Painful Cuts Coming to UConn Sports
The Story: UConn athletic director Dave Benedict proposed to the Board of Trustees yesterday that the men’s tennis, men’s swimming and diving, men’s cross country and women’s rowing teams be eliminated after the academic year to help cut into an annual $40 million operating deficit.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: It was a tough day for UConn as the years of running up the highest subsidy in the nation came to a head. The athletic department is taking $40 million a year in institutional support, and that accounts for half of its $80 million budget. Former president Susan Herbst called that gap unsustainable last year and current president Thomas Katsouleas asked for Benedict to shave $10 million off that deficit, saving approximately 25%. The cuts come as the university looks for savings amid the coronavirus pandemic. Other sports will also have their scholarships cut. The savings of those four sports will be about $4 million. Benedict is also taking a 15% percent pay cut and has orders to tighten the belt to reduce that deficit. The school will also account for the cost of scholarships differently, which won’t generate any hard savings but will make the balance sheet look lighter.
WHAT DID BENEDICT SAY? “This was a very difficult, but necessary, decision. Reducing expenses is critical to our financial sustainability but that doesn’t make this decision any more palatable for the student-athletes and coaches on the affected teams. … Despite our current emotions, we are optimistic that the financial plan approved today will serve as an important roadmap for a bright future for UConn athletics.”
WHY NOT FOOTBALL? Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The football team has the biggest budget of every sport and the biggest deficit at $13 million. Could eliminating football or dropping to FCS close the deficit and preserve the status quo? If only things were that easy. UConn was prepared for such a critique and made a very simple case for why the school is still invested in football — money. UConn is underperforming in football revenue and Benedict cited those revenue opportunities as a reason it isn’t smart to cut the team. Football is one of the linchpins of annual agreements with Nike and Learfield/IMG, which owns licensing rights worth $3.7 million. The school can also schedule buy games in the $1.5-2 million range. UConn is an attractive football opponent as an independent and already has big-money games against Ole Miss, Clemson and Ohio State on the schedule in future years. In comparison, the entire rowing team’s operating budget is equal to one UConn football road game.
Secondly, UConn already has agreements with Syracuse, Maryland, Purdue, North Carolina and Boston College to play at Rentschler Field. The football team’s budget doesn’t figure to grow and a bidding war for a coach is out of the question these days. But there is value. Ticket sales and sponsorships are other avenues where the school can perform better and drive revenue. The potential of football to improve and keep other non-revenue sports alive is something that is real and tangible. Is it hard? Yes. But Benedict made cuts and will now have to deliver improvements in revenue to justify the expenses going forward. That’s the job he signed up for.
OUR TAKE: We know the football team’s demise was what some wanted — especially among those in the national media, which has an unhealthy obsession with it. It just never made sense. If it was about losing games, sure, the Huskies have lost enough football games to be voted off the island. But it isn’t. We see the football team and still see a ton of potential. The crowds of 40,000 were only a little more than a decade ago. That fan base doesn’t disappear overnight. If the Huskies start drawing in the 25,000 to 30,000 range again, many of the problems are solved. That is going to take time, however, after a decade when enthusiasm has eroded and the team has generated a lot of bad will among the fan base. (And that’s not to mention the pandemic.) The other programs are back home in the Big East as of next week and, over the long term, the finances of the athletic department should stabilize. The onus is on the football program to reign in expenses and start winning and for Benedict and company to sell and capitalize on the reset and a new era of football at UConn.
We are encouraged by the Big East move and see the men’s basketball team returning to national prominence very soon. The women’s team is the gold standard. There are new baseball and softball fields and a new soccer stadium being built in Storrs. We also expect a new hockey arena. Even the football team looks like it is headed in the right direction with 10 recruits already in the fold for 2021, a national television TV deal and some games we actually want to see (no more Tulane!).
That means little to the programs losing their varsity status. Cutting the teams has a very real effect on athletes and the sports’ alumni are rightly upset at what happened. Is it fair? No. The cuts seem small compared to the budgets of football and basketball and there is a sense that college athletics is behaving too much like a big business. But that is the world we live in and maybe by doing what Benedict has done, it will save women’s tennis, golf and track and field down the road. One small silver lining is that the teams won’t be eliminated until next summer and athletes will have their scholarships honored as long as they earn a UConn degree.
There will be many days to celebrate UConn athletics in the months and years to come. This isn’t one of those days.
