Conference Commissioners Ask For NCAA To Relax Sponsored Sport Requirements

Commissioners of five mid-major conferences have asked the NCAA to temporarily relax its rules on how many sports a school must sponsor – potentially paving the way for cuts to non-revenue sports.

Yahoo Sports reports that the commissioners of the American Athletic Conference, Mountain West Conference, Mid-American Conference, Sun Belt Conference and Conference-USA wrote a letter to NCAA president Mark Emmert on behalf of all Division I schools. The commissioners cite economic hardships due to the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic and ask for temporary breaks from several NCAA rules. A few of the key requests:

  • A 4-year relaxation of the NCAA‘s requirement of Division I schools to sponsor at least 16 varsity sports
  • Lifting minimum requirements for scholarship spending to athletes
  • Lifting requirements for paid attendance at home football games
  • A moratorium on schools moving into Division I

The commissioners said the request was not made with the intention of cutting sports, but giving athletic departments flexibility in decision-making. That assurance, though, is contrasted with the fact that on the same day the letter came to light, Cincinnatti (a member of one of the conferences that wrote the letter) cut its men’s soccer program to cut costs. Another school in one of the five named conferences, Old Dominion of C-USA, cut wrestling earlier this month.

Relaxing the rules could allow schools to cut programs or cut scholarships within programs. We’ve already seen a number of Division I swimming & diving programs cut in recent years, including Eastern Michigan (men), Oregon State (women), Buffalo (men), North Dakota (men & women) and Wright State (men & women).

The moratorium on schools joining Division I could also affect Division III swimming power St. Thomas, which was kicked out of its conference after a decade of dominance and a string of blowout scores in football. One option for St. Thomas was a move straight to Division Ithe school had actually requested an NCAA waiver for that move after getting an invite to the Division I Summit League. The NCAA is set to weigh in on St. Thomas’s request in a council meeting next week.

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Tecumseh
4 years ago

Why do schools have hundreds of athletic scholarships and few if any academic scholarships? Why should a college team be such that someone who just wants to go to a particular university and has a high school sport he or she loves can’t compete in that sport at that school because the roster is full of recruited athletes. Athletes who would not have normally gone to that school or perhaps any school.

Swimmer0883
4 years ago

If DI schools are primarily impacted, I wonder if we will see an uptick of swimming talent going to DII and III schools. I know they don’t offer the athletic money, but often they offer good academics and a lot of these schools don’t relay on football money as it is (making their swim programs safer). Just a thought.

Hook 'em
Reply to  Swimmer0883
4 years ago

If D1 schools die, so will d2 and 3 because fewer kids and parents will join swim teams thinking they can get a scholarship. Nobody dreams of going to Slippery Rock.

Swimpop
Reply to  Hook 'em
4 years ago

If they are signing up for swim team because they think it’s the way to get a college scholarship, they are doing it wrong.

clown alert
Reply to  Swimpop
4 years ago

Many kids rely on swimming to pay their tuition to expensive schools

Swimmom
Reply to  Hook 'em
4 years ago

So along that line of reasoning, would a non scholarship D1 men’s team be safer than one where there are scholarship monies for an AD to take back?

Hook 'em
4 years ago

Am told a letter went out to coaches saying at least 35 teams are on notice and coaches have been told to be ready for a two month season. Where is the leadership on this?

Swimmom
Reply to  Hook 'em
4 years ago

Any idea what programs might be on notice?

Deepsouth
Reply to  Swimmom
4 years ago

You could start by looking at men’s swim programs in any of the conferences that co authored this request, in my opinion, as having some risk.

Swimmom2
Reply to  Hook 'em
4 years ago

Does “on notice” mean that they have been officially told that they are being considered to be cut?

David Berkoff
4 years ago

Ive said it a thousand times. The only way to save olympic sports is to tie program requirements to federal dollars. Amend the ASA so that any university that receives federal money must have 50% of its sports dollars going to Olympic sports. The NCAA isn’t going to help and bitching about it online or blaming Title IX wont either. Fix the problem with legislation that protects Olympic sports!

Greg
Reply to  David Berkoff
4 years ago

and pressure / support from NGB’s. When I coached a team that was cut in 2007, I received less than one phone call, email or sign of support from USA Swimming. ASCA, on the other hand, was in touch early. Pretty disappointing. You would think that USA Swimming membership would recognize and then communicate to USA Swimming leadership that it would be beneficial to have collegiate scholarships and participation expanded or ensured by program support and lobbying from USA Swimming and the USOPC. Broadening the peak can broaden the base.

Ladyvoldisser
Reply to  David Berkoff
4 years ago

A great plan. However the reality is NCAA Olympic Sports as we knew them will be radically changed for the worst moving forward. I hope and pray we will have some semblance of NCAA sponsored swimming and diving.

swim3057
4 years ago

These requests made primarily by Group of 5 conference commissioners (AAC, MAC, MWC, CUSA and Sun Belt) might be the biggest threat to collegiate swimming yet. While we have certainly lost programs over the years for various reasons as schools continue to put endless dollars into football and basketball as mid-majors and use Title IX as an excuse; this gives Presidents and AD’s a loaded gun to redefine their departments and reduce sport sponsorships moving forward. The current requirement to belong to the FBS is minimum of 16 sports (minimum of 10 women’s), but, the request in front of the NCAA is reduce to 12. If that happens it might be the end of Olympic Sports. Football and Basketball are… Read more »

DIIIer (Polar Bear elsewhere)
Reply to  swim3057
4 years ago

Doesn’t Miami of Ohio have a super nice 50M pool with adjustable bottom? I think they sued to hold DIII NCAA’s in the 90’s. May be tough to get swimming at a place like that.

Swim3057
Reply to  DIIIer (Polar Bear elsewhere)
4 years ago

Talk to the folks at Maryland…..their beautiful facility didn’t save them. Not saying that any particular school is cutting swimming; just some schools that will have difficult decisions. BTW, Miami was aided in the 90s incident that you mentioned by having a swim team parent that was a US Congresswoman. That ammo is no longer there.

B1G Meet
Reply to  Swim3057
4 years ago

Maryland cut 8 sports that year

wolfensf
4 years ago

They need to start doing a little cost savings in the money making programs (football basketball). Such as no million plus salaries for coaches. If you need to make that kind of money go pro.

Admin
Reply to  wolfensf
4 years ago

If you think the fight here is to cut all football and basketball coach salaries below a million dollars to save swimming programs, then I think you’re not going to like the outcome of that fight.

Swammer
Reply to  Braden Keith
4 years ago

Ya the sad truth is especially for these conferences above is that most of them would rather cut a great swim team then give an inch on there not so good football team.

Pvdh
Reply to  Swammer
4 years ago

That no good football team still brings in profit. The swim team doesn’t.

200 SIDESTROKE B CUT
Reply to  Braden Keith
4 years ago

It doesn’t mean WOLFENSF’s point isn’t valid though. Fan or not (admittedly I am, too much in fact), several collegiate sports especially in the power conferences are just selfish spoiled brats from coaching levels all the way down to athlete. Why don’t they need to sacrifice anything?

Pvdh
Reply to  wolfensf
4 years ago

I’m sorry but football is the last thing that should be cut. It holds the other programs up. No school in their right mind is going to give up football for swimming.

DIIIer (Polar Bear elsewhere)
Reply to  Pvdh
4 years ago

St. Mary’s in MD cut football to better fund sailing back in the 80’s. Sailing team has put out multiple Olympians. Rest of program is DIII (no divisions in sailing) so they werent bringing in big money anyways.

Swim Dawg
4 years ago

I wonder what this would mean for programs that have a large endowment? Many schools have their swim team scholarships paid for by athletic department or even swim team alumni endowment programs. MANY do not however. Could get tricky for teams without a strong alumni presence.

deepsouth
4 years ago

Here’s a few predictions

1. Certainly will lose some teams, esp on the men’s mid major D1 side. Look at the conferences in this article, they are mid major whose football teams are less than likely to be making enough revenue to cover a bunch of other sports. The AAC certainly sticks out, now down to 3 men’s swim teams. (They should combine their meet with the B12, but that’s another story for another day)

2. In the power 5, the days of carrying 30-40 kids on a team, even if most are paying a lot of their own way are over. There’s still costs to travel, feed, do training trips, etc that schools just won’t put up with, esp… Read more »

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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