As colleges struggle to support non-revenue sports, U.S. Olympic future is threatened

[SaintSaens]

How many Olympic level athletes are trained in college? And the real question is why should they be? Especially if they are being subsidized by everyone else's tuition.

In the case of men's gymnastics, most gymnasts in contention for international events like the Olympics are at their peak during their college years. Additionally very few men's gymnasts actually go pro. If they're good enough to do really well in the Olympics, they could go pro, but most men's gymnasts who have a change at making it to the Olympics still won't have the opportunity to go pro. The NCAA is aware of the presence of elite international gymnasts in college, which is one of the reasons why international scoring is used for men.

This doesn't completely answers these questions, but it does highlight how things would be very different in this sport if it wasn't for DI sports.

[mom2collegekids]

Arabrab...you're the one who set the parameter of schools with fancy stadiums, highly paid coaches, and lots of assistants. that description doesn't fit most programs. Which ones does that description fit and of those, which ones are money losers and which ones aren't.

Providing a link about many schools that don't have the fancy stadiums and highly paid coaches doesn't back up your point.

The big Div I teames with fancy stadiums and highly paid coaches are typically the ones that pay for themselves and some also pay for some/all of the other sports.

[Bay]

Actors, artists, and musicians don't need a college degree in order to succeed at the highest levels of their professions. If our educational system is capable of providing both academic and other life endeavor opportunities to all Americans to develop their interests to the fullest extent, I don't know why anyone would question the wisdom in that. When funding becomes an issue, all of those ECs will be on the block, we already know that. It will be a loss to our society in general if we are not able to develop all types of talents and interests. We also know that most American students are not interested in college campuses that offer nothing but academics. Alums and special interest groups must step up with donations to maintain the variety.

[bclintonk]

Wow, lots of people with ideological axes to grind here, hurling overly broad generalizations at each other. Just a few points:
1. Football is a huge cost center at small schools with small stadiums in low-visibility conferences without TV contracts. Big-time BCS-level football is almost always a profit center. The question at BCS-level schools is usually, does football make enough revenue to carry all other varsity sports, or not? Athletic department "deficits" and "subsidies" are rarely, if ever, the result of football being a money-loser at BCS-level schools. It's the result of the school electing to carry a bunch of non-revenue sports, men's and women's, that football can't pay for. At non-BCS schools, varsity sports tend to be a money-loser across the board. You may like big-time college football or not, but it's just extremely wrong-headed to tie it to college sports' financial woes.
2. Mens' basketball also generates positive revenue at some schools, but typically far less than football. At perhaps half a dozen or so schools, men's ice hockey also generates a small surplus. All other varsity sports, men's and women's, almost invariably operate in the red.
3. To suggest that Title IX is killing college sports is, in my opinion, just nonsense. The divide is between revenue sports (BCS-level football, men's basketball at some schools, and men's ice hockey at a few) and non-revenue sports which need to be subsidized, either by the revenue sports or by other sources of funds. There's no reason men's non-revenue sports should be inherently more entitled to those subsidies than women's non-revenue sports. Schools where football is generating a strong surplus--Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame--are facing no pressures to cut back non-revenue sports, men's or women's. Schools where football generates a surplus but not enough to carry the whole athletic department--Cal, Northwestern, etc--face harder choices. Schools where football itself is break-even or a money-loser are in the toughest straits of all, because there the question is, are varsity athletics worth the cost in light of competing priorities in academics, the arts, and elsewhere? But those are very different questions, with very different answers, depending on which of those camps a particular school is in.
4. I personally love the Olympics and I like to see the U.S. field strong teams, not for nationalistic reasons but because I like to see high-level athletic competition and I think the U.S. fielding competitive teams enhances the games. It's unfortunate that we lean so heavily on NCAA colleges and universities to identify, cultivate, and train our Olympic athletes, but that's the reality we're stuck with. Just look at the profiles of US Olympic medal-winning athletes. An extraordinarily high percentage of them train and compete at NCAA Division I schools, and a handful of schools tend to dominate the competition. Fortunately, many of these are schools whose athletic budgets are in fine shape, which makes me question somewhat the premise of the article that prompted this thread.

[tom1944]

bc- that was an excellent post

[saintfan]

So how do D3 LACs manage to do it? My D's future school offers the following varsity sports across the board: alpine skiing, soccer, ice hockey, tennis, swim and dive, basketball, baseball/softball, nordic skiing, track and field, tennis, golf and cross country. Additionally they offer football and wrestling for men and volleyball for women. A range of sports including separate men's and women's rugby, lacrosse, and ultimate, men's volleyball, crew and cycling are offered at the club level. There is no gymnastics, but to my eye this looks like quite a representative list of sports otherwise.

So what makes this possible?
no scholarships?
higher tuition?
lower travel costs?
lower facilities costs and/or expectations?
lower coaching and administrative costs and/or expectations?

Is there someone out there who knows at least a rough cut breakdown of how the cost structure works per sport? What is is about D1 sports that makes an individual sport "expensive" to offer outside the capital construction example I used form the University of Washington of having no adequate swimming or diving facility.

There are sports like rowing which require water, expensive travel and very expensive equipment, but what about a sport like wrestling where equipment is relatively limited?

[familyof3boys]

You can find much of this information at the Dept of Education website:
OPE Home

[saintfan]

Great tip familyof3boys! Thanks! It is very easy to search, too.

[cptofthehouse]

Some points here: it is the funding for these programs, and scholarships, in particular that carry them at the national level. At LACs, the sports are often there to attract the students and keep the alums happy. At the D1 level, in order to get the competitive athletes and program, a lot of money needs to be invested. Football does more than bring in ticket sales. It's cost vs benefit cannot be measured in that alone. It brings males to some schools, hurting in gender balance, which does hurt getting students overall since kids like gender balanced schools. It brings in some of those jocks not quite ready to hang up those cleats.

My college has a pathetic football team, and IMO it should go the way of Swarthmores. But at my last reunion, the football group was strong, strong, strong. IT does create ties to the school that other things cannot do.

Yes, Title IX has hurt certain male sports. Programs like men's swimming, men's gymnastic and wrestling have been cut and eliminated at a number of schools. As a mom of a male athlete in these sports, yes, it does affect them. My brother was an Olympian in track, and he can tell you that without the money, it is difficult to get the athletes. He coached for many years before throwing in the towel that way as there is little support and less forthcoming in that area. A shame that track does not get the support in that it doesn't cut, it can be unisex so it does not have to discriminate, and trains for the world stage. But, yes, it is happening and has been for many years.

[saintfan]

I see that I will have to spend more time with the numbers provided by familypof3boys, but after looking quickly at Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan and Stanford I can draw out a few things. First off, women's rowing is a very inexpensive way to increase female participation. At the D1 level it appears to cost less per athlete than it does to row in HS at the club level. Other sports (excluding football, basketball and hockey) seem to cost around 150-250k to fund regardless of the number of participants. Lower participation leads to increased per athlete costs - I know . . . duh. However it means that it is less expensive per athlete to fund a track team than a 7 man gymnastics team and also less per baseball player than softball player. Wrestling does not appear to be very expensive per athlete. Different but comparable schools have some fairly stark differences in the total cost per sport and the cost per athlete.

Again, I know these are quick generalizations. Thanks, again for the great resource.

[familyof3boys]

You are most welcome.

[jym626]

It is interesting that some professionals can now participate in the olympics. That was a no-no in the past.

[Hanna]

"As far as gymnastics - I doubt highly that you will EVER find a female olympic gymnast that went to college on a gymnastics scholarship - most aren't even college age yet!!!"

A number of them do go to college on gymnastics scholarships, but typically after their international/elite careers, not before. Olympic medalist Courtney Kupets at UGA is probably the most famous recent example.

[saintfan]

Hanna - the issue is with male gymnasts who peak later as muscle mass increases. Male gymnasts are not generally nationally or internationally competitive at 16 because in the male case hormones are their friend. Female gymnasts . . . not so much.

[tsdad]

notrichenough,
All it does is tell colleges to stop discriminating against women.

Actually, Title IX forbids discrimination on the basis of sex. OCR spent years with one individual school in Virginia, which shall go nameless (a non-state school), when it failed to fund men's athletic scholarships to the appropriate level. Eventually even the Bush fils administration lost patience with them.

OCR doesn't tell anyone that they have to have an athletic problem only that if they choose to, and if the accept Federal financial assistance at their institution (Hillsdale and Grove City do not), they cannot discriminate in the manner in which they run that athletic program. I believe that some time in the 80s or 90s Brooklyn College dropped its Division I sports programs rather than comply with Title IX. Their choice.

Title IX was passed in 1972. The Title IX athletic guidance was issued in 1977. It seems to me that it is a waste of everyone's time to be discussing a law, which has survived numerous Republican administrations, Republican controlled Congresses, and Federal court reviews. Let's just get on with it and obey a 40 year old law.