Colleges Are Cutting Sports – How Does This Affect College Admissions?

For many students, an important part of college can be joining your college’s team to play your favorite sport. Sports permeate campus culture – from friendly intramurals to deep-seated collegiate rivalries. (Harvard or Yale? Stanford or Cal?) But in 2020 – when even professional NBA and NFL teams had to cancel their games (and stop inviting spectators!) because of the coronavirus -- many wonder how this has dribbled over – no pun intended – into the college sports field.

The answer isn’t pretty. A fair number of schools, including many Division I schools, have cut entire sports teams from their rosters, citing coronavirus and budget concern as the reason. However, the sports being cut often only cost a small fraction of the money the school is spending on their big revenue sports, such as football or men’s basketball. It can feel like they’re using the pandemic as an excuse to slash sports they don’t want to support in favor of high income sports like football.

To understand the impact of shutdowns on college sports, one needs to understand how college sports operates. It is – like many things in our world – a for-profit venture. Schools are looking to make money from their sports teams. In normal (non-pandemic) years, the money generated from the big revenue sports helps fund the others. The sports that aren’t generating direct revenue, can still bring huge profits and fame to the school if one of the athletes – as happens occasionally – goes on to the Olympics and wins a medal.

Why does it matter? It matters because college sports are a fundamental part of going to college in the USA. College sports are a natural continuation of the programs that are commonplace in high schools and as extracurriculars. They are also a direct feeder into the next level: professional teams and the Olympics. According to an article that bemoans this loss, 88% of  American Olympians in the 2016 summer games in Rio had played their sport in college. Cutting these sports in college can break the chain that leads capable athletes to the #1 spot in the world.

These programs are being cut, purportedly, to save money, as the colleges missed out on a lot of revenue they would have taken in during their 2020 seasons. However, many of the programs that are being cut are not the schools’ most expensive. No one is cutting football or men’s basketball. Rather, it’s the smaller, less widely watched and less televised sports that suffer – and the athletes who participate in them.

Imagine it: you’re a star athlete in one of your school’s less famous teams, like track and field or wrestling. But you’re an athlete – as much as you’re a university student. It’s part of your identity. Then along comes 2020 and you’re sent home in April to self-isolate and take classes online, waiting for the day your school’s sports arenas will reopen. Instead you get an invite to a Zoom call, where – with your whole team – you’re told that your school is no longer offering your sport. In short, you have only two choices: drop out and transfer or stop being an athlete. It isn’t a pretty picture and it sets the tone for sports programs at top institutions to come. 

But what does this mean for admissions?

Although the loss of these sports teams is unfortunate, there is some good news for students. College sports recruiters are aggressive, as they scout players in high school and ensure that the students they want on their teams get on a fast track into the college. These sports recruits take up a small number of spots in the admissions process, but when you’re a school like Stanford that admits about 2,000 students per year, a hundred extra spots opening up because of eliminated sports may benefit the general admissions pool. 

Assuming that a school like Stanford decides to admit a few more applicants to make up for the lost sports recruits, the admissions process may be marginally more favorable to general pool applicants (non-sports recruits). How drastic the change will be is yet to be determined. 

Here are some of the schools that have cut whole sports teams “because” of COVID-19:

School	Sports Cut	Monetary Amount
SchoolStanford University	Sports CutMen's fencing, Men's rowing, Men's volleyball, Women's fencing, Women's sailing, Field hockey, Lightweight rowing, Co-ed sailing, Squash, Synchronized swimming, Wrestling	Monetary Amount$25,000,000
SchoolU.C. Berkeley (Cal)	Sports CutBaseball, Men’s gymnastics, Women's gymnastics, Women's lacrosse, Rugby	Monetary Amount$4,000,000
SchoolFurman University	Sports CutBaseball, Men’s lacrosse	Monetary AmountBaseball: $1,000,000; Men’s lacrosse: $1,700,000
SchoolUniversity of Cincinnati	Sports CutMen’s soccer	Monetary Amount$800,000
SchoolBowling Green State University	Sports CutBaseball	Monetary Amount$500,000
SchoolOld Dominion State University	Sports CutWrestling	Monetary Amountapproximately $1,000,000
SchoolUniversity of Akron	Sports CutMen’s cross country, Men’s golf, Women’s tennis	Monetary Amount$4,400,000 a year (total)
SchoolFlorida International University	Sports CutMen’s indoor track and field, Men’s tennis, Women’s tennis	Monetary Amount
SchoolWisconsin-Green Bay University	Sports CutMen’s tennis, Women’s tennis	Monetary Amount$330,000
SchoolCentral Michigan University	Sports CutMen’s indoor track and field, Men’s outdoor track and field	Monetary Amount$761,825
SchoolEast Carolina University	Sports CutMen’s swimming and diving, Women’s swimming and diving, Men’s tennis, Women’s tennis	Monetary Amount$4,900,000