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Cal eliminates baseball, men's gymnasticsUC Berkeley announced Friday morning that its men's baseball and gymastics programs will be eliminated at the end of this school year, but that men's rugby and women's gymnastics and lacrosse have been spared."New philanthropic commitments will support the teams' expenses while plans are implemented for long-term financial self-sufficiency," the university said in a news release.The release said the changes will keep Cal athletics on track to operate under a cap of no more than $5 annually from the general campus fund by 2014."We are all greatly impressed by how our community organized itself in the attempt to help these five sports and the university," Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary said in the statement. "We are delighted that, together, we have found a path that allows us to retain the two women's teams and our rugby program without adding costs to the strained budgets of the university and Cal Athletics."Sadly, the efforts did not meet these criteria insofar as baseball and men's gymnastics are concerned," he said. "Although the amount of money raised for these two programs is meaningful, the teams' costs are also significant."Both programs would have needed to raise multiples of what they actually did raise to meet our criteria. In the context of both current and forecasted economic and financial conditions, we simply could not agree to short-term, stopgap measures."The university announced Sept. 28 that five sports would be eliminated after this school year to save the athletic department $4 million annually.Supporters of the programs reacted swiftly, locking arms to create "Save Cal Sports." That prompted Birgeneau to announce that if they raised $25 million by the end of January the sports would at least temporarily be saved. The chancellor's plan called for the sports to then generate funding to become permanently self-sufficient within seven to 10 years through endowments.Donors raised between $12 million and $13 million, the university confirmed, a portion of it from "Save Cal Sports." Another significant chunk came from a low-profile group that had no affiliation to any specific sport.Cal has fielded a baseball team since 1892 and won national championships in 1947 and 1957. The Bears open their 2011 season Feb. 18 at home against Utah.One source told the Bay Area News Group that the property where Evans Diamond sits is coveted by the university for non-athletic uses.Among 24 NCAA Division I level athletic programs in the state, Cal becomes only one without a baseball team.Men's gymnastics, which began competition at Cal in 1922, won four NCAA team titles between 1968 and 1998 and has had top-10 finishes in 13 of the past 14 seasons. But men's gymnastics slowly has been squeezed from the athletics agenda on the West Coast, with Stanford the only other Pac-10 school to field a team.Rugby is the school's most successful sports program, having won 25 national championships since 1980, including the 2010 title last spring. Rugby is a non-scholarship varsity sport at Berkeley, largely supported through private funding, but it was scheduled to be demoted to club status.Cal's rugby squad was 11-0 entering play Friday, having outscored its foes 576-28.The women's gymnastics and lacrosse programs, much younger than their male counterparts, may have survived because Cal would have been in violation of Title IX federal gender-equity laws had they been cut.
i dunno something tells me we'd cut our baseball team before our equestrian team
Quote from: Andy on February 13, 2011, 12:39:45 AMi dunno something tells me we'd cut our baseball team before our equestrian teamAbsolutely. Baseball is probably more expensive to run
Cost usually isn't the main issue, its title 9 balancing the scales for football (despite the fact that women are eligible to play football).
