In Reply to: brief article on the disaster that is the finances of the Ath Dept posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on May 14, 2025 at 14:59:41
UCLA offers the equivalent of about 285 scholarships (some are partial scholarships).
If you allocate about 100 scholarships to FB/BB, and 100 to women's sports per Title 9, you cut the equivalent of 85 full scholarships out of the budget. You also cut millions in operational costs. I'd bet the total savings is easily in the 8 digits every year.
You'd keep some prestige women's sports like Softball, Gymnastics, and W Bball. You also have to share revenue with a lot less athletes, all of whom would not be revenue-generators anyway. The extra cash would be good for recruiting in the remaining sports.
From what I can tell, our baseball team is not any good, has no real place to play, and currently has to pay the VA hundreds of thousands of dollars to play on their land. Our men's soccer team is mediocre. I don't hear anything about men's track, and I like track. How many golf, tennis, and water polo kids even need a scholarship? These programs generate no revenue, cost a lot to operate, and don't really bring the school any prestige in return.
I'm guessing UCLA has to field a certain number of teams per their agreement with the B1G, but I wonder if the conference really even cares, as the whole arrangement centers around football and TV eyeballs.
It would be sad for sure, but assuming the B1G is ok with it, it's a way out. We're already at the point where the school had to give the AD $30 million. Cal had to so the same thing, for even more money.
As Bob Myers asked, how does this thing not sink?