According to the analysis of the Syracuse University data, on average FCS schools received 36.8% of their revenue from direct institutional support, and non-football Division I leagues got 32.5%.

Another concern among athletic directors, especially for those at non-Power 5 schools, is that students might not be back on campus this fall, which would eliminate or at least reduce mandatory athletics fees in many cases. Smaller enrollments also would result in less money from student fees.

While schools such as Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma, Oregon, Purdue and others have already announced they're planning to have face-to-face instruction this fall, final decisions won't be made by those schools and others until later. The California State University schools that won't be back on campus include Fresno State, San Diego State and San Jose State.

Only three Power 5 schools -- Virginia (13.4%), Maryland (12.4%) and Rutgers (11.8%) -- received more than 10% of their overall revenue from mandatory student fees in 2017-18. According to the data, on average Power 5 programs received 2.4% and Group of 5 schools got 21.9% of their revenue from student fees that academic year.

"We have to have institutional support through student fees to survive," said East Carolina athletic director Jon Gilbert, whose department received $15.8 million, or 33.7%, of its revenue from student fees in 2017-18. "If we get into the fall and let's say there are no students on campus and all classes are still online, every Group of 5 school in the country is in trouble because virtually every bucket of revenue is going to be reduced."

Gilbert announced on Monday that ECU plans to eliminate one or more of the 20 sports it sponsors and would reduce athletics expenditures by 10% to 20% in an effort to make up a $10 million budget deficit.

On Thursday, ECU announced cuts to athletic programs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, eliminating men's and women's swimming and diving and men's and women's tennis. The school said the move would impact 68 student-athletes.

The elimination of the programs, in addition to cuts in operations, limits to summer school opportunities for student-athletes and regionalized scheduling will save $4.9 million.

There's an article in today's The Record by Dan Wolken (sorry,it won't link) talking about the impact of Covid on college sports.

What stood out:"Mid-American Conference schools have been particularly vulnerable".

I've said it before and will say it again. Look at the makeup of MAC schools, essentially "Normal" schools in its history that doesn't allow for odds of a big wig donor to write checks. The only schools that could turn screws are Toledo, Miami, and Buffalo quite frankly. Miami only floats because of its business school and its alums. Otherwise, the majors the MAC is focused on (or state-law'd into) doesn't allow for programs that could develop powerful alumni. No deep-pocketed alumni=less donation dollars. Less donation dollars=smaller margin of error. Make no mistake, combined with the physical plant of our campus along with location relative to major metropolitan area, we're in deep crap. Lump that in with Bowling Green, Ball State, Central Michigan, Kent State, and even NIU, we're in trouble. The MAC as we know it is toast, and that doesn't include Western and Akron (who we already know is mismanaged to the point of oblivion).

Massive oversimplification. Plus, I think a few donors (engineering school, medical school and more) would beg to differ with you.

+1 And, our first medical school graduates (1980) are just now getting to the point in their careers where they are likely to make a big donation. Also, he's apparently forgotten about the gifts from Stocker and Russ to the Engineering College.

At least at smaller private schools, activity affiliation and engagement is one of the single biggest factors in alumni giving. I've tracked this for years at my alma mater. Those who were members of greek organizations are more likely to give, give early and give often than GDI's. How does that translate to OU? I'm not sure but the cutting of sports in the last 20 years and the hazing debacle this past year certainly won't help 10 and 20 years out. As for those big gifts - Stocker, Russ, Patton and to a lesser extent Walter, are few and far between and tend to be very specific. Going forward we need to clearly identify what OU is.

Clueless ...

There's an article in today's (5/24) The Record by Greg Tufaro,of USA today.

Its titled "Critics Say Colleges Too Quick To Cut Sports".
(Sorry it won't link).

Very interesting read.

It has a number of comments from B.David Ridpath.

Nah, no way they were to quick. By waiting longer they may have wasted a good crisis, and not been able to make moves they’ve been wanting to make.

And he is the standard grab a quote guy when topic is negative college sports.

i hate to be a complete jerk BUT....

i really question why universities need so many teams.........

i used to go to a town that was pretty economically depressed. and i'd see all these college athletes from that town travelling all the time on the flights i was on. who was paying for this? the other students (who could care less about all these sports teams except maybe 1 or 2. and i don't think the fans would miss them if they were gone

i understand there's title 9 (correct term?) ............ i think schools should just cast adrift any football team that doesn't draw 20k fans on average.... does title 9 apply at every level of NCAA? i'd think so. but maybe not that many scholarships further down.

anyway, i think the world can do without ECU volleyball and/or soccer.. pretty much put in any sport but football/basketball for most universities.

EDIT, hadn't seen the comment that direct student fees don't finance that much big school ncaa sports.

but there has to be a point where whatever pays for rutgers volleyball/soccer that no one cares about could be used to help students with their monthly costs.

Does the NCAA prohibit student athletes from holding fundraisers like car washes and bake sales? I know it might open the door for boosters to abuse the system ($1,000 is a little excessive for a brownie, unless it's a REALLY GOOD brownie) but since it would go to the program instead of the athlete, should the NCAA care?

Title IX applies at all levels of education! Not just college DI Athletics.

"Brown University announced Thursday that it will reduce its number of varsity sports programs from 38 to 29 with 11 programs transitioning to club status effective for the 2020-21 academic year." BostonGlobe.com 5/28/20

The article says that this is not a budgetary move. It's to balance Title IX issues and to emphasize sports where competitive.
Hard to imagine 29 D1 sports let alone 38 at Ohio.

The 11 to be cut are men’s and women’s fencing, men’s and women’s golf, women’s skiing, men’s and women’s squash, women’s equestrian, men’s indoor track and field, men’s outdoor track and field and men’s cross country. Women’s sailing and coed sailing will transition from club to varsity status.

Most Ivy League schools and many Div III schools have sponsored a lot of sports.

True, but I think it's a lot cheaper since there aren't athletic scholarships.

Also in the case of the Ivies, it's always been a conduit which they could use to take some legacies and "development admits"(i.e. Daddy's a billionaire of Senator) who wouldn't be able to sniff admission with a regular application. For pr purposes, it lowers their percent of legacy admissions since the 4th generation Harvard student is admitted as an athlete rather than a legacy.

Harvard must have some damn good legacy athletes, because they are competitive in most all they do. Their list of athletic accomplishments is quite impressive.

Way back in the day, as in the autumn of my senior football season, our head coach called me and another player to his office. He told us that a Dartmouth assistant coach had visited and looked at films. He liked what he saw in us. Today I can still hear the coach saying, "Now Dartmouth doesn't offer football scholarships. But they would like to offer you an academic scholarship with the expectation that you will play football." I wonder if that word expectation remains a word of choice.