It’s actually mostly attributable to media and bowl revenue. Donations to football was only 9 mil.
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Idk who the swimming and tennis coaches are but I assume they are next to depart. WTH is going on??? Bennett, BOC, …
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Got a super fan ovah here!
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Volleyball and Wrestling make sense. We aren’t good at either (finding stats online for either is a pain in the ass, no wikipedia page for either, and the season results through the UVA athletics website only go up to 2020 for both, but eyeballing the results suggests “not good”) and no one cares (see above “no wikipedia page” and school on-line results are 5 years out of date). And the facilities could be turned into club volleyball or regular student athletics w/o trouble.
Softball I’d have put in the same bucket, but they went 38-19 and were actually good so now doesn’t feel like the time to bag on them. Plus, we relatively recently re-did their stadium so its not going anywhere.
Ditto track. Beautiful, expensive facility in a prominent spot which cost a fortune. Going nowhere.
Women just won their first ACC title this year, and two or three of the men have an outstanding shot at making the LA Olympics team, and a quartet set the distance medley record this year.
Not sure that’s the definition of “going nowhere.”
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Yeah, wrestling feels like an obvious cut to move money to something like baseball. 9.9 scholarships currently, that gets you almost half way there, and I’d do it in a heartbeat. We’re probably too close geographically to Penn State to ever really get good traction there.
Yeah Track is picking up. Lananna was a helluva a hire, and not someone you hire to kill the program a couple years later, but side note-- I do wonder if we tried to hire someone with his baggage in a more high profile sport if it would have flown.
I read “going nowhere” to mean no chance of being eliminated.
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Same
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Good catch.
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Wrestling, Field Hockey, Rowing would be at the top for me. Wrestling will never thrive within UVA’s culture unless there are a few big donors to prop it up and it’s clear that there are no donors to back it. Field Hockey and Rowing are very low visibility and pretty much no fan engagement. Volleyball and Softball are all over ESPN come tournament time.
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Track actually has the most donation revenue after football and men’s basketball. It’s actually close to men’s basketball. 1.9 mil vs 2.6 mil.
Just want to stick up for the field hockey team. They made the Final Four last year and the Elite Eight this season, losing to eventual champion Northwestern, 3-2.
Not saying the program is untouchable, but this process won’t be as easy as just picking low-visibility sports to eliminate.
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They’re pretty successful but there’s also very little competition. We’re pretty much a top 15 program by default and then some years we’re as good as top 5
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I guess that there’s no hope for our soil judging and bass fishing teams?
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@jazznutUVA how in the world is there no Bass Fish emoji?
Do better bro
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Most schools that have rowing, including us, use the large rosters of women to counterbalance football for Title IX purposes. Also, the sport tends to attract more affluent participants, which leads to more parent donations and future alumni donations.
That’s another consideration that most people aren’t thinking about when thinking about cutting certain sports. If you cut a sport you save the scholarships and other expenses, but you also cut the tuition money of non-scholarship athletes and eliminate donations from past and future alumni.
Amy Griffin is one of the largest donors to Virginia athletics and she’s a volleyball alum. Knowing that, do you really want to cut volleyball even though we’re not successful?
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This is why Fantasy Athletic Director never took off…
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I assume cutting rowing won’t work because of Title IX. Also doesn’t seem like they have big donor/alum backing like softball has had recently. They’ve slipped from national prominence as other schools have invested more and have not been able to find the big donations themselves. Same for wrestling.
And I never advocated for cutting volleyball so maybe you’re referring to another post.
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Are you good now? 
Written :bass_tech:
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