House vs NCAA - Will Soccer get cut/defunded?

[Guest]

What does everyone think will happen to the non revenue sports for our region. As it is Oregon doesn't have a men's soccer program and now having to pay out revenue in a tight budget environment it is going to be tough for a lot of schools.

Which programs are most likely to get cut? Soccer? Volleyball? Golf? Tennis? Swimming and Diving? ....

Will Oregon State be able to keep any non revenue sports at all without a big payday beyond the next few years of leftover Pac 12 money??

[Guest]

As long as Title 9 exists colleges will need girls teams to balance out revenue earning boys teams. Since women’s soccer is popular it’s likely to be one of the sports that stays around in a world where colleges need to pay the players

Just to be clear though college administrators, professors, and leadership make a lot of money. Colleges have the resources to pay the players. They just don’t want to make the sacrifices required to make that happen.

Even if non revenue sports goes away it might not be a bad thing. Without college scholarships parents won’t see the value in spending ridiculous $$$ on youth soccer clubs. Maybe to keep the $$$ rolling in Academies will happen for girls.

[Guest]

Women's soccer is a cheap sport to field that's why it sticks around.

Actually the spectator popularity of the activity is near zero across the country at hundreds of campuses that elect to field women's soccer squads, they do help balance.out the amount of aid given to men's revenue producers.

The low cost of running a women's soccer program makes it a wise economic choice in the era of title ix. Since it's cheap, it's a popular choice for the athletic administration budget.

[Guest]

Soccer is not low cost. If you look at the reports the schools file you will see it's right in the middle of all sports in terms of net loss. Somewhere around 1.5M in losses for most D1 schools. And it costs about as much as other non revenue sports.

95%+ of P4 schools do not make 20M in profit. So that means they will have to hit the boosters or dig into those endowments or kill a host of sports to make up for this obligation.

As for the rest of the conferences they are going to have a serious decision to make. Pay or not. Compete or not. Cut or not.

[Guest]

Soccer is not low cost. If you look at the reports the schools file you will see it's right in the middle of all sports in terms of net loss. Somewhere around 1.5M in losses for most D1 schools. And it costs about as much as other non revenue sports.

95%+ of P4 schools do not make 20M in profit. So that means they will have to hit the boosters or dig into those endowments or kill a host of sports to make up for this obligation.

As for the rest of the conferences they are going to have a serious decision to make. Pay or not. Compete or not. Cut or not.

It's far cheaper than sports that require indoor stadiums with courts, pools or auxiliary buildings with customized apparatuses:

Basketball, Volleyball, Gymnastics, Water Polo, Wrestling and swimming.fall nto that category.

Outdoor sports like Baseball, Softball and American Football use expensive outdoor venies and stadiums.

Sports like Rugby and Soccer are played played on cheap crappy grass fields all over naia, jc, d3' d2 andthe d1 landscape for women.

very little start up cost for soccer since they can play on existing low maintenance grass or turf fields with very little build out since it doesn't attract many spectators..

Capital costs and equipment are just a couple of the big line item expenses you failed to consider.

Without having to invest in the program outside of scholarships, travel, and low pay for the coaches .Admin knows knows there is very little revenue from the activity. It's a smart economic decision, unlike the big sports that require pavilions with no butts in the opulent seats.

sitting on a grass patch with a blanket watching women's soccer is a cost saver for the college..

You are Cherry picking the universally shared expenses.across all sports that are only a small % of the overall cost of fielding teams.

It happens.

[Guest]

Title 9 requires equal opportunity? Does that mean if you pay football players you have to pay other sports equal

[Guest]

It's far cheaper than sports that require indoor stadiums with courts, pools or auxiliary buildings with customized apparatuses:

Basketball, Volleyball, Gymnastics, Water Polo, Wrestling and swimming.fall nto that category.

Outdoor sports like Baseball, Softball and American Football use expensive outdoor venies and stadiums.

Sports like Rugby and Soccer are played played on cheap crappy grass fields all over naia, jc, d3' d2 andthe d1 landscape for women.

very little start up cost for soccer since they can play on existing low maintenance grass or turf fields with very little build out since it doesn't attract many spectators..

Capital costs and equipment are just a couple of the big line item expenses you failed to consider.

Without having to invest in the program outside of scholarships, travel, and low pay for the coaches .Admin knows knows there is very little revenue from the activity. It's a smart economic decision, unlike the big sports that require pavilions with no butts in the opulent seats.

sitting on a grass patch with a blanket watching women's soccer is a cost saver for the college..

You are Cherry picking the universally shared expenses.across all sports that are only a small % of the overall cost of fielding teams.

It happens.

Well I wouldn't say the words cost saver. Every one of those sports cost money and colleges aren't in the business of losing money. So it's back to the good old days They offer sports as an opportunity to provide a more well-rounded opportunity for students and add to the cultural experience. It's just a general expense as part of your tuition and the endowments.

In that regard you would keep all the non revenue generating sports cuz they make sense. This whole money making philosophy has gotten out of hand. They really need to separate college football at the top tier from the rest of the sports. At this point they're never going back to non revenue focused football.

[Guest]

On one hand, there are plenty of D1-non-football, D2, D3, and NAIA athletic departments today who thrive without the buckets of money earned by the football team (or where football is essentially a non-revenue sport too; no TV contract and attendance in the single thousands at best, not tens of thousands like the major schools do).

On the other hand, the product isn't very good, and the environment isn't very professional.

Lots of sports fans want to have it both ways--they want the "amateur ideal" from the athletes that play for their school, but they also want near-pro quality of play--if nothing else, a product that is far better than HS sports, and may including an occasional future pro. They may find that "both" is no longer available, as they are forced to choose the big-money programs that can host semi-pro athletics (and these will be the major media markets as chosen by ESPN; you can't earn your way into this tier by success on the field, as OSU and WSU are finding out), in which the quality of play will be high, and those that are disinvited, and will have to trim athletic budgets, and will be able to afford to pay player little. Or might even be forced, by the various changes in law, to make essentially all sports "club" sports, where athletes are forced to agree up front that they are not employees and not entitled to compensation, and may even have to subsidize their own participation (i.e. pay to play).

Of course, if you go to Linfield or Western or Lewis and Clark, nobody expect that the sports teams there are going to be first-rate, so the adjustment won't be much. It may be a hard adjustment for fans at OSU, and for that matter several other dozen other D1-FBS programs that will essentially be relegated (half the ACC and Big XII, and all Group of Five teams) if and when the great contraction occurs.

The other thing that might happen is that the next tier of schools may become feeder schools--next-level freshmen who can't get into a Big Money School may enroll at OSU, looking to impress, and hoping to transfer to somewhere where they get paid, as only blue-chip freshmen get considered by the big money schools. Oh, and the transfer portal will work the other way too, as players who don't work out at the big money schools and are cut (and Deion Sanders' infamous purge last year at Colorado is the future of college football, as coaches will not commit to players in this environment either) might migrate to the next tier, trying to stay relevant, trying to avoid the loss of access to a high-level training environment that will end their careers.

What about men's soccer? As others have noted, it's cheap, and Oregon has two alpha programs in the sport (OSU and UP). OSU isn't likely to cut the sport--if they have to cut a sport for budget reasons, it will probably be something they suck at (though the only thing the Beavs truly suck at on the men's side is basketball, which as a revenue sport won't get the axe).

[Guest]

As long as Title 9 exists colleges will need girls teams to balance out revenue earning boys teams. Since women’s soccer is popular it’s likely to be one of the sports that stays around in a world where colleges need to pay the players

Just to be clear though college administrators, professors, and leadership make a lot of money. Colleges have the resources to pay the players. They just don’t want to make the sacrifices required to make that happen.

Even if non revenue sports goes away it might not be a bad thing. Without college scholarships parents won’t see the value in spending ridiculous $$$ on youth soccer clubs. Maybe to keep the $$$ rolling in Academies will happen for girls.

Not true. This is not how Title 9 works and in fact it is at major risk. Title 9 requires equal amount of women’s sports and scholarships as men’s. So if they cut a lot of the men’s programs, which mid sized schools will, they will also cut women’s sports.

The worry is that scholarships will be replaced by payment directly to the athletes. When this happens, Title 9 will be non-existent or relevant. And women will not get paid the same as men based on ticket sales and revenue.

This will be a disaster for college sports.

[Guest]

What you are saying is other sports will not be able to swing off of football and basketball success

[Guest]

Not true. This is not how Title 9 works and in fact it is at major risk. Title 9 requires equal amount of women’s sports and scholarships as men’s. So if they cut a lot of the men’s programs, which mid sized schools will, they will also cut women’s sports.

The worry is that scholarships will be replaced by payment directly to the athletes. When this happens, Title 9 will be non-existent or relevant. And women will not get paid the same as men based on ticket sales and revenue.

This will be a disaster for college sports.

This. When the support given to male athletes from the university is zero, because they're all getting NIL money instead and no longer need a scholarship*, then the support given to female athletes will also be zero.

*And of course--why even bother with the fiction of student/athletes any more? The end game here is like Pumas or Tigres in Liga MX--both professional futbol teams, that are owned and operated by major Mexican universities. But like any other pro team, staffed entirely with a roster of professional football players, not matriculated college students. Why saddle professional-athletes-in-training with the need to pursue a meaningless course of study in communication or some other major that has little to do with why they are at school in the first place?

[Guest]

What you are saying is other sports will not be able to swing off of football and basketball success

In many ways, yes.

The revenue sports have been subsidizing the non-revenue sports for years.

Some of the people involved in the revenue sports have noticed this, and want to end this subsidy, and keep all that money for themselves.

The devil take the hindmost.

[Guest]

This. When the support given to male athletes from the university is zero, because they're all getting NIL money instead and no longer need a scholarship*, then the support given to female athletes will also be zero.

*And of course--why even bother with the fiction of student/athletes any more? The end game here is like Pumas or Tigres in Liga MX--both professional futbol teams, that are owned and operated by major Mexican universities. But like any other pro team, staffed entirely with a roster of professional football players, not matriculated college students. Why saddle professional-athletes-in-training with the need to pursue a meaningless course of study in communication or some other major that has little to do with why they are at school in the first place?

This will not happen. That would mean schools would choose to go back to pre Title 9 options. After this many years and what those sports mean to schools I can't seeing a school host only male sports. No way. Can you imagine the backlash that would come from that?

I expect them at worst to cut men and women equally at worse or just try to raise more money from real sponsors for their NIL collectives to support every sport. Bottom line is get more money and keep as many sports vs kill off all women sports and keep only men and pay them all the money.

[Guest]

This will not happen. That would mean schools would choose to go back to pre Title 9 options. After this many years and what those sports mean to schools I can't seeing a school host only male sports. No way. Can you imagine the backlash that would come from that?

I expect them at worst to cut men and women equally at worse or just try to raise more money from real sponsors for their NIL collectives to support every sport. Bottom line is get more money and keep as many sports vs kill off all women sports and keep only men and pay them all the money.

It's not what the schools or the alumni or the faculty want.

It's what the money-men want. Big money has taken over college sports, just like it's largely taken over academia, and unless you're a superstar researcher whose patents generate revenue, expect the compensation given to college professors--even the position of professor itself, as who needs a PhD to teach the basics to undergrads?--to evaporate.

The vast majority of the academic and athletic mission of the American university, public and private, is waste and inefficiency to be eliminated. If college women wanna play volleyball, let them pay for it.

That's the future. Not a bright future, but there it is.

[Guest]

It's not what the schools or the alumni or the faculty want.

It's what the money-men want. Big money has taken over college sports, just like it's largely taken over academia, and unless you're a superstar researcher whose patents generate revenue, expect the compensation given to college professors--even the position of professor itself, as who needs a PhD to teach the basics to undergrads?--to evaporate.

The vast majority of the academic and athletic mission of the American university, public and private, is waste and inefficiency to be eliminated. If college women wanna play volleyball, let them pay for it.

That's the future. Not a bright future, but there it is.

That's awfully cynical. While I grant you they love money, I can't grant you that they love it so much as to kill every female sport by not offering scholarships. Sports are part of their DNA now and their culture. They simply aren't built as FB only money making institutions. I just don't see it happening.

But let's see what happens. It'll be a sad day if what you believe happens. Very sad.