Even after record high revenue in 2018-19, Syracuse Athletics will feel the financial pressures of the coronavirus pandemic.

Of the more than 100 FBS athletic directors polled by LEAD1 Association’s State of Athletics in the face of Coronavirus report, 86% said college athletics will soon have to make financial sacrifices — but those sacrifices have already begun to manifest.

On April 2, Old Dominion announced the end of its men’s wrestling program, and less than two weeks later, the University of Cincinnati eliminated its men’s soccer program. Every year, athletic programs are cut. But Jeremy Losak, a sport management assistant professor at Syracuse University, said this year there will be more.

Syracuse may be less susceptible to program cuts, Losak said, because SU already operates with fewer athletic programs than Atlantic Coast Conference schools (SU has 18 teams, fewer than 10 ACC schools). But ramifications could go beyond program cuts, affecting “all areas on campus,” one athletic director wrote in the LEAD1 report. And, if the pandemic continues into the fall season, things will only get worse.

 Most college sports do not generate significant amounts of revenue — basketball and football accounted for 80.9% of Syracuse’s 2018-19 record $99.8 million revenue. In general, Olympic and non-revenue generating sports would be the first programs to go. The Cincinnati men’s soccer program registered $924,385 in expenses in 2018-19, and ODU’s wrestling cost $1,021,456. At SU, men’s soccer recorded $1,974,034 in 2018-19 expenses and does not house a wrestling program. 

Athletic departments will have to “make those types of business decisions,” Losak said, but it is the student-athletes who bear the short-term burden. Santino Morina, a former ODU wrestler who since transferred, tweeted he was “absolutely heartbroken” that the Big Blue program was terminated. For Morina’s teammate, Sa’Derian Perry, who was at Eastern Michigan in 2018 when its wrestling program folded, it was a familiar feeling.

 “I couldn’t believe that it was the second time that a team has been cut with me on it,” Perry said to the Orlando Sentinel. “It was definitely a betrayal — a back stabbing.”

 Public institutions could take a harder financial hit because of the effects of local economic troubles, and smaller schools could suffer because of reliance on athletic revenue, Losak said. Institutions’ budget cuts could range “from a haircut to decapitation,” one athletic director told Yahoo Sports.

At Syracuse, John Wildhack, Jim Boeheim, Dino Babers and several other high-paid athletic leaders took a 10% pay cut this week, but that’s not a feasible expectation for all schools, Losak said. Cuts will come in the form of facility spending freezes, employee layoffs, decrease in future coaching contracts, and, like we have already seen, terminating expensive teams.

 “In all truthfulness, if the soccer team is more valuable than the coach of the football team,” Losak said, “then the football coach would be the one who probably takes the financial hit.”

 While situations vary on a school-to-school basis, cuts are likely at schools reliant on basketball revenue — the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament cost the NCAA $375 million that would have been distributed to member institutions. 

In 2018-19, Syracuse drew in 43.9% of athletic revenue from football compared to 37% from men’s and women’s basketball. If football revenue is lost in any capacity, including playing in an empty stadium this fall, it will have a “pretty sizable effect,” Losak said. And even playing without fans might be the optimistic outcome. 

There is “absolutely a possibility that (a football season) may not happen,” Northwestern Athletic Director Jim Phillips said April 10 on WBBN. A cancellation that, according to USA Today, could cost public FBS institutions more than 60% of their yearly revenue — on top of spring losses. 

“Schools might have to pull the purse strings a little bit tighter,” Losak said.

Published on April 22, 2020 at 8:32 pm

Contact Mitchell: mbannon@syr.edu