The Univ. of Iowa is "cutting four varsity sports programs" after the '20-21 academic year, a "direct result of the cancellation of the fall football season and the COVID-19 pandemic," according to Chad Leistikow of the DES MOINES REGISTER. Iowa AD Gary Barta and President Bruce Harreld on Friday announced that men's gymnastics, men's tennis and men's and women's swimming and diving "will be discontinued." The moves drop Iowa's sponsorships from sports "from 24 to 20, with 12 women's sports and eight men's sports remaining." All existing scholarships "will be honored through graduation." Cutting four sports "begins to chip away at the deficit." In FY '19, men's gymnastics "spent $922,773 more than it brought in" (DES MOINES REGISTER, 8/22). Iowa officials said that the postponement of this fall's football season "will slash revenue by $100 million." The school projects an athletic budget deficit of $60-75M this year" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 8/22).
SIGNS OF THE TIMES: The REGISTER's Leistikow wrote although Iowa was the first Big Ten school to announce sports cuts this year, it "won't be the last." Every Big Ten athletics department is "going to suffer badly from scrapping fall football, and programs are going to be slashed." Athletic departments "should've been building more reserve dollars as they collected massive media-rights annual windfalls over the past decade-plus." Leistikow: "But they didn't. They became dependent on football and addicted to spending" (DES MOINES REGISTER, 8/22).
