Marc Tessier-Lavigne, PresidentPersis Drell, ProvostBernard Muir, Director of Athletics
Among Stanfords terrific sources of pride is our intercollegiate athletics program. Over the course of our storied history, through innumerable days of challenge, joy and victory, our student-athletes have set the standard for exceptional accomplishment in both athletics and academics. Cheering on the Cardinal is an important part of life at Stanford, and the dedication and dedication of our student-athletes function as an inspiration for followers and fans well beyond The Farm.
Listed below, we want to provide more info about the monetary difficulty behind this decision, how the 11 sports were chosen and what the future holds for university athletics at Stanford.
As you may understand, Stanford currently offers more varsity sports than almost every other Division I university in the nation. Our goal is to offer excellent assistance and a first-rate experience for our student-athletes in the sports that we provide. In time, however, offering 36 university groups with the level of support that they should have has actually ended up being a serious and growing monetary challenge.
We comprehend that the timing of this statement, in early summer season and against a background of unpredictability and modification across our country, is certainly far from ideal, as is the technique by which we had to provide the news to our student-athletes and coaches today, by means of Zoom. We felt it was vital to challenge the financial challenge prior to it got worse, to undertake a collaborative and intentional decision-making procedure with our Board of Trustees and campus management, and to tire all alternatives prior to making profound changes in our programs, particularly during this tough time. That process has actually just recently come to conclusion, and we desired to share the news as rapidly as possible in order to provide our student-athletes and personnel with as much versatility and choice as possible. Given the timing, we identified that providing these 11 programs the opportunity for one final season of university competition in 2020-21 was the best thing to do.
These 11 programs consist of more than 240 unbelievable student-athletes and 22 devoted coaches. Each of the people associated with these programs will forever have a place in Stanfords history.
We now face the reality that substantial change is needed to develop financial stability for Stanford Athletics, and to provide the support we believe is essential for our student-athletes to stand out.
In that context, we are composing today with some extremely difficult news. In consultation with the Board of Trustees, we have decided to reduce the breadth of our athletics programs and staffing. Stanford will terminate 11 of our varsity sports programs at the conclusion of the 2020-21 scholastic year: maless and ladiess fencing, field hockey, light-weight rowing, maless rowing, co-ed and ladiess cruising, squash, synchronized swimming, mens volley ball and fumbling. All of these groups will have the opportunity to compete in their upcoming 2020-21 seasons, must the circumstances surrounding COVID-19 permit it, prior to they are discontinued at the varsity level. Regretfully, 20 of our support staff positions are being gotten rid of as part of this adjustment.
We will honor all existing sports scholarship dedications to the student-athletes throughout their undergraduate experiences at Stanford, and we hope they pick to remain on The Farm and earn their Stanford degrees. All of the affected sports will have the chance to transition to club status after they conclude their 2020-21 university season.
Financial sustainability & & competitive excellence
While agonizing, the discontinuation of these 11 sports at the varsity level and the associated decreases in our assistance staff will create a course for Stanford Athletics to return to financial stability while maintaining gender equity and competitiveness. It will eventually improve the experience of the remaining student-athletes and increase their possibility of contending for championship games for years to come. We remain steadfastly committed to quality in varsity sports and, in fact, Stanford will continue to maintain one of the greatest student-athlete to undergraduate trainee body ratios in the country, with almost 9% of the undergraduate trainee body continuing to participate in university athletics beyond the 2020-21 scholastic year.
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic downturn have just exacerbated the space; before these sport decreases, our revised projections suggested a best-case scenario of a $25 million deficit in FY21, factoring in the impacts of COVID-19, and a cumulative shortage of almost $70 million over the next 3 years. These forecasted deficits could end up being much greater if the 2020-21 sports seasons are suspended or modified due to COVID-19.
The decision to cease these 11 varsity sports programs boils down primarily to finances and competitive quality. With so lots of varsity sports and restricted financial resources, we would no longer have the ability to support a first-rate sports experience for our student-athletes without making these modifications.
Over the past several months, Stanford Athletics has carried out considerable cost-saving measures. Our entire Athletics executive group and a number of our head coaches, including our head football and basketball coaches, have taken voluntary pay decreases. We are reducing sport and administrative operating expense to the biggest level possible, including modifying our competitors schedules and take a trip strategies for the upcoming scholastic year. Furthermore, the support personnel layoffs announced today represent a 10% reduction in our Athletics workforce. Even carrying out all of these procedures, however, we will require to access our minimal reserve funds to bridge us through the existing economic slump and the acute near-term impacts the pandemic will have on our earnings sources.
We have examined a variety of alternatives– ticket sales, broadcast income, university funding, humanitarian assistance, operating budget reductions and lots of others– and discovered them inadequate to satisfy the magnitude of the financial difficulty before us. While Stanford may be viewed to have unlimited resources, the truth is that we do not. In general, Athletics has actually been a self-reliant entity on our campus, and we are making every effort to maintain that design in a time when monetary support for our academic mission is already under significant tension. Academic and administrative systems throughout the university currently have actually been preparing budget cuts of as much as 10% in action to the universitys constrained resources as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The huge majority of Stanfords endowment is directed towards specific long-lasting usages, including need-based financial assistance for students, and is not offered to backfill a continuous structural budget plan deficit in a particular department. In addition, while Stanford Athletics benefits from a robust community of generous advocates, their philanthropy merely might not cover the intensifying expenses of making sure excellence across the board in our 36-sport design.
We have computed that the total incremental funding required to permanently sustain these 11 sports at a nationally competitive varsity level goes beyond $200 million. There are other substantial fundraising top priorities throughout the university and within Athletics. In fact, even after recognizing the full expense cost savings arising from this choice, closing the staying Athletics structural deficit and ensuring the ongoing success of our staying 25 university sports will itself require garnering resources that exceed that quantity, and we are totally devoted to that venture.
The main alternative to this choice would have been a broad and deep reduction in assistance for all 36 of our university sports, consisting of the elimination of scholarships and the disintegration of our efforts to bring in and maintain the superior coaches and personnel needed to offer an unparalleled scholar-athletics experience. After thinking about the results of this model, we figured out that running our university sports programs in this manner would be antithetical to Stanfords worths and our decision to be excellent in all that we do.
The typical Division I athletics program sponsors 18 varsity sports. Just one university at the Division I FBS level sponsored more varsity sports than Stanford prior to this change, and that organization does so with a considerably larger budget.
Why these 11 sports?
These 11 sports were decided upon after a thorough examination of all of our sports throughout a broad set of considerations and requirements, consisting of, but not restricted to:
Sponsorship of the sport at the NCAA Division I level
National youth and postgraduate involvement in the sport
National and regional fan interest in the sport
Possible expense cost savings from the removal of the sport
Incremental investments needed to put the sport or keep in a position to achieve competitive excellence on the national level
History of the sport at Stanford
Prospects for future success of the sport at Stanford
Effect on gender equity and Title IX compliance
Effect on the diversity of our student-athlete population
Influence on the student-athlete experience across all sports, now and in the future
Just looking at sponsorship of the sports at a nationwide level as one factor to consider:
All 11 sports being ceased are sponsored by less than 22% of the more than 350 Division I organizations, and 9 (guyss and womens fencing, lightweight rowing, mens rowing, co-ed and womens cruising, squash, synchronized swimming, guyss volleyball) are sponsored by less than 9%.
There are only 2 other Division I field hockey and fencing programs on the West Coast, and there are no other lightweight rowing, sailing, squash or integrated swimming programs on the West Coast.
Of the 11 sports being discontinued, 6 (lightweight rowing, maless rowing, co-ed and womens cruising, squash, synchronized swimming) are not NCAA-sponsored championship sports.
All of the affected sports will have the opportunity to compete at the club level after their upcoming varsity seasons are total, assuming enough trainee interest, however will require to do so in a financially self-sustaining manner that makes sure the safety and wellness of the participants. We will immediately start dealing with the student-athletes, moms and dads, alumni and supporters of these sports to work toward offering robust chances for involvement at the club level.
Much of these sports presently complete without a full complement of scholarships (e.g. fumbling), coaches and resources. After careful analysis, we concluded there was no practical course to guaranteeing that they have all of the resources required to compete at the highest level without impeding our ability to support our other 25 varsity sports.
The future of Stanford Athletics
Todays statement brings the 3 of us fantastic sadness, though we realize ours is nowhere near the level of discomfort and frustration that our student-athletes, moms and dads, alumni and supporters of the affected sports are experiencing.
Stanford will terminate 11 of our varsity sports programs at the conclusion of the 2020-21 scholastic year: guyss and femaless fencing, field hockey, light-weight rowing, mens rowing, co-ed and ladiess sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, mens volleyball and wrestling. The typical Division I sports program sponsors 18 varsity sports. Just one university at the Division I FBS level sponsored more varsity sports than Stanford prior to this modification, and that institution does so with a substantially larger budget plan. Even after acknowledging the full expense cost savings resulting from this decision, closing the remaining Athletics structural deficit and ensuring the continued success of our staying 25 university sports will itself need garnering resources that go beyond that quantity, and we are fully committed to that endeavor.
While uncomfortable, the discontinuation of these 11 sports at the varsity level and the associated reductions in our assistance staff will develop a path for Stanford Athletics to return to fiscal stability while maintaining gender equity and competitiveness.
We stay dedicated to a strong and dynamic university athletics program at Stanford, and we are positive that these modifications will position Stanford Athletics, and our remaining 25 university programs, for sustained quality and leadership in sports, academics and education through sport. Our dedication to diversity and gender equity in sports likewise stays securely in place and is supported by this decision.
More information about the issues we have actually discussed here is readily available at https://news.stanford.edu/2020/07/08/athletics-faq/. Thank you for reading, and for those of you who become part of the Stanford Athletics household, thank you for your steadfast dedication to the success and well-being of our student-athletes.
