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Brown decreasing varsity athletics - UltimateCard - 05-28-2020
Announcement just posted re: revamping of third largest college athletics program, dropping from 38 to 29 varsity sports (with two club sports elevated). Though statement says not related to COVID-19, hard to believe pressure on finances wasn't a factor. https://athletics-excellence.brown.edu/ Will be interesting to see if other colleges make similar changes.
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - fullmetal - 05-29-2020
It seems possible that it wasn't entirely covid-motivated, but covid is motivating just about everything these days, and if you say it's not covid-motivated, then maybe people won't be lobbying at your front door with pitchforks (or wallets) to reverse these decisions once the pandemic is over.
Interesting that many of the downgrading sports have club equivalents (though sometimes not same gender). That makes sense from the athletic dept's view, but wow, talk about perverse incentives. Imagine being a varsity athlete receiving notice of your sport's downgrade, partially because a club equivalent already exists.
Quote:The committee assessed such factors as the existing strengths of each team; current squad sizes; and the quality of facilities available for practice and competition.
Lesson: be successful, carry a large roster, try to run lean with facilities/infrastructure, and (unspoken) have a large/generous alumni base.
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - Mick - 05-30-2020
Not that it matters, but Brown has the smallest endowment of all the Ivies. Still, at $4.2 billion, nothing to sneeze at.
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - CowboyIndian - 05-30-2020
(05-30-2020, 08:05 AM)Mick Wrote: Not that it matters, but Brown has the smallest endowment of all the Ivies. Still, at $4.2 billion, nothing to sneeze at.
Wonder what Joe Paterno left them.
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - akiddoc - 05-31-2020
(05-30-2020, 08:05 AM)Mick Wrote: Not that it matters, but Brown has the smallest endowment of all the Ivies. Still, at $4.2 billion, nothing to sneeze at.
That's not a very big endowment for an Ivy. Pomona College has 2.3 billion with only 1600 students and no grad school. Williams College, which has 2100 students, has 2.7 billion. Brown has 10,000 students.
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - chrisk - 05-31-2020
(05-31-2020, 08:35 PM)akiddoc Wrote:(05-30-2020, 08:05 AM)Mick Wrote: Not that it matters, but Brown has the smallest endowment of all the Ivies. Still, at $4.2 billion, nothing to sneeze at.
That's not a very big endowment for an Ivy. Pomona College has 2.3 billion with only 1600 students and no grad school. Williams College, which has 2100 students, has 2.7 billion. Brown has 10,000 students.
Williams ranks 10th in the country is endowment per student. Pomona is 8th. Princeton, Yale, and Harvard are the only Ivies in the top 10. Stanford is #4.
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - akiddoc - 06-01-2020
https://www.collegeraptor.com/college-rankings/details/EndowmentPerStudent
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - 2006alum - 06-01-2020
(06-01-2020, 04:51 PM)akiddoc Wrote: https://www.collegeraptor.com/college-rankings/details/EndowmentPerStudent
Are these all students or just undergraduates? And does this include individual units on campus that have their own endowments? For example, I know some law schools have separate endowments that give them a measure of independence from the main campus. If so, then it would seem odd to include that endowment as part of the larger university, when those funds won't be allocated beyond that unit.
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - JJJ - 06-01-2020
Bowling Green alumni trying to save baseball from being cut.
Quote:Bowling Green decided to cut its baseball program amid budget cuts forced by the pandemic. Then the fundraising began.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/01/bowling-green-future-college-sports
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - BostonCard - 06-01-2020
(06-01-2020, 07:27 PM)JJJ Wrote: Bowling Green alumni trying to save baseball from being cut.
Quote:Bowling Green decided to cut its baseball program amid budget cuts forced by the pandemic. Then the fundraising began.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/01/bowling-green-future-college-sports
They seem to have adopted the Cal approach to fundraising.
BC
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - CTcard - 06-02-2020
(06-01-2020, 08:45 PM)BostonCard Wrote:(06-01-2020, 07:27 PM)JJJ Wrote: Bowling Green alumni trying to save baseball from being cut.
Quote:Bowling Green decided to cut its baseball program amid budget cuts forced by the pandemic. Then the fundraising began.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/01/bowling-green-future-college-sports
They seem to have adopted the Cal approach to fundraising.
If anyone is interested ...
USA Today annually publishes summaries of the NCAA mandated financial disclosures for athletic departments. These are acquired through FOI requests, and thus include only public universities.
https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/
In the last report available, Bowling Green appears to be broadly similar to other Group of Five departments, though generally on a smaller scale. They have the smallest AD budget of the MAC schools, and the smallest percentage university subsidy. [To see Ball State's more detailed finances, click on their name in the list above.]
Though they operate a nominally balanced budget (as does most every AD), 57% of their athletic operating expenses are derived from the rest of the university (not generated by athletics or giving). Most of that support appears to come from direct fees on students - around $13 million or $550-$650 per student depending on how they include grad students.
Cal is an interesting case. After much publicity for financial mismanagement and a mess with their stadium refurbishment, they have made substantial changes - at least to how they report their AD budget.
In the most recent year available (2018), Cal reports $0 net support from the rest of the university. I am a little confused how they get there as they also report $8 million in student fees + direct university support + "other" income. These categories can be offset by payments from the AD back to the rest of the university, which presumably they do in some manner. However, they also are unique in having given up on officially reporting a balanced AD budget. They report an AD deficit of $19.3 million, which seems to be the largest in the country by over $10 million (most are nominally balanced, a few of the big places report a small surplus).
To Cal's credit, they have lowered the student fee contribution to the NCAA sports program from about $3.2 million in 2009 to only $444,374 in 2018, direct school fund transfers have dropped from $10 million in 2010 to $4.8 million in 2018, and the curious "other" category dropped from $16.7 million in 2016 to only $2.8 million in 2018.
Still, balancing those numbers with the now official budget deficit its difficult to tell from the USA Today numbers if Cal has made serious improvements or merely shuffled accounting lines.
Perhaps also of interest, Cal's income from Rights/Licensing (mostly TV) went from $18 million in 2008 to $55 million in 2018. A period where I guess the Pac 12 has fallen behind the other Power 5 Conferences.
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - UltimateCard - 06-04-2020
(06-01-2020, 08:45 PM)BostonCard Wrote:(06-01-2020, 07:27 PM)JJJ Wrote: Bowling Green alumni trying to save baseball from being cut.
Quote:Bowling Green decided to cut its baseball program amid budget cuts forced by the pandemic. Then the fundraising began.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/01/bowling-green-future-college-sports
They seem to have adopted the Cal approach to fundraising.
BC
And it worked: https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/29257053/bowling-green-reinstates-baseball-program-donors-pledge-15m
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - bl82 - 06-04-2020
I had never heard of the #2 college on this list of endowment per alumni. Starting with Wikipedia, this seems to be an intriguing and controversial place:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soka_University_of_America
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - BobK - 06-09-2020
Brown University Men’s T&F is back
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - fullmetal - 06-10-2020
Glad to hear about Brown T&F. I wonder if some of those programs were chosen because the athletic dept knew that the alumni could save their programs but needed just a little motivation...Machiavellian maybe.
Soka sounds fascinating -- est. 2001 by a Buddhist sect? I wonder in what industries their alumni concentrate...
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - UltimateCard - 06-10-2020
(06-04-2020, 10:45 PM)bl82 Wrote: I had never heard of the #2 college on this list of endowment per alumni. Starting with Wikipedia, this seems to be an intriguing and controversial place:Their Dean of Faculty is Stanford alum Bryan Penprase ‘84, who is an astrophysicist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soka_University_of_America
(06-10-2020, 12:20 AM)fullmetal Wrote:
Soka sounds fascinating -- est. 2001 by a Buddhist sect? I wonder in what industries their alumni concentrate...
Don’t know about their alum but according to the Wikipedia page, the SGI sect’s adherents include Tina Turner, Courtney Love, Orlandos Bloom and Cepeda, and Herbie Hancock - lots of performers!
RE: Brown decreasing varsity athletics - UltimateCard - 06-12-2020
(06-09-2020, 08:17 PM)BobK Wrote: Brown University Men’s T&F is back
More on the reversal: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/us/brown-university-reinstates-athletic-programs-trnd/index.html