UConn - Sports Elimination

[sju88grad]

Could potentially eliminate up to 8 sports due to the horrible management of their football program......and they will continue throwing good money after bad at the expense of other sports.....I find the “limping back to the Big East” comment a bit rude, but that’s just me....

https://www.si.com/college/2020/05/26/u ... ports-cuts

[ArmyVet]

Bad deal here. What say you, UCONN?

And even when coming to their senses and making a basketball-first decision to switch conferences from the American Athletic back to their Big East roots, they have been too egotistical to take the corresponding step of dropping football back down to where it was two decades ago, the FCS level.

After thoroughly botching the one sport an athletic department cannot afford to botch, UConn is now going to make a bunch of athletes and coaches from non-revenue sports pay for their manifold mistakes. What a racket.

[ArmyVet]

Pretty damning article across the board.

The attempt at big-time football never made sense at UConn to begin with. The recruiting footprint is small and shallow. The home stadium is in Hartford, 30 miles from the Storrs campus, a lousy arrangement. The demise of the Big East left the Huskies as the northernmost outpost in the geographically absurd AAC.

But UConn kept throwing money at the problems, kept clinging to the ego trip. Even as the school was moving back to the Big East and essentially bailing on football, there were splashy announcements last summer touting a revamped weight room and new locker room.

[jfan]

I'm sorry, the article states "The demise of the Big East" ? I must have slept through that part. Some sports writers still have a tough time accepting that the Big East didn't "demise", but has always been alive and flourishing!

[adoraz]

The Big East technically did get brought down, especially the football side obviously, but it was reborn as a top basketball conference overnight.

I'd be surprised if UConn's football isn't brought down to FCS level within 5 years. I think the main reason they're not doing it now is because they don't want to piss off their fans while transitioning over. Once it becomes clear they won't be successful due to recruiting (not necessarily the change to an independent team), then they'll drop it with less backlash. By that time their basketball team should be a consistent Tournament team again.

[gtmoBlue]

https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory ... m-68331095

This article states UConn football lost $13.3 M while only bringing in revenues of $3.3 M. So is one to believe that UConn invested $16.6 M in football in 2019?
Seems a low investment figure for a FBS school.

Also states the Men's & Women's Hoops also lost money last year.

[Husky_U]

Fat Porde is a Louisville shrill and has done numerous UCONN hit pieces over the years. As my buddy Storrs South said:

He outlines the past failures of Hathaway and really Warde as a reason to be upset with Benedict when Benedict is the guy who got them to the Big East, is reducing traveling costs, increasing attendance for MBB, securing buy games, and getting more P5 programs to the Rent as a way to reduce the subsidy and university support. Forde started the book report but failed to actually read past pg.1 of any reference material.

Also worth noting that all of Forde's kids are D1 scholarship swimmers, which is likely to be one of the casualties. No bias there at all.

[GoldenWarrior11]

I have repeatedly said that Benedict, IMO, has been one of the top FBS ADs in the country in the past 12 months. To place blame on him for the failures of hirings, firings and buyouts of Pasqualoni, Diaco and Ollie (and their staffs), as well as the school's commitment to the AAC in 2013, is incredibly short-sighted. He has been, very much, cleaning up the messes of previous administrations. No other non-P5 program has been able to schedule the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, Tennessee and Clemson (all prior NC winners) as buy-games, while getting more ACC (Duke, UNC, NC State, Syracuse, BC, Virginia) and B1G (Purdue, Maryland, Indiana) teams on the schedule. I LOL every single time I read how "that's not much better than an AAC schedule". Absolutely ridiculous and reeks of blinded homer-ism.

Bottom line, Benedict moved UConn to an independent, within a time period with an incredible amount of near-term and long-term uncertainty, and has managed to create four years worth of schedules (with valuable regional interest), while still cutting down overall costs and getting more TV exposure, revenue and prestige for its basketball and Olympic sports.

There's no doubt UConn administration has made mistakes in the past (I would argue they were necessary and required gambles); however, the have, essentially, become the first FBS program to admit they could not earn a P5 invitation (where many more should), while prioritizing its student-athletes and their experiences. UConn, and especially Benedict, should be praised and highlighted, not ridiculed like Forde seemingly has.

[Savannah Jay]

There's no doubt UConn administration has made mistakes in the past (I would argue they were necessary and required gambles); however, the have, essentially, become the first FBS program to admit they could not earn a P5 invitation (where many more should), while prioritizing its student-athletes and their experiences. UConn, and especially Benedict, should be praised and highlighted, not ridiculed like Forde seemingly has.

This feels like a seminal moment for college sports (not just UCONN). The table below is from 2018 so, even if the latest numbers are a little different, the picture it paints is the same. Texas A&M's athletic department made $47M with no revenue from student fees or university funds...UCONN's athletic department was subsidized to the tune of $39M and still lost money. Georgia made $44M and regularly transfers money back to the university. A&M and Georgia were the extreme...but schools like UCONN and many of their former conference mates (Cincy, Memphis, UCF, Houston) are not playing the same game as the top 20 schools on this list. They are generating 40+% of athletic revenues from non-athletic sources and that's just not fiscally sustainable nor fiscally responsible, IMO (and i LOVE college sports).

https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

[Xudash]

There's no doubt UConn administration has made mistakes in the past (I would argue they were necessary and required gambles); however, the have, essentially, become the first FBS program to admit they could not earn a P5 invitation (where many more should), while prioritizing its student-athletes and their experiences. UConn, and especially Benedict, should be praised and highlighted, not ridiculed like Forde seemingly has.

This feels like a seminal moment for college sports (not just UCONN). The table below is from 2018 so, even if the latest numbers are a little different, the picture it paints is the same. Texas A&M's athletic department made $47M with no revenue from student fees or university funds...UCONN's athletic department was subsidized to the tune of $39M and still lost money. Georgia made $44M and regularly transfers money back to the university. A&M and Georgia were the extreme...but schools like UCONN and many of their former conference mates (Cincy, Memphis, UCF, Houston) are not playing the same game as the top 20 schools on this list. They are generating 40+% of athletic revenues from non-athletic sources and that's just not fiscally sustainable nor fiscally responsible, IMO (and i LOVE college sports).

https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

There are some brutal allocation figures in there. UCONN. CIncinnati.

I simply find it hard to believe that UC is going to be able to continue at its present level of commitment to football, given the amount of noise some of its student body is making about the use of fees and cuts made in academic areas in an attempt to keep up the facade.