60 Minutes Segment on the Struggles of "Secondary Sports"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-sports-cuts-gymnastics-swimming-pandemic-60-minutes-2020-12-06/
Saw this excellent piece by Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes tonight and thought I should share with the board. It examines the major challenges that so-called "secondary sports" like men's gymnastics, tennis, rowing and even baseball and track are facing in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. It takes a hard look at the University of Minnesota after its athletic department decided to cut several non-revenue sports including its men's gymnastics team which finished second(!) in the NCAAs last year and whose captain is a candidate for the U.S. Olympic team. It also contrasts the cuts (which result in only modest savings), with the huge budgets and salaries of football. The Gophers' athletic department and director come off looking pretty bad.
I think it represents a disturbing trend in college sports: there's more money than ever but it's all going to football and basketball while those players still aren't getting paid and the departments are cutting other sports. I hope something changes in the future because it's not looking good.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:08 PM ^
Tough decisions are being made in athletic departments across the country. Kudos to Michigan and other universities who have resisted the temptation to cut off non-revenue sports during this time.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:09 PM ^
Basketball and football get the money because they are the only ones making money. No ncaa tournament in basketball last year cost ALL D1 schools millions of dollars. All D1 schools get a piece of that pie from Ncaa from the tournament and billion dollar TV deal that comes with it. No tournament destroyed schools, both small and big. This is why I am very confident they will find a way to have a tourney this spring, even if no fans and just that huge tv money.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:13 PM ^
"... there's more money than ever but it's all going to football and basketball ..."
At Michigan the AD is, as you probably know, self-funded. Sports like lacrosse exist only because football, basketball, and maybe hockey make money. I don't see a problem with the revenue sports getting a higher priority.
And, anyway, we should all take a close look at where money has been going the past few years. Revenue has shot up and expenses have gone up proportionally. There's been at least some empire-building involved in ADs. Look at the size of the staffs.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:35 PM ^
Of course those sports should be prioritized and are prioritized. But the question is: when your athletic department gets millions of dollars in new revenue from its conference TV deal, do you use some of it to help fund other sports? Or do you spend it on a state-of-the-art locker room waterfall for the football team? And a multi-million dollar contract extension for the basketball coach who will be fired after the next season anyway? The priorities in big-time college sports are fucked right now. And every team gets caught up trying to compete with the top programs. I think it sucks that other sports are the ones to get punished for it.
If we continue down this path, athletic departments are just going to cut every non-revenue sport until the only things left are football and basketball. I don't think that's a good model for the future of college sports.
(also, if I understand correctly, U of M lacrosse is funded from donor gifts and does not rely on football/general AD revenue)
December 7th, 2020 at 12:32 AM ^
To everyone who agrees with this comment: don't whine and complain when UM doesn't keep up with the Joneses in college football.
I'm not saying one "way of life" in college athletics is better than the other, but realize the consequences and large-scale effects that come along with them.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:52 PM ^
With you on the last paragraph. Check out the size of Warde's department.
As for gymnastics at Minnesota, I do not know the expense of running that program but I'm quite confident it can be covered by a 25% reduction in football coaches salaries.
December 7th, 2020 at 7:16 AM ^
closer to 5% cut but year
December 7th, 2020 at 9:45 AM ^
It was stated that it was 1.6 million per year in the story last night... There was a 75 million dollar shortfall at Minnesota according to the story... other sources place that at closer to 30 to 50 million dollars. However the other big reason is to meet the Title IX requirements as well. Minnesota's female student body percentage has grown to almost 54%. Cutting 4 men's sports will help balance that budget as well.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:29 PM ^
Most of these sports shouldn’t exist past the club level anyways. Hopefully, in the post-covid landscape, most NCAA sports will look more like club teams.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:49 PM ^
Why shouldn't they?! They have for decades. Every god damm thing in the world is based on whether it's profitable anymore and it makes for a sad world. Of course profits matter...businesses need to earn, of course, to pay people, etc.. But business notion has, again, trickled to seemingly every aspect of anymore -in a seemingly greedy undertone. What's the point of all the other sports and activities for kids growing up when in the end it's "worthless" because it won't earn somebody some money.
December 6th, 2020 at 11:02 PM ^
Well put. And these aren't corporations or something - it's not like there are shareholders to think about; these are departments within academic institutions. While you would like to turn a profit (you certainly don't want to lose money), maximizing profits shouldn't be the goal here.
December 7th, 2020 at 8:54 AM ^
People also think that just because "TEAM X" loses money that it's - you know - losing money and that's the only metric.
However, If you look at a baseball team, say Michigan's.
Michigan has 37 (!!!) players on the roster. They are allowed to give, by rule, 11.7 scholarships. So, more than 26 players are paying their own way. However, that revenue isn't attributed to the baseball program. Some of those 26 may have academic or financial aid, some might be in-state, some might be out-of-state. Who knows. But 26 tuition checks is still a lot of money that gets overlooked in the revenue/profit equation. Probably to the tune of close to $500,000.
No baseball program and those students are not staying at Michigan. Can a place like Michigan just replace those students with random joes and jills? Probably. Not every school can, though.
This is all to say that non-profit sports bring value that isn't as easy to see by simply looking at the profit margin. They might still be in the red, but it's not a simple equation.
December 7th, 2020 at 9:46 AM ^
Your example probably isn't as clean as you want it to be.
If Michigan cuts baseball, then that probably means a lot of schools are cutting baseball. So those baseball players wouldn't just go to the next college. The pool of college baseball players would shrink. If there are 2,000 Division I baseball players (I have no idea what the number is), then that number would drop to 1,000. So yeah, you're losing baseball players, but you're also increasing the number of guys who say, "Eh, yeah, I guess I'm just not going to play baseball in college." Or "I'll go pay club baseball at Michigan, where I have to raise/pay $1,000 a year to do it but it will be a fun extracurricular activity."
The United States education system is odd in many ways, not least of which is its connection between schools and sports. Even major sports in other countries are connected to club and semi-pro teams. That's why 14- and 16-year-olds in Lithuania and Spain are playing pro basketball. That's why Julius Welschof played for a club team in Germany.
There's nothing in the Constitution that says colleges need to field a men's gymnastics program. It's something we have chosen to do for some reason, and maybe we shouldn't be choosing to do it anymore.
December 7th, 2020 at 10:08 AM ^
It's almost as though non-profit schools, with academic education stated as their charter purpose, that are running student sport programs as a commercialized revenue generator is inherently non-ideal.
December 7th, 2020 at 10:16 AM ^
As much as I love Michigan football... your post is Fire. When you look at what colleges are doing, the P5 teams are in general subsidizing the NFL. The NFL has no minor league... well it does, it's called NCAA Football.
You get this, but for everyone else, show me major sports league in the world (outside of I suppose the WNBA) that has the same advantage. I'm not sure there is one.
So colleges are spending millions of dollars to compete to train folks to play in the NFL, while the NFL makes bank no having to support any minor leagues.
I wish we could make the NFL either support college football, and therefore reduce much of the budgetary issues, or make them create a minor league. In creating a minor league the athletes who don't want to play "school" don't have too. This would probably reduce the number of sports out there, but maybe it's time for the Nikes and such to create clubs for track and other olympic sports teams to support the junior levels to develop them.
December 7th, 2020 at 4:35 PM ^
they'll all to got the Dominican and play ball....the weather is better anyway.
December 9th, 2020 at 8:01 AM ^
Ok - that's fine. I want to watch college students play football - not paid athletes.
December 7th, 2020 at 10:09 AM ^
I can tell you from personal experience that non-revenue sports are "fractional" sports - meaning that the total number of scholarships is 11.7, but they can be divided up between players as the coach sees fit. What this generally means is that each athlete gets around a quarter and at most a third of a scholarship; and has to make up the rest themselves, through academic scholarships, financial aid, etc.
So it's not quite accurate to say that 11 players are on a full ride and 26 are paying their own way - all 37 are responsible for a majority of their own tuition.
With that in mind, if baseball was cut, would all the players transfer? I'm sure it depends on each individual's situation, but for many, the fraction of a scholarship they are losing may not be enough incentive to try to play elsewhere.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:37 PM ^
I liked the part where they showed a team with winged helmets that looked like a football powerhouse or so we thought at the time.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:44 PM ^
As others have noted, this is a tough challenge.
Football and Basketball (maybe hockey) are revenue generators and fund a ton of other sports. Without Football, you wouldn't be able to fund all these other sports, so it's not a surprise that these universities are eager to keep football and basketball running.
What I disagreed with in the story is how they portrayed football and basketball as somehow getting preferential treatment - they do, but not because of preference, but because without football and basketball (maybe some hockey programs break even), you might as well cancel every sport, because the rest of them lose money.
The 'arms race' is the attempt to remain competitive and keep your program relevant with recruits, in order to keep bringing in talent... I think its mistaken to think that schools 'only' improve football and basketball facilities, though they are prioritized as they are the ones that earned those revenues in the first place.
As a public school, i am pretty sure that the AD budget needs to zero out every year (though i am not 100% sure), hence the spending
The discussion about whether the football and basketball players are compensated enough, is question for another day.
December 6th, 2020 at 11:48 PM ^
Well, this type of year is a good reason for the budget to not zero out. I feel like a reserve would help.
Of course I don't know how you mandate how the funds can be used. So many universities seem to have huge endowments but apparently a pandemic isn't grounds to use it.
December 7th, 2020 at 12:48 PM ^
Endowments are used to provide scholarships to lower income families. If you dip into the endowment, you reduce the endowment, thereby helping fewer low income families in the future.
Why is this so hard to understand?
December 7th, 2020 at 12:38 AM ^
There’s a fallacy in the logic here. Football and basketball make money (at UM, most places this isn’t true), but it’s not the case that the other sports couldn’t exist without them. It’s fairly arbitrary to say that all athletic endeavors for a school should be cost neutral in the aggregate. Why lump athletics in it’s own silo? This is a billion dollar university industry, sports is part of it, as is student services, housing, dining, classrooms, snow removal, landscaping, and everything else that makes a student experience.
The university could choose to invest in a particular thing that doesn’t necessarily return the cost in revenue. Like, ya know, music programs, or science equipment, or the student union. The university invests in an overall broad experience for its students (or more cynically, the perception that it offers a more unique experience to draw in more students/raise tuition).
It costs basically nothing to fund the “nonrevenue” sports when you have a university with literally billions in revenue. Cutting these sports is nothing more than PR.
December 7th, 2020 at 1:21 AM ^
I don't know if its a fallacy as opposed to simply the way things run...Athletics is parsed out because it is its own department; not unlike engineering or management.
While Michigan football makes 122M, that money isn't going to only the program; it goes to helping the non-revenue sports, of which there are 28.
From what I could find on the web, MIchigan football revenues are 122M; for the sake of argument (based on the numbers i could find), Michigan's net football profit is 52M
Michigan's total athletic budget is around 197 M and you have 75M per year for the operation of the rest of the teams...a 75 million annual loses isn't just nothing.
while you can argue that University's should pony up for those non-revenue sports, they don't. The other departments you mention are being funded through tuition, unlike sports, whose athletes are being given a scholarship whatever each school doles out as 'full cost of attendance' stipends, meaning they are already in the hole before a single athlete is on campus.
Lots of schools, including prestigious schools like Stanford, have cut many major sports this year due to covid....It's easy to suggest that the AD should take an operating loss of $75 million a year, but its a stretch for me to think that they would
Without Football and basketball, a lot of sports would be simply cancelled - that's already happened at many schools.
This isn't a Michigan thing either; all athletic departments run on football revenues...and while many schools don't make a profit, revenues from football do offset losses to a degree.
December 7th, 2020 at 8:48 AM ^
Football and basketball at D2 and D3 schools aren't money making cash cows, but most of these schools have a wide variety of sports. How can D2 and D3 schools offer a variety of sports to play without football and basketball being money making cash cows, but D1 schools need football and basketball to be cash cows to support the other sports?
December 7th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
At D2/D3/NAIA schools, athletics are more of a marketing tool to bring in students, usually from out of state, that otherwise wouldn't have considered that school.
December 7th, 2020 at 8:49 AM ^
Gymnastics gets 6.3 scholarships. Michigan has a roster of 23 gymnasts. Still plenty of tuition dollars coming in from that team.
December 6th, 2020 at 11:06 PM ^
The money colleges put into athletics is ridiculous
December 6th, 2020 at 11:21 PM ^
I don’t have any idea how this thread made it to this many replies without one person saying that Harbaugh needs to be fired.
December 6th, 2020 at 11:32 PM ^
Damn it! Ok, Harbaugh needs to be fired Clarence.
December 7th, 2020 at 1:52 AM ^
Agreed, if only for the sake of non-revenue sports.
December 6th, 2020 at 11:28 PM ^
I thought they ripped Minnesota a new one in this piece. Not sure how warranted that is compared to other schools and athletic departments. They were one of 15 schools still holding onto a men’s gymnastics program when there had been 150 in the 1970’s. Isn’t that evidence they are trying to do the right thing?
Why not go after the schools that truly don’t give a shit about non-revenue sports like Alabama or Georgia?
December 6th, 2020 at 11:38 PM ^
Do we even score during walkthroughs at the hotel prior to games?
December 7th, 2020 at 8:36 AM ^
You troll 60 Minutes threads too? I bet you're fun.
December 7th, 2020 at 1:22 AM ^
Secondary sports, you mean football?
December 7th, 2020 at 7:31 AM ^
I'm a little torn on this topic and I say that as someone who went to a school to run track and that men's track team was eliminated my freshman year...I found out in the school paper. That sucked.
But let's be honest here; nobody watches men's track unless you are at one of like 15 schools across the country. It is what it is and it was the right decision.
It's still all about supply and demand and for some of these sports there is zero demand. Again, I'm not being a crap talker my youth was built around being a star in a sport that nobody cares about. I lived it! I feel for the young athletes but if there is truly no demand for some of these sports it's really hard to justify keeping them. It's not just the money, there is literally no demand to even watch. Being in track you couldn't get people to come watch for free.
I do also agree with the sentiment about spending thousands upon thousands on a waterfall or in house barbershop seems silly when it could support other supports. On the other hand...it was a good life lesson for me. I wasn't owed track and field. Nobody owed me to keep it going "just because". I picked myself up and became world class in another venture.
Being in the shoes of some of these kids though...I can't explain to you guys how much it sucks especially when the schools don't handle it well.
December 7th, 2020 at 8:08 AM ^
Thanks for this reply - it was interesting to hear your personal story. It's really really hard to make any sense of college athletics.
December 7th, 2020 at 9:03 AM ^
I do think it would help if the schools started having some open and honest discussions. The kids can handle it. I was 18 years old and once I digested the reasoning and was given options I understood the decisions.
It does, frankly, suck all around.
December 7th, 2020 at 11:55 AM ^
Flex - interesting to read about your experience. But, eventhough no one watches track or many of these other sports does that necessarily mean they have no value? I understand that university athletic departments have tight budgets but I think it sucks that the savings always comes from these sports. Trimming a little bit from football or basketball is never an option, especially when it seems like there is so much bloat there (in many cases, certainly not all athletic departments).
I get a little nervous when athletic departments start thinking like corporations and start cutting things due to their profitability (the way you talk about it makes it sound like you were laid off). If every unit within the corporation has to be profitable, then there are only going to be two sports left.
(Your experience reminded of a story I heard years ago from a dude who was on Michigan State's lacrosse team in like '96 when their D-1 program was dropped. Someone from the ath dept. came in, told them not to get dressed for practice and basically told them to gtfo, they couldn't even keep their jerseys (what were they gonna do with the jerseys? who the hell knows? It's a shame too, that program would probably very good by now).
December 7th, 2020 at 12:23 PM ^
I do agree with you and I really don't know what the answer is. You are right, especially when these are public universities, do we have an obligation to do at least the minimum to try to keep these sports? I tend to think so.
On the other hand, if there is truly no demand for a sport in any capacity, is there value or a reason to keep it? I go back and forth with that and frankly don't even know what I think about it.
I will say besides the botched communication they handled the rest well when I was in school but we literally found out in the school paper.
December 7th, 2020 at 7:53 AM ^
Very biased and whiny segment.
December 7th, 2020 at 7:58 AM ^
This is not a simple, right choice versus wrong choice problem as some would suggest in their comments. I am surprised nobody has raised the main reason the runner up NCAA champions are cutting mens gymnastics. They had to cut costs and gender-equity rules limited the options.
I am not blaming Title IX alone, but it has had a seismic role in what sports are viable or not and is the largest factor in the complete elimination of men's gymnastics in college sports (now down to some 14 teams).
December 7th, 2020 at 9:59 AM ^
I think many missed that part of the segment as it was sort of underreported. Check out the women's crew team size in many schools... it is in a word ridiculous. At Michigan it is over 70. I was shocked when they took the field during the Army game last season. The schools do that to achieve the parity required by Title IX. I am not saying Title IX is wrong, but I am saying that many schools facing budget crunches can't keep increasing the size of Women's teams to match the growth in the number of women attending college as a percentage of the total attendance. Therefore they have to cut the Men's sports.
December 7th, 2020 at 8:08 AM ^
Why do these schools have all these massive endowments if they can't help the students?
December 7th, 2020 at 9:30 AM ^
I think they're just born that way. - Academic Urologist
December 7th, 2020 at 11:13 AM ^
They can help the students. These schools have massive scholarship budgets. Athletics involves a small fraction of the total student body and total scholarship attendance.
December 7th, 2020 at 1:01 PM ^
Endowments are often very structured in terms of what they are allowed to spend the money on. The money raised is often from individuals (and corporations), and has 'strings' attached to them in terms of what is acceptable usage.
These aren't meant to 'balance' the books - these are meant to provide universities with a steady source of funding that they can draw from in perpetuity.
They range from things like scholarships, fellowships up to capital investments.
However, the people who donate into them typically have a narrow bandwidth of exactly what they can be used for.
December 7th, 2020 at 9:57 AM ^
I found the Olympic angle interesting. I had some idea that colleges helped with Olympians; but not to the level discussed. I wonder if there's a way to get some alternative funding (perhaps directly from the USOC?)?
December 7th, 2020 at 2:26 PM ^
I'm glad you posted this. I saw the story as well, and it adds another layer of complexity in interpreting the lack of contract extension to Harbaugh as not necessarily being performance based, but financially constrained.
December 7th, 2020 at 6:25 PM ^
Let the free market decide.