[StanfordMatt]

The thread that TrumpCard started titled “The end of revenue sports at Stanford” has got me thinking a lot about the future of non-revenue sports at Stanford. It is the latter that I would argue are on much more shaky footing these days.

akiddoc made the point, which I won’t argue for or against, that the men’s gymnastics and women’s golf teams add more value to the reputation of Stanford than the football team. Putting aside the fact that Stanford has already shown a willingness to cut non-revenue sports in the not too distant past, the bigger problem for these sports in my view is who are they going to compete against in the years to come?

I don’t think that anyone can claim to know how college athletics will look in five years given the current turmoil. However, football in the power conferences is clearly driving the bus and that bus is going in the opposite direction from both the other sports and the other conferences. Title IX is the elephant in the room at the moment, but I don’t think it’s out of the question that the power brokers devise a system that essentially privatizes major college football, extricating it from the reach of Title IX. That certainly seems to be the goal at this point. If football literally takes their ball and money and leaves the playground, who is left to fund the other sports?

Sure, Stanford may be able to justify continuing to field teams that don’t finish in the black, but will other athletic departments feel the same way if Title IX is turned upside down by the non-inclusion of 85 football scholarships and athletic department budgets are stretched even thinner due to revenue sharing and diminished NCAA payouts? Even in a relatively major sport such as women’s volleyball, only a handful of programs turn a profit each year. Will Stanford, Nebraska and Texas play each other 10 times per season if everyone else shuts down their program? And what about the more than dozen other sports who don’t have any programs that turn a profit???

[StanfordMatt]

The thread that TrumpCard started titled “The end of revenue sports at Stanford” has got me thinking a lot about the future of non-revenue sports at Stanford. It is the latter that I would argue are on much more shaky footing these days.

akiddoc made the point, which I won’t argue for or against, that the men’s gymnastics and women’s golf teams add more value to the reputation of Stanford than the football team. Putting aside the fact that Stanford has already shown a willingness to cut non-revenue sports in the not too distant past, the bigger problem for these sports in my view is who are they going to compete against in the years to come?

I don’t think that anyone can claim to know how college athletics will look in five years given the current turmoil. However, football in the power conferences is clearly driving the bus and that bus is going in the opposite direction from both the other sports and the other conferences. Title IX is the elephant in the room at the moment, but I don’t think it’s out of the question that the power brokers devise a system that essentially privatizes major college football, extricating it from the reach of Title IX. That certainly seems to be the goal at this point. If football literally takes their ball and money and leaves the playground, who is left to fund the other sports?

Sure, Stanford may be able to justify continuing to field teams that don’t finish in the black, but will other athletic departments feel the same way if Title IX is turned upside down by the non-inclusion of 85 football scholarships and athletic department budgets are stretched even thinner due to revenue sharing and diminished NCAA payouts? Even in a relatively major sport such as women’s volleyball, only a handful of programs turn a profit each year. Will Stanford, Nebraska and Texas play each other 10 times per season if everyone else shuts down their program? And what about the more than dozen other sports who don’t have any programs that turn a profit???