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Cal Cuts Baseball Team and Four Other Sports

In the most jarring example yet of the pressures being felt by athletic departments across the country caused by the Great Recession and the college sports arms race, University of California Berkeley announced it was dropping baseball, a sport which it had fielded a team since 1892. In addition, it is also dropping men's and women's gymnastics and women's lacrosse and is reducing men's hockey to club status, all as of the close of the 2011 academic year.

The athletic program has been receiving millions in subsidies from the school; in fact, last year the university provided athletics with $12 million in support.  With budgets tight across the entire university, the administration decided it could no longer justify support at that level.  These reductions will supposedly reduce the need for support down to a more manageable level of $5 million.

You have to wonder if cutting baseball was the most appropriate response.  Berkeley is not exactly a hockey hotbed and travel to other D-I hockey playing schools is expensive as they are few that are close.  The same is true for lacrosse, so cutting those programs makes sense.  However, baseball is a Pac-10(12) sport with a more than 100 year tradition at Cal and it's hard to picture a BCS school, particularly one that fancies itself as a major athletic institution without a baseball team.  Cutting baseball has also not gone down well with certain vocal and well-heeled alumni, including current major league ballplayers, which may lead to significant fund raising losses.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on September 30, 2010 (boomark / email).