Not unlike the fault line that runs under Memorial Stadium, UC Berkeley’s decision to cut five sports teams from its roster of 29 is a product of a seismic shift.
The epicenter is the almighty dollar — more specifically, a budget crisis in the state of California that has weakened the state’s ability to fund public higher education.
Faculty and staff at the Berkeley campus questioned the economic sense of funding these programs in a time of dire need.
So men’s and women’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse, and baseball were formally axed. Men’s rugby, winner of 25 national championships since 1980, was reassigned to “varsity club” status. Athletes will be permitted to use training and academic facilities for student athletes but, well, Cal has yet to fully explain the designation.
Golden Bears sports fans couldn’t help but bring up the nation’s least favorite of the Educational Amendments of 1972 (Hint: it’s a Title between VIII and X) as the possible scapegoat. After all, 118 roster spots on the men’s varsity roster were eliminated, compared to 45 women’s varsity spots.
The real scapegoat, again, is the almighty dollar. Cal’s athletic department will save 4 million of them a year as a result of this move. More may still be to come, after UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau produced an open letter stating that, “through a variety of circumstances, the costs of delivering our Intercollegiate Athletics program have been rising dramatically, requiring growing financial support from the campus budget that now exceeds $12 million annually. This is not sustainable for our campus in a time of drastic state budget cuts to the university that are affecting all of our faculty, staff and students.”
Sustainability is more than just a buzzword meant to hint at potential financial solvency these days. It’s the new rule of law for college athletics, and those who cannot afford cannot abide. After all, not everyone is Stanford, with 34 varsity sports and an endowment of $900,000,000,000,000. (Author’s note: Stanford University is a private university and therefore does not release financial data. The endowment figure may be a slight misrepresentation.)
Cal’s recent cuts are seen as a hostile and dangerous gesture among those entrenched in the philosophically insulated sphere of athletics.
Former Golden Bears pitcher and current Toronto Blue Jay Brandon Morrow told the Associated Press, “I think it’s awful. I think it’s embarrassing that a Pac-10 school is going to cancel their baseball program.” A tradition going back 118 years — but be honest, did you even know Cal had a baseball team to cut, let alone one for that long? — is not to be discarded without everyone having a say.
Not that it matters. Money will do all the talking from here on out.
An unrelated shockwave recently hit the Eugene area this past week when The Register-Guard reported that the Oregon athletic department would have to hit up Phil Knight & Co.’s Legacy Fund for $8 million (and possibly more) to cover cost overruns at Matthew Knight Arena. The Legacy Fund, for those of you keeping score, is a $129 million pile of money — $100 million of which came from Phil and Penny Knight — to be invested by the University’s financial handlers. The interest payments from the investments were supposed to cover the cost of construction bonds taken out with the approval of the state of Oregon, along with arena revenue from half a slate of Pac-10 men’s and women’s basketball.
Perhaps head football coach Chip Kelly — he of the new $20.5 million contract over six years — can make up the difference if revenue projections aren’t met. (They won’t be.) Failing that, multiple high-profile events could call the Matthew Knight Arena home, giving the athletic department unanticipated sources of revenue. (Not likely.) Maybe the new video scoreboard, designed from two bisecting Oregon O’s, was a clever design feature but not nearly worth the price tag. (Doubtful … have you heard the specs? Four 12 feet by 20 feet screens? Two million LED lights? This thing is going to be sweet!)
Athletic finance seismologists across the country are sounding the alarm that the Berkeley quake is the precursor to a much larger, and more shocking, phenomenon. Soon, athletic spending will become painfully unsustainable across all levels, including Division I. Before long, even football and men’s basketball programs will feel it. Scholarships will not be available. New equipment and facilities will be fantasies. Whole programs may disappear.
Varsity sports may become a thing of the past as the club sport mentality takes over in the college paradigm. You want to play? You have to pay.
What’s the Richter scale measurement for a full-on cultural shift?
[email protected]