Iowa discontinues M Gymnastics, M&W Swimming/Diving, and M Tennis
Iowa to discontinue four of their varsity sports programs at the conclusion of the 2020-21 academic year: men’s gymnastics, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, and men’s tennis. Blames pandemic. Trying to withhold judgment before seeing more details, but this stinks.
August 21st, 2020 at 3:17 PM ^
Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean nobody else does.
There are no instate opportunities for D1 swimming & diving in IA with this move. Plus there are a ton of athletes on both men’s and women’s teams that have to find a new home during a pandemic now.
August 21st, 2020 at 3:30 PM ^
I think you need to reread my post and the letter again, or maybe I should have been clearer in the OP. They are not talking about canceling this season--they are ELIMINATING those programs and sports from Iowa for the foreseeable future after this academic year. This isn't about COVID-19 safety; this is about Iowa's AD and leadership not being financially prepared for this economic downturn, and the kids are paying the price for it.
August 21st, 2020 at 3:30 PM ^
The motive to cut sports has nothing to do with safety, it has to do with money. Or mismanagement of resources. If your friend was making 100 million dollars a year and spent it all on houses and cars would you feel bad when he had to give them back after losing the job? Problem is Iowa isn't giving back the cars and houses, they are firing the maid.
August 21st, 2020 at 3:40 PM ^
Thinking back to the years people argued that the BIG was not competitive because so many of the teams would not step up and pay their assistants like the SEC does. Now we have what is essentially a black swan event that will create a hole in both university athletic and overall budgets that will take years to overcome and people are complaining that they mismanaged resources.
August 21st, 2020 at 2:44 PM ^
Number of places this is happening in the world: One.
Every fucker who "just wanted to try something different" or voted for this because "dunno, just don't like her" signed us up for this.
August 21st, 2020 at 2:57 PM ^
Kids aren’t in school
Michigan football is cancelled
country is the embarrassment of the world.
but at least they got to own the libs
August 24th, 2020 at 12:03 PM ^
To quote from a smart poster in a different thread, "first, most of the reason that those other countries that got hit with covid are now under control is timing. Those countries that got hit first came out of it first. Just like in the US, the states that got hit first came out of it first.
Let's look at Europe: Just like us, they got hit, saw a serious spike in cases, and then a slow and gradual decline. New York got hit shortly after and, just like Europe, saw a spike followed by a gradual decline. Now let's look at Arizona (which is not exactly big on the lockdown measures, as many have critically pointed out). They got hit much late than NY. But, just like Europe and NY, they saw a spike in cases followed by a slow and gradual decline. If you need more evidence of this, see Florida and now even Georgia.
The problem with people who like to say that the US doesn't have this under control is that you are looking at the US as a single sample. It is not. The US is made up of 50 sovereign states, each of which has a certain degree of authority to self-regulate. Let's say that the fed government even had the authority to impose a national one-month lockdown back in March. Would that have helped? Most of the states locked down at that time on their own. But, more importantly, we couldn't do that forever. And, as we have seen, as states started to come out of the lockdown, the virus is there waiting to spike in locations that didn't experience a spike pre-lockdown. Best example: Hawaii. Literally, a self-contained set of islands. They locked down more than any state, even prohibiting visitors from the mainland. Obviously, that is not sustainable forever. And once they eased the lockdown even a bit, they saw the sharpest spike of any state.
So, I guess my question is what could the government have done differently? Not rhetoric and speeches, but what actual decisions could they have made that you believe would have controlled this better?
The data shows that any particular region, COVID more or less wreaks havoc for about a month and half then cools off. I mean look at NY and NJ, those places are in the clear with regards to COVID. They just got it out of the way earlier than Arizona, Florida etc. And with no guarantee of a vaccine, that might be the best approach.
Some people like to make this a competition with other countries, but I think its a fruitless effort since the factors widely vary between countries. We have a unique federalized structure with our respective states that just doesn't nicely compare to other countries." Any attempt to view covid responses as a 'competition' is just more people blindly lashing out at orange man bad.
August 21st, 2020 at 2:51 PM ^
Not sure why IA cuts these sports unless the huge loss in BTN revenue is part of this. That would also impact the rest of the B1G schools. What that, we could see many more sports being cut throughout the B1G in the weeks and months to come.
The MAC schools have been making similar cuts over the past few years and it looks like these cuts will increase such that these schools will only offer a few sports to participate in. I feel badly for EMU.
August 21st, 2020 at 3:50 PM ^
I do not feel badly for EMU.
The athletic department for a decade-plus has taken at least $15 million per year from the general fund. Faculty, lecturers, staff and facilities workers have been laid off on a regular basis due to budget shortfalls as a result. There is no excuse for this.
EMU, WMU, CMU, etc had unsustainable "business" models before COVID; now it is just becoming more apparent.
They need to drop to Div II or Div III, quick, and stop deluding themselves that by having "big time" college football, basketball, etc that makes it worthwhile. That won't solve all their budget issues (esp now) but it will make big difference.
August 21st, 2020 at 2:54 PM ^
First Oliver, now this....
August 22nd, 2020 at 11:27 AM ^
See what you did with the Chris Rock reference.
August 21st, 2020 at 2:58 PM ^
Because gymnastics, which is probably the easiest sport to social distance for (especially when cleaning equipment between routines) and tennis, which involves players literally a courts-distance apart and only mutually touching a ball, are more threatening to health than other sports.
August 21st, 2020 at 3:09 PM ^
While Kirk Ferentz makes nearly $5 million a year to go somewhere between 7-5 to 9-3 in an awful division.
I hope the affected athletes are granted waivers to transfer and compete immediately anywhere that will have them.
August 21st, 2020 at 3:20 PM ^
Athletes whose teams are cut are automatically eligible immediately if they transfer. The scholarship will be honored at Iowa if they just wanna finish school there.
Feel so bad. None of these athletes got to finish their most recent season at Iowa and will never play for them again.
August 21st, 2020 at 4:03 PM ^
so THAT'S why Oliver Martin transferred....
August 21st, 2020 at 4:05 PM ^
I feel bad for the thousands of athletes who are going to hear similar news about their own sports if they have not already. This is going to be really bad at some institutions.
August 21st, 2020 at 4:12 PM ^
I didn't expect to see it this suddenly in the Big Ten.
August 21st, 2020 at 6:26 PM ^
Perhaps a few of us who were adamantly against Warren canceling the season so early had more in mind than just wanting to see football... anyone with a moderately functioning brain knew that cancellation was going to have a devastating impact on athletic departments across the B1G in general.
They'll be plenty more fallout (and cancelled sports) to come. I'm sad to have to watch it unfold.
August 21st, 2020 at 6:51 PM ^
This is BS. This is not Warren's fault, and I am getting tired of this shit. His messaging was poor & handled the PR terribly, but the conference made the RIGHT decision. The Big Ten never should have released the schedule when they did, but Warren had no control over whether the fall season happened--the decision was made by the presidents with input from the medical advisory group recommendations. But none of this is germane to this discussion.
Even if the Big Ten were to play this fall, it was going to be a shortened season of 5 home games with no fans in the stands--almost no gameday and ticketing revenue.The television money is still there, and the television money may still be there even if the season were not to happen as I have read the networks may be hesitant to not to be a good partner especially right before the Big Ten is about to renegotiate their next TV deal. So if the Big Ten played this fall, Iowa probably still cuts these sports anyway.
The Big Ten programs actually have a better chance of making more revenue in the spring if they are able to host games with fans by then, but that isn't even the important point right now.
August 21st, 2020 at 7:44 PM ^
I don't disagree.. Warren is just the puppet for the college's presidents.. but yeah.. he's handled this EXTREMELY poorly. That doesn't change the fact that every president that voted "no", and is allowing their students back on campus, is a MASSIVE hypocrite. I said this in another thread.. why exactly did the "vote" have to be taken mid August? He should have been advising the presidents just how devastating the financial impact would be to their athletic departments if they were to vote to cancel the season. Iowa is just the beginning... their will be plenty more programs cancelled due to the loss of revenue.
To call it "the right decision" at this point is premature.. if the ACC, SEC, and B12 pull off seasons with little issue and few serious medical issues, then Warren and the presidents have done a massive disservice to their own conference. Some on this board want to pretend their aren't serious injuries, heart issues, etc. every year in college football. We've just never seen this much vitriol or hand wringing about them.. we just accepted that playing football (and all sports) carries a small amount of risk. A risk the athletes, coaches, and athlete's families all look like they're willing to accept. But lets 15 people decide the fate of thousands without any input from the people being affected, all so they can cover their ass. It's absurd.
August 21st, 2020 at 4:16 PM ^
So is Barta going to take a permanent pay cut to go along with his now reduced responsibilities? Cutting these 4 programs means that they cut 17% of the sports in the athletic department. A permanent 17% reduction in his salary sounds about right to me.
August 21st, 2020 at 5:09 PM ^
Surprised they didn’t cut more to be honest.
August 21st, 2020 at 5:28 PM ^
How much does Ferentz and his staff make again?
That's ridiculous.
August 21st, 2020 at 5:30 PM ^
The wholesale cut for Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving programs at Iowa is pretty shocking. 10 years ago Iowa built a complete $69 Million World Class Olympic-sized aquatic facility that has hosted numerous Big Ten Championships and was in line to host the 2021 NCAA Division 1 Men's Swim & Dive Championship(s). One could argue that they overreached and just can't sustain now with the covid cuts in funding. But to just throw that investment away like this is just... shocking.
This is not MSU with their antiquated 6 lane 25 yd.indoor pool that no one would even miss if they closed it down tomorrow. Well, that's kind of harsh b/c MSU has team swimmers (and divers) too but it's not a program that makes much noise any year and if any B1G was to close down their program I'd think that MSU and perhaps ILL. would be at the top of the list. Not Iowa.
August 21st, 2020 at 8:14 PM ^
Not only is MSU shit but we are the undisputed #1 in the B1G and arguably the best college swimming program of all-time on the men's side with 19 National Championships and a .848 win percentage all-time.
Michigan-MSU series stats-
- 91-5 Michigan
- 44 straight Michigan wins
- Last MSU win was in 1976-77
- MSU is 1-46 in Ann Arbor all-time
August 21st, 2020 at 5:35 PM ^
....and we are conned into having ethanol added to gasoline to subsidize their economy. Something stinks in Iowa.
August 21st, 2020 at 6:55 PM ^
wow. this is very sad to see.
I always thought that Iowa took the Olympic sports very seriously. . .
August 21st, 2020 at 10:11 PM ^
Good. This will just highlight the injustice of football, mainly composed of poor black athletes, subsidizing scholarships for non-revenue sports, mainly composed of suburban white athletes.
August 22nd, 2020 at 11:30 AM ^
Hot take is bad, or are you a SJ Major?
August 22nd, 2020 at 11:39 AM ^
A lot of misinfo here. Most black athletes come from middle class families. Avg NBA player comes from 2 parent household believe it or not. Most athletes also live in suburbs due to population shifts as that’s where best coaching and facilities are. Locally it’s Farmington, West Bloomfield, Belleville etc.
August 24th, 2020 at 12:03 PM ^
Go back to Portland.