Number Of Eliminated NCAA Sports Programs Nearing 100

Four-year colleges facing budget shortfalls stemming from the pandemic are approaching an unwelcome milestone: In coming days, the number of eliminated sports programs will almost surely pass 100. Research by The Associated Press found a total of 97 teams eliminated at four-year schools through Friday. The count includes only teams cut with the coronavirus outbreak and its impacts cited as all or part of the reason. Of the 78 teams lost in Divisions II and III and the NAIA, 44 were from three schools that closed at least in part because of financial fallout from the pandemic. No Power Five conference school is known to have dropped any sports. Most of the 19 Division I teams cut — 15 men’s, four women’s — are from schools in the so-called Group of Five conferences. Some of the cuts might not have been made, critics say, if decision-makers had considered the benefits those sports brought to the schools as a whole.