11-17-09: Stanford: Athletics cuts may endanger teams

As a Pac-10 powerhouse, Stanford athletics has been able to boast that it has both quantity and quality in its athletics department. But with the economy in a nosedive, Athletics Director Bob Bowlsby isn’t ruling out the possibility that that might have to change.

“We’ve made reductions in all kinds of different areas, from the way we travel to the number of people who travel, to the frequency of mowing and marking the fields, turning down thermostats to reducing water consumption,” Bowlsby said. “We have reduced squad sizes through management attrition. It’s been a hundred small things that have added up.”

According to Bowlsby, Stanford’s athletic department sustained $8 million in reductions last year and has had to absorb five to six million dollars in cuts this fiscal year.

To trim costs, the Athletics department implemented a broad series of layoffs last March and has restructured the agreements for 35 of its employees, said Deputy Athletic Director Ray Purpur in an e-mail to The Daily.

The department is doing everything it can to tighten its financial belt, but Bowlsby says all options are on the table, including the possibility of pulling the plug on some of Stanford’s 35 athletic teams.

“Cutting teams is the absolute course of last resort,” Bowlsby said. “We’re doing all the trimming we can in order to avoid that.”

Stanford’s annual operating budget–$75 million for 35 athletics teams–is the second largest in the NCAA’s Division 1 grouping. It is surpassed only by Ohio State, which fields 36 sports teams and has a budget north of $100 million dollars. Cardinal athletes and teams have raked in 409 individual titles, the most of any program in the country, and 97 NCAA team championships.

Bowlsby declined to comment on which teams would get the axe if the economy does not pick up, but said the department will not eliminate any sports that make money for the University.

Currently, Stanford spends the most money on football, women’s and men’s basketball, baseball and volleyball.

The athletic department’s endowment was valued at $410 million in December of 2008, down $100 million from 2007. The department’s $8 million cut is part of the 15 percent reduction each department was asked to sustain as a result of the 27 percent decrease in the University’s endowment last year. Despite the significant drop-off, however, Stanford Athletics’ endowment is still the most affluent in the country.

But Bowlsby is looking at every alternative option, from revenue enhancements to increased fundraising, before pulling the plug on any of Stanford’s teams.

“Fundraising was down $2.3 million last year, and if it rebounds, that will help,” he said. “But we have to look at all eventualities and, as I say, reduction of sports offerings is one of those options. I can’t completely rule that out.”

Bowlsby and Assistant Associate Director of Budget Brian Talbott was in Chicago this past weekend to discuss athletic number-crunching with other private schools also weathering budget shortfalls.

http://www.stanforddaily.com/cgi-bin/?p=1036111