A "soaring deficit has placed Cal’s athletics program in the university’s cross hairs and prompted the creation of a task force to determine whether the department, which is losing" approximately $20M per year, is "sustainable in its current form," according to Jon Wilner of the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS. Cal is "caught between the rising costs of major college athletics and the massive debt service it owes on the Memorial Stadium renovation project." Cal is "projecting a single-year loss" of $21.76M during FY '16, while FY '17 projects a deficit of $18.8M. The school's Task Force on Intercollegiate Athletics is charged with reviewing athletic department finances and recommending the "appropriate 'scale and scope ... including the number of programs and roster sizes.'" Members of Cal's athletic community "take those marching orders to mean the university plans to downsize -- that it intends to eliminate sports." Cal "ventured down that road six years ago, when a fiscal crisis placed five sports (baseball, men's and women's gymnastics, men's rugby and women's lacrosse) on the chopping block -- only to have them reinstated thanks, in part, to aggressive fundraising." Sources said that there are "three potential outcomes" from the task force. The university could "recommit to its current model but with long-term, sport-specific endowments to fund operations." The university could return to the '10 approach and "eliminate a handful of teams -- this time for good." Additionally, Cal could "choose to make drastic cuts, downsizing all the way to a model of just 16 or 17 sports." Cal supports "more intercollegiate sports (30) than any school in the Pac-12" except Stanford, a private school (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 10/1).
