With No Basketball Tournament, N.C.A.A Slashes Payments to Universities

“It’s a little bit of a gut punch, but we knew this one was coming,” said John Hartwell, the athletic director at Utah State. “The good thing is we can quantify it and move on.”

Hartwell said that his school had been expecting about $1 million from the Mountain West Conference’s share of the N.C.A.A. tournament pie, and that it would have to make do with about $400,000. Some of that shortfall will be offset by travel savings from the cancellation of spring sports, such as track and field, softball, golf and tennis. And if the football season begins on schedule in September, Utah State can probably weather the financial hits that are coming now.

For schools that do not play football, which can offer another source of income through TV contracts, Thursday’s announcement may be more significant.

Andy Fee is the athletic director at Long Beach State, which has a national champion men’s volleyball program but dropped football nearly 30 years ago. He suggested that it was in the best interest of Power 5 schools — those, such as Ohio State and Texas, that had revenues of more than $200 million last year — to allow mid-major schools a greater share if that would protect them from having to eliminate sports. Teams from those smaller schools end up on the schedules of the Power 5 schools in a variety of sports.

“We’re curious how the mid-major world is going to be seen by the N.C.A.A.,” Fee said. “We make decisions on a lot different parameters than football schools. We don’t have a lot of excess. We can’t say, ‘We’re not going to charter flights for our basketball team.’ We’re hopping on Southwest and looking for the best deals.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/sports/ncaabasketball/ncaa-tournament-coronavirus.html