Stanford, home to the most successful intercollegiate athletics program in the country, has eliminated 11 Olympic sports teams, including field hockey and men’s volleyball, because of budget woes partly related to the coronavirus pandemic.
“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,” athletic director Bernard Muir wrote Wednesday in a letter to the campus community.
The athletic department’s deficit was projected to exceed $12 million in the 2021 fiscal year — and that was before factoring the impact of the pandemic into the calculation.
All told, the sports eliminated have combined to win 20 national championships. However, six are not sponsored by the NCAA — meaning they don’t count in the Learfield IMG College Cup standings.
“As you can imagine, this has been a heartbreaking day for all of us, especially those student-athletes and coaches who are involved,” Muir said Wednesday during a news conference.
“We made this decision only after exhausting all viable alternatives.
Stanford has won the Cup, awarded to the most successful all-around athletic department — it used to be called the Sears Cup — in each of the past 25 years.
That success was tied to the amount of sports offered:
The Cardinal sponsored 36 varsity teams — twice the national average and the most, by far, in the Pac-12 Conference.
Partly due to the cost of sponsoring 36 teams, the $12 million deficit was expected to increase in coming years, even under normal circumstances.
Stanford has taken measures to trim expenses, including salary reductions for football coach David Shaw and basketball coach Jerod Haase.
But revenue tied to ticket sales — or lack thereof — also played a role in the mounting budget shortfall.
In 2015, the Stanford football program averaged 49,917 fans per home game.
Last season, the Cardinal averaged 37,018 fans per home game.
That decline of 13,000 tickets over seven home games at, for example, $50 per paying customer (ticket, parking, concessions), would equate to a revenue decrease of $4.5 million.
Attendance at men’s basketball has also fallen over the years.
“The COVID-19 pandemic and associated recession have only exacerbated the gap,” Muir explained in his letter to the campus.
“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.
“These projected deficits could become much greater if the 2020-21 sports seasons are suspended or altered due to COVID-19.”
The university’s annual budget is approximately $7 billion, and its endowment was $28 billion as of last fall.
Much of the endowment is restricted, meaning donations are earmarked for specific uses, from research projects to scholarships.
“The university expects us to be self-sustaining,” Muir said.
The programs eliminated 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.
The teams will be allowed to compete in 2020-21, pandemic permitting, and many could become club sports over time.
In addition, Stanford is downsizing its athletic department staff by 20 positions.
