A strong case to save Stanford’s cut sports ‘fell on deaf ears’ at trustees meeting

Azzi mentioned she and others from “36 Sports activities Sturdy” had been supplied that platitude in a late December assembly with three members of the college’s board of trustees, throughout which they offered an alternate answer.

“It fell on deaf ears,” mentioned Olympic fencer and Stanford alum Alexander Massialas. “It was actually surprising to me.”

The three members of board of trustees concerned within the assembly had been Jeffrey Raikes, Mindy Rogers and Gene Sykes. In response to requests for his or her viewpoint on the assembly, the college launched this assertion:

“The assembly was productive, and the Trustees expressed a want to remain involved with the group as Stanford continues to pursue excellence in all of the varsity sports activities it should assist transferring ahead.”

The “36 Sports activities Sturdy” members imagine their presentation to the trustees confirmed the issues within the college’s monetary reasoning behind chopping the sports activities. By Stanford’s personal calculations, chopping the 11 sports activities will ultimately save $8 million 12 months. However the college initiatives an athletic division deficit of over $33 million this 12 months, ultimately turning into a “steady-state” deficit of $11 million a 12 months, even after eliminating the sports activities.

That “steady-state” deficit depends on optimistic future projections that embody, partly, a projected 25% enhance in a brand new Pac-12 Networks deal (the present deal expires in 2024). Some imagine that’s a very buoyant prediction, given how Pac-12 broadcasts have carried out in recent times. The calculations additionally rely upon a rise in supporter items to the division; however the “36 Sports activities Sturdy” group mentioned it already has proof that many donors are upset with the division’s current selections and have scaled again donations. In any occasion, even by Stanford’s personal optimistic calculations, eliminating sports activities doesn’t remedy the division’s deficit points.

Supporters of the focused sports activities say the true subject isn’t spending on particular person groups however bloating contained in the athletic division. In line with their findings, there was an 84% enhance in compensation and advantages between 2012, the final 12 months beneath former athletic director Bob Bowlsby, and 2020 beneath athletic director Bernard Muir. Eliminating 11 of the least costly sports activities the college gives does little to appropriate the difficulty.

“Till they get their bills in line, the monetary scenario will solely worsen,” Massialas mentioned. “We offered them with a practical path again to monetary solvency.”

Within the seven months since Stanford made the surprising announcement, the volunteers working to avoid wasting the 11 sports activities have raised over $40 million in pledges. That could be a wholesome begin towards endowing the sports activities and, in flip, saving Stanford’s popularity because the “college of champions” and an Olympic incubator. The group is asking that, along with reversing its determination, the college permits for a five-year “runway” towards making Olympic sports activities self-sustaining.

“From a improvement standpoint, it’s fairly surprising what a bunch of volunteers have been in a position to do,” Massialas mentioned. “And the (trustees) we met with appeared to do not know that we’ve got achieved that.”

In line with Massialas, the trustee members within the assembly disputed the numbers that had been offered, although they had been culled from Stanford’s personal sources, together with posted budgets and knowledge that Muir offered to the athletic division. In creating their presentation, the “36 Sports activities Sturdy” group additionally acquired steerage from some deep-pocketed Stanford alumni and donors, who rank among the many titans of Silicon Valley and are intimately aware of the college’s monetary scenario, however preferring to remain within the background.

“After they mentioned, ‘these aren’t our numbers,’ we identified that they really had been their numbers,” Massialas mentioned. “However once we requested them to point out us their numbers they didn’t reply. Shouldn’t there be transparency?”