Slate reports that Temple University is abolishing five men’s athletics programs, and two women’s programs, in order to reduce a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall:
Last month, Temple University became the latest institution to kill off a sizable number of its Olympic sports programs, citing in part an inability to financially support the teams that don’t bring revenue back into the athletic department.
Athletics Director Kevin Clark broke the news to the roughly 150 affected athletes and nine full-time coaches in a devastating finals-week announcement, telling them that five men’s and two women’s teams would be eliminated as of July 1, 2014.
“Our student-athletes and coaches are the casualties of Temple University’s overreach in trying to operate an athletic program beyond its facilities and resources, which caused us to be out of compliance with [Title IX],” Temple President Neil Theobald said at a Dec. 10 Board of Trustees meeting…
However, one sport has not been touched amid all the cuts–Temple’s Division I football team. President Theobald defended the decision to leave football untouched. “Any potential savings from reallocating football scholarships to other sports would be more than offset by the resulting loss of television revenue from our conference’s new seven-year contract with ESPN and CBS Sports. Football is not the reason for this move,” he said.
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