Stanford has announced the elimination of 11 varsity teams as its athletic department seeks to reduce an expected $70 million budget shortfall due to the coronavirus pandemic, while the Ivy League is reportedly postponing all fall sports until spring.
‘We now face the reality that significant change is needed to create fiscal stability for Stanford Athletics, and to provide the support we believe is essential for our student-athletes to excel,’ university officials wrote in a letter Wednesday to the campus community.
The cuts will take effect at the end of the 2020-21 academic year. Affected sports are: men’s and women’s fencing, field hockey, lightweight rowing, men’s rowing, co-ed and women’s sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men’s volleyball and wrestling.
In this January 2, 2019, file photo, Penn State’s Bo Nickal, rear left, wrestles with Stanford’s Nathan Traxler in the 197-pound championship bout of the Southern Scuffle wrestling tournament in Chattanooga, Tenn. Stanford announced Wednesday that it is dropping 11 sports amid financial difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The school will discontinue men’s and women’s fencing, field hockey, lightweight rowing, men’s rowing, co-ed and women’s sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men’s volleyball and wrestling after the 2020-21 academic year
The Harvard-Yale football game (pictured in 2018) may be played next in the spring of 2021
Those programs have won 20 of Stanford’s 123 NCAA championships, the most in history.
After the cuts, Stanford will have 25 varsity programs.
The athletic department was projected to have a deficit of more than $12 million in the 2021 fiscal year even before the pandemic halted college athletics in March.
‘The COVID-19 pandemic and associated recession have only exacerbated the gap; before these sport reductions, our revised forecasts indicated a best-case scenario of a $25 million deficit in FY21, factoring in the effects of COVID-19, and a cumulative shortfall of nearly $70 million over the next three years,’ the letter read. ‘These projected deficits could become much greater if the 2020-21 sports seasons are suspended or altered due to COVID-19.’
The impacted teams will can continue on as clubs, and Stanford said all student scholarships and coaching contracts will be honored. The university also will pay severance to the 20 support staff employees who will lose their jobs amid the cutbacks.
Alyssa Chen of Northwestern and Madeline Liao of Stanford compete during Women’s Foil at the National Collegiate Fencing Championships on March 23, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio
In this 2007, file photo, Stanford University swimmers finish their winning routine in team free competition finals at the Synchronized Swimming US National Championships in Indianapolis. Stanford’s synchronized swimming team is among the cuts announced Wednesday
The Ivy League is expected to move all fall sports, including football, to the spring of 2021, The Athletic reported Monday.
The conference announced last week it will make an official announcement on Wednesday.
If the Ivy League decides to push back the sports schedule due to the coronavirus, it could create a domino effect throughout college football as other conferences decide how to proceed safely.
Back in March, the Ivy League was the first Division I conference to cancel its postseason basketball tournaments due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one coach told The Athletic the delay “seems most realistic with cases spiking in so many places.”
“In order to have an effective season without hiccups, time is the answer,” another Ivy League coach said, per the report. “If we play in the spring, it won’t bother me.”
The members of the Ivy League are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale. Yale and Dartmouth were co-champs in 2019.
In this May 3, 2014, file photo, Stanford men’s volleyball head coach John Kosty, second from left, looks down as players react after a 3-1 loss to Loyola in the NCAA men’s college volleyball championship at Gentile Arena in Chicago. Stanford’s volleyball team was among today’s cuts