In the wake of the coronavirus, college sports, especially “non-revenue” sports, are facing a reckoning. The cash flow that funded college athletics uninterrupted for decades was suddenly shut off in the spring of 2020, putting the future of many programs in jeopardy. This comes at an interesting time - most major Power 5 schools recently received huge payouts from their conference TV deals and were awash in cash. Despite this windfall, departments continued to cut sports and the coronavirus all but assured that many of these programs are doomed. Big-time athletic programs like Stanford, Iowa and Minnesota recently announced they will drop a total of 19(!) sports. 

When faced with budget crises, athletic departments often look to less popular sports for savings, although they are often low-budget programs with razor-thin margins. This creates a paradox in which football and basketball - the profits from which essentially fund all other sports - are bringing in more money than ever, but athletic departments are pouring that money right back into those two sports, causing low-cost programs to be dropped. The current trajectory is unsustainable. With athletic departments cutting programs based on their profitability and acting more and more like corporations, the future for non-revenue sports looks bleak. Do the revenue-generating sports deserve to get baller locker rooms, rad facilities and generous perks and resources? Of course (in fact, I think they should be paid but that’s another diary altogether). However, if we continue down this path, football and basketball will be the only men’s sports left. 

It’s important to remember why these programs exist in the first place. They weren’t founded as money-making opportunities; they were largely started by the students to represent their schools in athletic competition. Some of these teams date back more than a hundred years to a time when athletic scholarships didn’t exist and professors often served as the coaches. Even today, many of these athletes are not on scholarship nor are they pro prospects, but they compete for the love of the game. It’s also important to remember that there is still value in these programs, even if their bottom line is red; they enrich college experience for several students - and as MGoBender pointed out one day - they bring in tuition money for the university. And that money is not counted towards the athletic department’s budget.

The NCAA prides itself on upholding the “scholar athlete” ideal but if it wants to retain that status for the future, it must change. The NCAA cannot continue doing the same thing in a post-corona world. What that might look like is anybody’s guess. But I wanted to foment discussion on how to save these programs and offer a few ideas of my own (some are wacky, some might actually work).

     1. Fix the One-Size-Fits-All model

The NCAA’s three-division structure is designed to prevent the Alabamas of the world from beating up on the D’youville Colleges and University of Okobojis (one of those is real) and to divide the field more equitably between the haves - (most D-I schools offer full scholarships, D-II, partial scholarships) and the have-less (no athletic scholarships in D-III). But, this hamstrings other sports, especially highly regional ones where there may be few D-I opponents in close proximity (think of Arizona State hockey’s travel budget). The NCAA’s general structure and rules also create a high barrier for entry for new programs: new sports can require huge commitments of millions of dollars because these programs have to compete with the fully-funded title contenders. There’s no way to start a new sport on the (relative) cheap. To that point: The only reason Sun Devil hockey exists is because a pair of major donors poured in serious cash to fund it.

My solution would be to allow certain sports to play a limited number of official games against Division II, III and even “virtual varsity” club programs and have those games count towards their ranking and postseason play. The current division system is too rigid for many smaller sports. I would also allow for “super clubs” to join Division I which brings me to my next point...

    2. Bring back “associate status”, especially for regional sports.

After the NCAA officially created the division system in the early 70s, it allowed for “associate” or non-scholarship  programs to compete with varsity-level teams for a period of time. This system worked especially well for men’s lacrosse which at the time had only a handful of officially university-sponsored programs. Duke, North Carolina and Virginia Tech all started out as associate programs and were allowed to play a Division I schedule. Duke and UNC went on to become unmitigated success stories, producing All-Americans and winning national championships (VT balked, ended up with an unfriendly AD who led the department into a budget crisis and they’ve been a top-flight club team ever since). I think this type of hybrid program could bridge the gap between varsity and club teams and fill out the NCAA and conference ranks of these sports. It will also provide much-needed flexibility for regional sports like hockey (61 men’s teams), lacrosse (73 teams), wrestling (78 teams) and volleyball (23 teams!!!) to grow at the D-1 level.

When I was a freshman at Michigan, it blew my mind that the men’s soccer team was in its first year of varsity play. I couldn’t believe that Michigan-  an athletic powerhouse in football, basketball, hockey, everything - didn’t have a sport as basic and popular as soccer. But, this is not unusual, even today many big schools don’t field men’s soccer. Soccer is an interesting case - more than 200 colleges sponsor men’s soccer at the D-1 level but they are mostly smaller schools (only nine of the 14 B1G teams sponsor soccer; compared to five in the Pac-12, two in the SEC and one in the Big XII). Some universities with “more-money-than-God” like Texas, Florida and USC do not have men’s soccer teams. Under an associate program, these types of schools could expand their athletic departments to include soccer and other sports. 

Mid-major schools that don’t benefit from insane conference-TV money like say, Bowling Green, which recently axed its baseball team, might be able to keep non-football/basketball sports alive through an associate program. It could also save wrestling and men’s gymnastics teams, which are next on the chopping block in many places. I think it could be a valuable tool in Title IX compliance as well - athletic departments could use it to balance resources among male and female students by adding non-scholarship sports for both genders.

The details could be tricky but I imagine something like this: allow universities to sponsor a maximum of three associate sports at a commitment of approximately $100K per team (no scholarships of course) to pay for a travel budget and coaching salaries. And allow the players to supplement the rest through dues and/or external fundraising if needed. Let the teams recruit as if they were official varsity teams. The NCAA could even expand its postseason format in several sports to include a certain number of the best associate-status teams. So basically, these teams would be varsity in everything- uniforms/equipment, coaches, recruiting, postseason competition-  except for scholarships.

There are drawbacks, however. Renewing such a program could run the risk of schools cutting varsity programs to associate status rather than bringing club teams into it. And it could hurt mid-major schools who will be at a disadvantage if bigger schools can jump into Division I, even if those schools cannot offer scholarships. But, if coronavirus is going to alter the landscape of college sports for the future, this might be the way forward.

    3. Promote certain secondary sports to help recoup as much revenue as possible.                                                                                                                                                                             Maximization of profits shouldn’t be the goal of amateur sports but for spectator-friendly non-revenue sports - baseball/softball, hockey, soccer, volleyball and even lacrosse - it should be. These are actually strong products (ever see a Nebraska women’s volleyball game on BTN? It’s incredible) but they don’t get the eyeballs they deserve. I believe ticket sales and TV viewership would increase with better promotion. And if they get popular enough, some programs might break even or even turn a small profit. The NCAA, conferences and athletic departments should do more to maximize exposure and viewership for these sports: they have more potential than most people realize. Other ideas related to this:

   - Move baseball and softball to summer. Or at least bump the season back a few weeks. This is unlikely to happen, but I believe revenue for NCAA baseball and softball would skyrocket if they played a summer schedule. While there is not that much demand for these sports generally, I think interest would increase dramatically if they played when they can be seen. I never attended a baseball game while I was a student at Michigan and I saw one softball game. But, I did spend a summer in AA, and would’ve loved to enjoy a pleasant evening drinking a beer and watching a ballgame. The 2021 season is the perfect time to experiment with this.                                                                                                       -  Name, Image and Likeness. The use of NIL should not be restricted to football and basketball players only; it could help nonrevenue sports as well. If a school has a swimmer, gymnast or track star who will be on the U.S. Olympic team this summer - let local businesses use him/her in ads. This could also help generate interest for the player and program within the local and university communities.            - Annual Non-Rev Sport Summit. Why not hold a summer NCAA Olympiad every two or four years to showcase college talent in “Olympic-style” sports like swimming/diving, wrestling, gymnastics and track and field? Don’t know if that would work but what the hell? People would watch. 

     4. Allow for  partnerships: USOC, USTA, PGA.                                                                              

College hoops and football operate as free minor league systems for the NFL and NBA, while also pretending that the NFL and NBA don’t exist. But, the NCAA should allow for certain pro organizations - especially for nonrev sports - to create partnerships with the NCAA and/or conferences and maybe even provide funding for certain programs and/or players to play collegiately.

    5. Move away from the corporate model and stick up for small sports.     

I don’t know what this entails exactly, but maybe the NCAA should require P5 schools to field a minimum number of men’s teams (Title IX compliant, of course)? I would like to see the NCAA form a Nonrevenue Sports Committee (maybe absorb it into the Strategic Planning and Vision Committee) to focus on issues facing smaller sports. And some regional sports like hockey, lacrosse, volleyball - and “niche” sports like crew, squash, rifle(?) even skiing(!) - would benefit from a growth committee to encourage other schools to sponsor the sport. I also want the NCAA to support more sports at the college level. Every college in the U.S. has men’s and women’s rugby but how is rugby not an NCAA-sanctioned sport?

When athletic directors cut sports because they are unprofitable, it becomes harder to argue that college athletics are operating under an amateur model, especially when contrasted with the fact that the “amateurs” who generate millions of dollars for their schools are unpaid. Because of the artificial constraints of the NCAA’s amateur model, these schools are at a loss on how to spend it so they pour it into exorbitant contracts, buyouts and severance payments for coaches, assistants and ADs. Or they spend it on “arms-race facilities” like overpriced weight rooms and locker rooms for the exclusive use of the football team. Ultimately, I believe that the NCAA should be about representing athletes at all levels in all sports. It should be expanding opportunities to more students. 

Do football and men’s basketball generate the most revenue? Of course. And do they deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labors more than say, the golf team? Absolutely. But, the amount of money in today’s college sports is both a blessing and a curse - it’s truly an embarrassment of riches. And if the schools and the NCAA don’t get their priorities straight, the days of amateur collegiate athletics will be over.