OT: Permanent College Closing Tracker

[Sec10-A-14]

https://www.catholicregister.org/hom...inancial-punch

A great read as many Catholic colleges are really feeling the pandemic. At this point it is a game of closing now or hoping variables get better sooner rather than later.

Holy Family College in Manitowoc, WI closed.

While Mercyhurst (PSAC -Erie Pa) is closing and selling its Northeast campus (@ 15mi from main) and is moving those classes to Main),

Gannon U (PSAC Erie Pa) Is continuing its $20M funding of its Cyber-Security center.

Both are planning full operations come fall.

Oh! and both are Catholic private Universities.

[SW_Mustang]

Here's an interesting closure - University of Akron - Wayne College Millersburg will be closing at the end of the semester, but not necessarily because of the coronavirus.

UA - Millersburg is exclusively a PSEO campus for students in grades 7-12. They aren't necessarily closing due to lack of enrollment, however they are closing because logistics have changed which makes having a central campus obsolete. Wayne College plans to dissolve the campus to use the resources at high schools. This will help with traveling costs and scheduling issues the students have been having.

Here's the statement from the school as well as a news article:

https://wayne.uakron.edu/news-media/...a-6015f9ba9a3e

https://www.the-daily-record.com/new...sburg-location

[CALUPA69]

Question about sports funding. Do the schools that have sneaker sponsorship programs in place get $$$ if the sports are reduced or not played at all ?

[UMary1]

https://www.catholicregister.org/hom...inancial-punch

A great read as many Catholic colleges are really feeling the pandemic. At this point it is a game of closing now or hoping variables get better sooner rather than later.

Holy Family College in Manitowoc, WI closed.

[SW_Mustang]

Some more updates:

-Wells College in New York is on life support, may close if it cannot reopen in the fall
-Expect Eastern Carolina to cut some sports shortly - although it's unknown how many or which ones.
-UWashington and WSU are working on disaster plans, but no plan to cut sports

Here's a good article about all the cuts being made so far:

https://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/2...-the-list.html

[SW_Mustang]

-Furman has dropped baseball and MLAX

-Cal Community Colleges got endorsement from system president to hold online only in the Fall, although this hasn't been mandated system wide as far as I can tell.

[laker]

On the flip side, dropping to FCS can have a huge impact on finances. A bodybag game payout to a FBS team can be up to $2M but the payout to a FCS team is almost never above $700,000. An Idaho person on the CSN board posted this in April.

That is why I said they could keep their payoff games. FBS teams still need home games to fill their schedules. The SEC even does that late season.

[laker]

NCCAA Nebraska Christian to close.

https://www.nechristian.edu/news/202...campus-closure

[bigmrg74]

Yeah, but picture this. Its september 2021 and the nation and the world is finally past the Corona. We've been all cooped up for over a year, and there wasn't a 2020 NCAA football season. I'm thinking that maybe by then a lot of people would be really wanting to get out and do something normal in a crowd after all that time, and heck, a football game in Idaho just might be the ticket.

[Tech Boys]

I think that would make a great FCS conference. Youngstown State could join then. The Missouri Valley Football Conference could split then and a Summit Football League could start with the Dakota schools. Teams could still have their D1 basketball connection and their payoff games.

On the flip side, dropping to FCS can have a huge impact on finances. A bodybag game payout to a FBS team can be up to $2M but the payout to a FCS team is almost never above $700,000. An Idaho person on the CSN board posted this in April.

For what it's worth, the move to FCS has been an unmitigated disaster for Idaho. Ticket and contribution revenue declined by 50% the year after the move, and the athletic department now faces a $1.5 million annual deficit that's only going to get worse -- we're still getting FBS money for a couple more of our bodybag games, which will go away soon. This past football season was the worst-attended at least since the 70's and probably even further back than that. All interest in Idaho athletics has been comprehensively stamped out. Nobody but nobody cares anymore.

Idaho's FBS problems were already well-documented but Idaho in FCS is dead as dead can be.

[laker]

Maybe, but a lot could happen between now and then. There's programs that could just drop football all together and things could get weird.

Yes, anything could happen. Heck, I look at Crookston and St Cloud dropping football. UMC was no surprise but it wasn't that long ago that SCSU was a playoff team. I didn't think that they would go.

[bigmrg74]

I think that would make a great FCS conference. Youngstown State could join then. The Missouri Valley Football Conference could split then and a Summit Football League could start with the Dakota schools. Teams could still have their D1 basketball connection and their payoff games.

Maybe, but a lot could happen between now and then. There's programs that could just drop football all together and things could get weird.

[laker]

It would be far more likely to see some of the MAC schools drop to D1-AA football than to go D2. Depending on how things shuffle out, that could be the trigger to have GVSU move up, as we currently don't really have a good local D1-AA conference to move to. All in all, I think that this could set off another big round of conference reshuffling. Might not hit the Power 5 programs much, other than maybe the Big 12 taking a run at adding some other programs to help keep Texas happy or at least save the rest of their butts if Texas ever took off on them. But the MAC could very well see big changes happening, maybe they have a few members drop down to D1-AA and then they are ripe for the other group of Five conferences to grab what they can from there. Heck, a lot of those schools could be thinking the same thing about going D1-AA as well. Heck, it wasn't that long ago that most of the Sun Belt itself where D1-AA programs.

I think that would make a great FCS conference. Youngstown State could join then. The Missouri Valley Football Conference could split then and a Summit Football League could start with the Dakota schools. Teams could still have their D1 basketball connection and their payoff games.

[bigmrg74]

The ZIPS were 24-7 in MAC MBB with a good chance at MARCH MADNESS before everything shut down so I'd say no they won't be moving down.

It would be far more likely to see some of the MAC schools drop to D1-AA football than to go D2. Depending on how things shuffle out, that could be the trigger to have GVSU move up, as we currently don't really have a good local D1-AA conference to move to. All in all, I think that this could set off another big round of conference reshuffling. Might not hit the Power 5 programs much, other than maybe the Big 12 taking a run at adding some other programs to help keep Texas happy or at least save the rest of their butts if Texas ever took off on them. But the MAC could very well see big changes happening, maybe they have a few members drop down to D1-AA and then they are ripe for the other group of Five conferences to grab what they can from there. Heck, a lot of those schools could be thinking the same thing about going D1-AA as well. Heck, it wasn't that long ago that most of the Sun Belt itself where D1-AA programs.

[chapmaja]

Odd choices by Akron unless they just wanted to eliminate sports. CC, GOLF AND TENNIS seem like sports that could go on even with social distancing. WRESTLING and SOCCER certainly make sense. Truly weird decisions in some places.

There could be several reasons why these sports were chosen.

First is NCAA scholarship limits.

I mentioned in another post about the NCAA paying schools a certain amount based on the number of scholarships they offer. This is done in a tiered manner. So a school offering between X and Y scholarships will get say $5000 per scholarship offered, while schools less than X will get $2500 per scholarship offered. A school wants to avoid cutting scholarships to drop them down a tier. They will look at what sports to cut, but keep the school within the same tier.

A second factor in this is the percentage of athletes actually on the team that get a scholarship. Some sports allow split scholarships while others do not. D1 football and basketball scholarships are required to be full ride by NCAA rules. there are other full ride sports as well, and I will get to that later. Cutting sports will a higher percentage of scholarship dollars will reduce the schools budget issue better than cutting a sport with a lower scholarship percentage. (both other factors do impact the cost savings).

Looking at Akron's position, they cut men's golf, men's cross country, and women's tennis. What impact would that have. Men's golf has a scholarship limit of 4.5 scholarships, and Akron had a roster of 8 athletes. This means they are cutting 3.5 non-scholarship athlete enrollments. (this is money the students pay to attend that isn't scholarship covered). How about men's cross country. This decision is interesting, because in theory, they haven't cut anything. The NCAA comes Cross country and track for scholarship purposes. Akron can still over 12.6 scholarships just during the track season. The only likely cut here is a coaches salary and team expenses (Akron does have a separate men's and women's XC coach position) I can't speak to Akron's scholarship organization, but this doesn't appear to cut much considering they still offer a women's team that will have to travel.

Where Akron does appear to make some money is cutting women's tennis. why? The tennis team had 9 members. The NCAA scholarship limit is 8. Remember the other sport I mentioned that doesn't split scholarships, women's tennis is one. That means that only 1 non-scholarship spot is being cut by eliminating this team. Additionally, the team makeup of women's tennis is telling. Akron's 9 members come from Florida (2), New York (1), Portugal (1), Mexico (1), Israel (1), and Germany (3). This means not only are they paying the scholarship money (out of state tuition unless the school has a waiver to pay instate for athletes -some do, some don't), but substantial expenses for recruiting overseas. This was the same issue EMU had as none of the EMU players were Americans.

I know Akron said cuts of 4.4 million dollars based on these cuts. I suspect there are a lot more cuts coming (not with teams, but with other expenses) to get to that level). The cuts so far will not get a school to 4.4 million in cuts.