Athletic budget cut update #12 - More teams being eliminated

Bowling Green University's discussions about eliminating men's ice hockey headline the latest in a series of articles from UltimateSportsInsider.com. The University is facing a $10 million shortfall and athletics has a $750,000 budget hole this year. In an interesting side note, this isn't the first time President Carol Cartwright has been involved in eliminating a hockey program. She was previously the President at Kent State when their program was dropped.

Other budgetary announcements include:

• Wagner College - Dropping their wrestling and women's volleyball teams effective immediately.


• Rutgers - Increasing the cost of football tickets by $10 a seat to defray construction costs related to a $100 million stadium expansion after donations fell well short of anticipated targets.


• Stanford - Cutting their institutional general funds budget by $100 million in the next two years. Athletic implications are unclear as of this posting.


• Michigan - Looking to limit out of conference travel. Used bus travel instead of charter air for men's basketball to play at Northwestern.


• Michigan State - Has reduced budget by 10% across the board. Football traveled to Ohio State and Indiana by bus instead of charter air, saving $200,000. Reducing administrator travel with teams. Considering scheduling geographically closer opponents.


• Colorado State - Cutting budget by $635,000, including a $145,000 reduction in staffing and $133,000 loss of summer school scholarship support.


• New Hampshire - Cutting department budget by 3%. Shifting to bus travel when possible. Cutting convention and seminar travel. Considering playing fewer games than the NCAA permissible maximum.


• Big Sky Conference - The conference athletic directors and leadership are discussing changes to the basketball travel format for conference games, reductions in the permissible basketball travel party size from 21 to 18 and reductions in the number of participants in post season tournaments to 4 teams for some yet to be determined sports. Further deliberation to occur at future league meetings in late spring and early summer. (Edited on 3/16/09 based on additional information provided by Jon Kasper, Assistant Commissioner for Media Relations)