Cuts, cuts, and more cuts. As I stated in my previous articles #budgetrealities and physics in Maine, programs and now athletics are being cut. In a brief article at Inside Higher Ed and at the official announcement, Temple University is going to cut seven intercollegiate athletic programs as of July 1, 2014. This will reduce the number of varsity sports programs from 24 to 17, which is in-line with other schools in The American Athletic Conference.
These cuts at Temple to me are logical and are following the ongoing trend in higher education because the reality is that schools cannot be everything to everyone anymore. It seems that back in the day, ten to forty years ago, many institutions (larger state and private) were trying to provide everything; offer every type of degree, have every sport, and be a one stop shop for their students. Today, because of funding realities, state and private institutions have to change and many of them are hedging their bets on high profile sports such as football and basketball while keeping other relatively popular sports.
Why keep football and basketball? They make money, and lots of it. According to the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool, during the 2011-2012 season Temple’s football program made $16,961,995 with a profit of $0 (zero). Their basketball team made $4,080,845 with a profit of $0 (zero). Considering there are no accounting standards when it comes to reporting revenue to the DOE every school reports their revenues differently. To put these lax accounting into perspective, of the institutions that played I-A football during the 2011-2012 season; 28% reported a profit of $0 (zero), 66% reported a profit ranging from $17,339 to $79.9 million, and 6% reported a loss.
Back to Temple hedging their bets on football and basketball; no matter how much you like or dislike big time college sports, it is here to stay and ESPN and the conference specific networks prove it. How often do you see highlights of Temple’s golf, soccer, or volleyball teams on ESPN? Once a season? How often do you see highlights of the football or basketball team? Once a week from September to March even if they field mediocre teams and because of the revenue sharing structure of conferences, Temple will profit off University of Central Florida and Louisville’s stellar 2012-2013 football season even though they went 2-10.
Temple is also in a unique situation to profit off a good football program. They are the only I-A football team in the Philadelphia area and currently play their home games at Lincoln Financial Field (home of the Philadelphia Eagles) by paying a $1 million a year rental fee. Although $1 million a year seems high it is cheaper than building a new stadium somewhere in the Philadelphia metro area for around $55 to $155 million (or more).
The only problem with this is that Temple has to transform their football program into a truly competitive program. They will need to match the University of Louisville’s spending to at least $23 million a year and start competing for recruits with non-AAC programs like Penn State, Duke, Pittsburgh, Maryland, and Boston College. To do this they will need the financial backing of the institution, the support of the president and board of directors, and hire a coach that will take them to the next level (and cost a pretty penny).
It will be interesting to see if Temple can bolster their football program over the next few years while finding ‘efficiencies’ in other parts of the university to help with the year to year budget. But the reality is that the PR that football and basketball generates for a university is huge and unfortunately solid academics, good research facilities, or a champion field hockey team rarely makes-up the difference. Moving forward, colleges and universities have to make hard decisions and cut specific degrees, programs, initiatives, outreach activities, and sports programs while also at the same time allocating more money for other higher profile programs such as STEM fields, business, and football and basketball.
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