08-26-2025, 09:51 AM
Regardless of the success (or lack thereof) on the field, Stanford needs football in order to fund its other sports and to remain nationally competitive in those other sports. I glanced at the athletic profiles of a few other schools that do not play football (St. Marys, Gonzaga, UC Irvine, Pepperdine). They sponsor 16-20 sports, more or less evenly split between men's and women's. And most of those schools are only nationally competitive in 2-3 sports at most. So giving up on football probably would mean giving up on around 1/2 of Stanford's 36 sports.
This may be the most extreme possible route for Stanford. But I think financial reality is going to force the school's leaders to make some hard decisions soon about how many sports it can support and whether or not one of those is football (because football costs so much). It's going to come down to how much and for how long the University is willing to subsidize Athletics in order to maintain a broad based program.
This may be the most extreme possible route for Stanford. But I think financial reality is going to force the school's leaders to make some hard decisions soon about how many sports it can support and whether or not one of those is football (because football costs so much). It's going to come down to how much and for how long the University is willing to subsidize Athletics in order to maintain a broad based program.
"We have an unwritten rule around here not to do anything stupid."
-Casey Jacobsen, Feb 3, 2000