Will COVID-19 be the needle that finally bursts the sports bubble?

University of Alabama at Huntsville announces the closure of their hockey and men's and women's tennis programs.

 

“Historicall,y we’re not allowed

Case Study 1,784 on the death of editing.

 

I thought hockey was their claim to relative prominence.
Another thought: Tennis seems to be a pretty frequent target of the axe so far.

 

It was. It was cancelled in 2011 and the UAH fans and Huntsville fought for it and brought it back.

It has happened again.

 

Hadn't they actually made some progress, too? Maybe made the NCAA Tournament once or twice?

 

Yeah, they were pretty good, particularly for a hockey team in the south. The first go round, the team was dropped to a club team, and many of their best players transferred to UAT's club team instead.

I have not watched their record of late. Their biggest problem is that they have to travel halfway across the country to get road games. Expensive.

 

East Carolina University shutters its men's and women's tennis program as well as its men's and women's swimming programs.

Claims it is in a $10 million deficit. Which is funny given that the school was supposedly in a $3-4 million hole barely a year ago, got at least $10 million from a war chest from its own school of medicine.

Worse, it is paying for a $60 million renovation of one part of its football facility.

Football program stinks. Renovation wasn't close to being paid for when construction began. And I honestly question how much will be save by ending those programs.

The real problem is it thinks itself a champagne program ... and it has a beer budget. Tries to live well beyond its means.

 

Few places have as unmerited a sense of worth and achievement as ECU football.
To start construction when you lack the cash or the commitments to pay for it is, well, the sort of thing you do when you're desperate and you're trying to convince the world that you matter when you don't.

So far, 17 Division I teams have been executed if you count track once (as only outdoor). Of them, five have been tennis teams. My guess there: lot of foreign students who the schools suspect will not take them up on their offer to remain enrolled and retain scholarships.

 

You realize these memes can ALWAYS work in reverse, right?

Bakery: We refuse to serve gay people.
Liberals: That's violating their rights. SERVE THEM!

Bakery: We refuse to serve anyone not wearing a mask.
Liberals: Well, that is their right!

I don't get it. Balls still cost less than $3 a can, same as 40 years ago!

 

I'm not sure how the reverse changes the meaning in a way that makes liberals seem bad:

Don't be dicks to others based on who they love and don't be dicks to people serving you.

 

The inferiority complex with this school when it comes to athletics is unlike any I have ever seen.

My alma mater is horrid about it, but as long as East Carolina is around, my alma mater can be only the second-worst with inferiority complex. A distant second.

And the numbers of kids being brought in from abroad for Olympic/non-revenue sports can be eye-popping. A golf program at a small North Carolina school usually brings in bunches of kids from abroad.