Could CCU lose a huge football payday, sports teams due to coronavirus pandemic?
Coastal Carolina University may soon be faced with difficult decisions regarding its athletic programs.
The university has been stung financially by the impacts of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, and the fallout is likely to permeate throughout the school, including athletics.
The NCAA has significantly decreased its distributions to university athletic departments this year primarily because of the cancellation of the lucrative men’s basketball tournament. CCU also may miss out on a big payment for its scheduled football game at South Carolina, and the Sun Belt Conference is attempting to set the stage for its member schools to cut some of their athletic teams.
CCU Director of Athletics Matt Hogue declined an interview request regarding fall sports and the future of the athletic department’s programs, and CCU Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations Kevin Davis released a statement that read, in part: “At this point in time with the coronavirus pandemic and the circumstances that it has created, no final decisions on athletics have been made.”
The university is planning cost-cutting measures. CCU President David DeCenzo told the school’s Board of Trustees last week that the school has submitted a plan to the state to address a funding shortage that could be exacerbated if student enrollment drops in the fall as anticipated.
The plan at least includes personnel cuts such as furloughs and early retirements, but the school is waiting on the S.C. General Assembly to convene and act on it.
A Sun News request for a copy of the plan was denied. University spokesperson Martha Hunn said when the state responds to the plan, the university wants employees to know specific information before it becomes public.
“We’re in a holding position in the university, and there’s nothing really that we can do but sit and wait until we get the authority to act,” DeCenzo told trustees during a conference call.
Fate of the fall
CCU awaits decisions by the NCAA and Sun Belt Conference regarding sports in 2020-21.
DeCenzo said the Sun Belt presidents had a conference call regarding fall sports last week, and they believe the fall seasons will either be canceled altogether or start late, and “more than likely there will have to be adequate testing of athletes to ensure that no one is sick with this virus.”
If there is a late start, possibilities include a truncated schedule with non-conference games being eliminated, travel being limited and schools playing some conference teams in closer proximity more than once while canceling games with other conference foes, he said.
“We really are up in the air regarding what is going to happen in the fall,” DeCenzo told trustees. “There is the belief that either we won’t play our fall sports, which carries with it a whole host of issues as you can imagine, or there will be events that will be played but they will be played without spectators.
“Putting large numbers of people in a stadium probably will not pass muster until we reach that time, and I think that time is basically focused on when there is a vaccine for this particular virus.”
If some or all non-conference games are eliminated, CCU could lose a $1.4 million payment from South Carolina for the season-opener on Sept. 5 at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, according to the game contract.
The Sun Belt wants to give its financially-strapped universities the option of cutting athletic teams to save money.
The Sun Belt, along with four other conferences collectively called the Group of Five, has petitioned the NCAA to relax requirements for the next four years because of financial strains caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The request, submitted in a joint letter to NCAA president Mark Emmert dated April 9, includes a reduction in the minimum number of athletic teams each school must field, which is currently 16 for schools with a football team in the Football Bowl Subdivision such as Coastal.
CCU sponsors 19 intercollegiate sports — 11 women’s teams and eight men’s teams — so it shouldn’t be impacted by the minimum, but conference leaders clearly believe some of its institutions may benefit from dropping sports.
Coastal added women’s lacrosse in 2013 and women’s beach volleyball in 2016 to get to 19 prior to its move from the Football Championship Subdivision and the Big South Conference to FBS and the Sun Belt.
The letter from the commissioners of the Sun Belt, American Athletic, Mountain West, Conference USA and Mid-American conferences also asks for, among other things, temporary relief from: financial aid requirements for athletes, the minimum number of games and other scheduling requirements in specific sports, and the average football attendance minimum.
That average attendance requirement is 15,000 per game for at least one season in a two-year rolling period for FBS programs, which CCU has struggled to meet in its three seasons in the Sun Belt.
The grants-in-aid minimum for athletes is 200 or at least $4 million spent per year.
And the football scheduling requirements in CCU’s 12-game schedule include playing at least 60 percent of its games and at least five home games against FBS opponents.
The commissioners state they hope the relief will provide an “opportunity for institutions to retrench and rebuild the financial structures of the institution.”
On the table as cost-cutting measures are the elimination of postseason conference tournaments and shortened seasons, particularly in non-revenue sports.
Losses abound
The NCAA announced it will distribute $225 million to its Division I members in June, which is down from the projected $600 million it budgeted prior to the cancellation of some winter and all spring championships, including men’s and women’s basketball’s March Madness.
The commissioners expressed dire financial situations at their member schools in their letter, writing:
“The COVID-19 pandemic and resultant economic turmoil has resulted in the direst financial crisis for higher education since at least the Great Depression. Institutions are attempting to manage unanticipated shortfalls in revenue and the need in many cases to provide refunds. Among the financial challenges being faced include significant decreases in state appropriations, substantial losses in endowment value, and a downturn in philanthropic activity.
“An already trying environment for enrollment is expected to see even more sizeable reductions, not to mention the continuing trend in deep reductions in the enrollment of international students. Finally, all of this is playing out with no ability to predict when normal operations might resume. All higher educational institutions are faced with difficult decisions in managing such financial upheaval.”
MWC commissioner Craig Thompson told Yahoo Sports the objective is to come up with ways to find savings in order to avoid eliminating sports.
The Intercollegiate Coach Association Coalition, representing college coaches associations in 19 sports, has made a plea to save their collective teams and member coaches’ jobs through an open letter in opposition of the Group of Five’s request to cut the number of programs needed for NCAA Division I status.
Cincinnati has cut men’s soccer and Old Dominion has cut wrestling in recent weeks, and many believe those are harbingers of things to come at other schools.
In order to maintain gender scholarship equity under Title IX, it’s questionable whether CCU would be able to drop a women’s sport without cutting at least one men’s sport because of the approximate 85 scholarships granted in football.
Complicating athletics financial matters for CCU in 2020-21 is the NCAA’s granting of another year of eligibility for all spring sports athletes with the cancellation of the bulk of their 2020 seasons because of the coronavirus.
Schools have the option of granting returning seniors the same scholarships they were receiving — or less — without impacting the maximum number of scholarships allowed in each sport. But that would incur additional scholarship costs for the university.
CCU has 35 seniors across those sports on at least partial scholarship who are eligible to return, according to Hogue, but the university isn’t required to renew the scholarships. Hogue said in early April that CCU hasn’t determined how it will handle that situation financially.
Coastal Carolina’s 19 sponsored intercollegiate sports
Men
- Baseball
- Basketball
- Football
- Golf
- Soccer
- Tennis
- Cross Country
- Outdoor Track & Field
Women
- Basketball
- Beach Volleyball
- Golf
- Lacrosse
- Soccer
- Softball
- Tennis
- Cross Country
- Outdoor Track & Field
- Indoor Track & Field
- Volleyball
