport. I can't find a single sport that has had a winning record since 2010. That's not a joke. The women's basketball team has won 4 games since 2015. 10 in 10 years. The athletic dept at that school needs to be completely wiped from AD to concession stand workers. They need to be a D3 school at best. Does it suck for the kids, yes. Am I going to fight and say they should still have a program? No.
If baseball dies, it won't be because Bowling Green cancelled baseball, it will be because games take 4 hours and we have 2.5 minute commercials while we wait for the pitcher to take 5 warmup pitches. There are a myriad of reasons for signs pointing towards a baseball decline. That is a different discussion. But getting rid of one of the worst college baseball programs in the country won't really make a drop in the bucket of that issue.
I posted this in another thread. Just the tip of the iceberg.
Mid-major conferences brace for inevitable cuts in sports budgets because of pandemic
West Coast Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez talks with Oronde Taliaferro, an NBA scout for the Detroit Pistons, before a game last season between Brigham Young and Gonzaga in Provo, Utah.
Three months ago, three of her WCC teams were in position to reach the tournament, an accomplishment that would have cemented the league’s flourishing basketball reputation and, just as crucially, bolstered its athletic departments’ bottom lines.
“My password to my computer was ‘2020 Final Four,’ ” Nevarez said with a wishful laugh during a recent phone interview. “I was believing.”
It was a rare opportunity lost to the coronavirus crisis, a chance for the non-football conference to substantially drive revenue from an actual athletic achievement. Instead, it only underlined the huge financial issues facing mid-major conference athletics.
Unlike their Football Bowl Subdivision counterparts, most mid-major schools don’t have massive ticket sales, colossal TV contracts or lucrative sponsorship agreements. While FBS programs need football to balance the books, mid-major schools largely rely on student fees and campus subsidies to fund their athletic departments.
That reality has left mid-major conference administrators across the nation at the whim of factors beyond their control. At non-FBS schools, which account for roughly two-thirds of the NCAA’s 353 Division I members, athletic economic recovery will depend on student bodies returning to campus, not just sports.
“The cuts and the decisions that are being made right now in our league ... are very serious and deep,” Nevarez said. “It’s the ripple-through effect of the virus and whether international students come back, whether students who have committed continue to enroll in the fall, and those long-term benefits that impact enrollment.”
Long Beach State athletic director Andy Fee echoed that uncertainty.
“I know we’re going to have to cut some budgets,” he said. “The question for me is, how deep are these cuts going to be?”
When comparing mid-major conference schools without a football program to FBS institutions, Fee isn’t sure who is in a more precarious spot.
FBS schools, he said, “have a mechanism to drive revenue. But the problem is do they have their eggs in one basket? … If that football season doesn’t happen, they’re almost in the same boat as we are. Actually, they might even be in worse shape than us.”
The big difference: It seems like the football season will commence — albeit with limited-capacity or empty stadiums — regardless of whether campuses reopen this fall, allowing FBS programs to potentially collect much of their normal revenue.
At mid-major conference schools, it remains unclear if enrollment totals will drop because of the pandemic, or how student fees could be impacted if the majority of classes are moved online for an entire semester, an arrangement already planned for Cal State schools (the majority of which have non-FBS athletic programs).
“Let’s say you have a third-less students on campus,” said Karen Weaver, a sports management professor at Drexel and former athletic director of a Division III school in Pennsylvania. “That means your student fees have dried up by a third. What does that mean for athletic department budgets? Does that mean your athletic department budget gets cut by a third? How do you manage that?”
Men’s basketball is often the one sport that can help non-FBS programs generate substantial revenue, particularly through qualification for the NCAA tournament. Every time a team makes March Madness or advances a round, for instance, its conference earns a “unit” to be paid out among its members.
“Basketball is our football,” said Nevarez, who estimates that the cancellation of this year’s tournament cost her conference 60% of its would-be NCAA unit distributions, equating to millions of fewer dollars for its schools. “Distributions we receive from the NCAA for [tournament] participation, that is a big chunk of our operational budget and provides a big influx to our departments that help fund basketball and all other sports.”
But nothing is more important in mid-major conference athletics than main-campus financial support.
Take UCLA, San Diego State and Cal State Fullerton for example. All are public institutions. All are Division I schools. But UCLA and San Diego State, which have FBS programs, are far less financially reliant on their central campus than Fullerton, a non-football school in the Big West.
According to UCLA’s statement of revenue and expenditures for the 2019 fiscal year, less than 3% of the Bruins’ $108.4 million in athletics revenue came from student fees and direct institutional support. (UCLA athletics did need a $18.9-million interest-bearing loan from central campus to cover 2019 losses, the first time in 15 years it failed to balance its budget).
San Diego State, a Mountain West school with less-lucrative but still-significant football earnings, was more split, with about half of its $54.7 million in total 2019 athletics revenue coming from student fees and direct institutional support, according to a 2019 revenue/expense summary reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
Fullerton, despite fielding generally strong teams in many so-called “non-revenue” sports, leaned on student fees and direct institutional support for more than 76% of its $19.9-million athletics budget in 2019, according to its revenue/expense summary reviewed by The Times.
Replicating those earnings in 2020 will require students being on campus — which remains no guarantee even as the fall semester approaches.
“We understand that we’re not going to get bailed out by the state,” said Fee, who estimates most mid-major conference programs have finances similar to Fullerton. “I can’t stick my hand out to my president and say, ‘Please, just give more, because it’s tough times for athletics.’ ”
If that central-campus money is diminished, it will be the student-athletes who suffer, either through a cut-back in resources or reduction of scholarships altogether.
“The price tag on my worries is different,” Fee said, “but the actual worry is still there.”
I posted this in another thread. Just the tip of the iceberg.
Mid-major conferences brace for inevitable cuts in sports budgets because of pandemic
West Coast Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez talks with Oronde Taliaferro, an NBA scout for the Detroit Pistons, before a game last season between Brigham Young and Gonzaga in Provo, Utah.
Three months ago, three of her WCC teams were in position to reach the tournament, an accomplishment that would have cemented the league’s flourishing basketball reputation and, just as crucially, bolstered its athletic departments’ bottom lines.
“My password to my computer was ‘2020 Final Four,’ ” Nevarez said with a wishful laugh during a recent phone interview. “I was believing.”
It was a rare opportunity lost to the coronavirus crisis, a chance for the non-football conference to substantially drive revenue from an actual athletic achievement. Instead, it only underlined the huge financial issues facing mid-major conference athletics.
Unlike their Football Bowl Subdivision counterparts, most mid-major schools don’t have massive ticket sales, colossal TV contracts or lucrative sponsorship agreements. While FBS programs need football to balance the books, mid-major schools largely rely on student fees and campus subsidies to fund their athletic departments.
That reality has left mid-major conference administrators across the nation at the whim of factors beyond their control. At non-FBS schools, which account for roughly two-thirds of the NCAA’s 353 Division I members, athletic economic recovery will depend on student bodies returning to campus, not just sports.
“The cuts and the decisions that are being made right now in our league ... are very serious and deep,” Nevarez said. “It’s the ripple-through effect of the virus and whether international students come back, whether students who have committed continue to enroll in the fall, and those long-term benefits that impact enrollment.”
Long Beach State athletic director Andy Fee echoed that uncertainty.
“I know we’re going to have to cut some budgets,” he said. “The question for me is, how deep are these cuts going to be?”
When comparing mid-major conference schools without a football program to FBS institutions, Fee isn’t sure who is in a more precarious spot.
FBS schools, he said, “have a mechanism to drive revenue. But the problem is do they have their eggs in one basket? … If that football season doesn’t happen, they’re almost in the same boat as we are. Actually, they might even be in worse shape than us.”
The big difference: It seems like the football season will commence — albeit with limited-capacity or empty stadiums — regardless of whether campuses reopen this fall, allowing FBS programs to potentially collect much of their normal revenue.
At mid-major conference schools, it remains unclear if enrollment totals will drop because of the pandemic, or how student fees could be impacted if the majority of classes are moved online for an entire semester, an arrangement already planned for Cal State schools (the majority of which have non-FBS athletic programs).
“Let’s say you have a third-less students on campus,” said Karen Weaver, a sports management professor at Drexel and former athletic director of a Division III school in Pennsylvania. “That means your student fees have dried up by a third. What does that mean for athletic department budgets? Does that mean your athletic department budget gets cut by a third? How do you manage that?”
Men’s basketball is often the one sport that can help non-FBS programs generate substantial revenue, particularly through qualification for the NCAA tournament. Every time a team makes March Madness or advances a round, for instance, its conference earns a “unit” to be paid out among its members.
“Basketball is our football,” said Nevarez, who estimates that the cancellation of this year’s tournament cost her conference 60% of its would-be NCAA unit distributions, equating to millions of fewer dollars for its schools. “Distributions we receive from the NCAA for [tournament] participation, that is a big chunk of our operational budget and provides a big influx to our departments that help fund basketball and all other sports.”
But nothing is more important in mid-major conference athletics than main-campus financial support.
Take UCLA, San Diego State and Cal State Fullerton for example. All are public institutions. All are Division I schools. But UCLA and San Diego State, which have FBS programs, are far less financially reliant on their central campus than Fullerton, a non-football school in the Big West.
According to UCLA’s statement of revenue and expenditures for the 2019 fiscal year, less than 3% of the Bruins’ $108.4 million in athletics revenue came from student fees and direct institutional support. (UCLA athletics did need a $18.9-million interest-bearing loan from central campus to cover 2019 losses, the first time in 15 years it failed to balance its budget).
San Diego State, a Mountain West school with less-lucrative but still-significant football earnings, was more split, with about half of its $54.7 million in total 2019 athletics revenue coming from student fees and direct institutional support, according to a 2019 revenue/expense summary reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
Fullerton, despite fielding generally strong teams in many so-called “non-revenue” sports, leaned on student fees and direct institutional support for more than 76% of its $19.9-million athletics budget in 2019, according to its revenue/expense summary reviewed by The Times.
Replicating those earnings in 2020 will require students being on campus — which remains no guarantee even as the fall semester approaches.
“We understand that we’re not going to get bailed out by the state,” said Fee, who estimates most mid-major conference programs have finances similar to Fullerton. “I can’t stick my hand out to my president and say, ‘Please, just give more, because it’s tough times for athletics.’ ”
If that central-campus money is diminished, it will be the student-athletes who suffer, either through a cut-back in resources or reduction of scholarships altogether.
“The price tag on my worries is different,” Fee said, “but the actual worry is still there.”
Mind you, it's pretty gross that these athletic programs are supported by mandatory fees paid by students who don't play sports. They say student-athletes have no rights, but regular students have even fewer rights. I googled it:
The data in this chart is pretty enlightening; the big-time P5 schools mostly charge little or nothing, it's mid-majors that are charging high fees. Cal State Fullerton charges each student $256, and gets 38% of their athletic budget from these fees. San Diego State charges each student $274, and gets 20% of their athletic budget. Some schools have fees of over $2000. That's just crazy.
I understand it's not going to be a popular take but I actually don't think we're too far off on our thinking. You're right, any program can become a winning program with the proper resources, relocation, etc. Unfortunately none of that was happening. Chi St has the minimum amount of sports to remain a D1 school, by replacing baseball with soccer they can stay D1. Remaining D1 clearly seems to be a priority. If they aren't going to support the baseball program the way a D1 team needs nothing is going to change.
With that being said, I'm not putting as much blame on the baseball team as much as I am on the athletic department. They're clearly unfit to oversee a baseball program in general, let alone a winning program. If you're on the board and were told: the team hasn't had a winning season since 1971 and we're unable to provide any additional resources that will change that - why would you vote to keep it?
Do I want to see schools cut baseball? No. Do I disagree with schools for cutting baseball? Also no. Chicago State should not be a D1 program for any sport. I can't find a single sport that has had a winning record since 2010. That's not a joke. The women's basketball team has won 4 games since 2015. 10 in 10 years. The athletic dept at that school needs to be completely wiped from AD to concession stand workers. They need to be a D3 school at best. Does it suck for the kids, yes. Am I going to fight and say they should still have a program? No.
If baseball dies, it won't be because Bowling Green cancelled baseball, it will be because games take 4 hours and we have 2.5 minute commercials while we wait for the pitcher to take 5 warmup pitches. There are a myriad of reasons for signs pointing towards a baseball decline. That is a different discussion. But getting rid of one of the worst college baseball programs in the country won't really make a drop in the bucket of that issue.
Yeah sure, one bad program less won't kill baseball. But why couldn't they make it a d3 program then? Maybe you could even have a promotion relegation system like soccer in Europe.
Yeah sure, one bad program less won't kill baseball. But why couldn't they make it a d3 program then? Maybe you could even have a promotion relegation system like soccer in Europe.
I agree. The problem might not be sports at Chi St. Problem might be - why is Chi St D1 at all? I always liked the idea of relegation
When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. Replies and comments they make will be collapsed/hidden by default. Finally, you'll never receive email notifications about content they create or likes they designate for your content.
Note: if you proceed, you will no longer be following .
