Old Dominion's wrestling room (Photo/Old Dominion Athletics)Old Dominion announced last Thursday night that they would be eliminating wrestling as a varsity sport, effective immediately. Initial justification for the cut was focused on expected budget shortfall due to COVID-19, but later documentation also showed the school had hired consultants who pointed to the sport's "decreasing" national reach as further justification.
If you want to follow the daily updates on the elimination, the school's abysmal rollout/response, and insight into what could be done to find reinstatement you should follow Jason Bryant on Twitter. He's a graduate of the school and has long been one of their most vocal cheerleaders. He's prepared to bring the heat.
At the macro level there is a lot to discuss about Old Dominion's choice to eliminate wrestling that might instruct what may happen over the next few months.
Right now, we know that the economy at-large will be depressed for the next 6-12 months. Total jobless claims are roughly 16.5 million with an expected undercount of several million because of closed offices, backup in open offices, and undocumented workers who cannot file. The effective unemployment is something like 11% and even with a $1200 check and some weekly unemployment boosts it's likely that spending will be down for a while due to fear of the virus.
Even if you're bullish on the market whipsawing back into place as testing increases and people return to work, the process will take a while and it will cost a lot of jobs.
How does this all affect wrestling? First, there will be less money donated to each individual NCAA program. With salary reductions the amount of disposable income will decrease significantly. Second, the kick-off from endowments will be down significantly, some even returning 0%. Third, there will be less institutional support due to a lack of money from TV deals lost to the virus in March/April, and the likely elimination of football revenue (TV, tickets, merchandise).
In all the elimination of the ODU program may prove to be a death knell event for non-revenue NCAA sports at the Division I level. And when you look at wrestling itself, the damage could be multiplied by a decrease in long term interest due to a "proximity bias" likely to evolve from this crisis. Social distancing will become more than a buzzword -- it will absolutely guide everything from the capacity of restaurants to corporations, and the sports world won't be spared.
In the new normal, parents are going to be discouraged from allowing their children to wrestle given the higher likelihood of viral transmission between practice partners and competitors. We've all been at tournaments, or on teams, where herpes and impetigo have spread rapidly and uncontrolled. With a virus as deadly as COVID-19 the risk to the athlete (and the parents) will need to be totally mitigated before there is a total elimination of doubt. Even then, I'm doubtful there will be a full and immediate embrace of close contact sports at the scholastic level.
There will be more losses at all levels. The growth we've experienced at the Division II, III, NAIA and junior college level will be somewhat insulated since they are enrollment-based schools able to make money off the programs they hire. However, the Division I level will be affected, sometimes in very visible ways like the elimination of programs, some in less visible ways like budget cuts, and finally in obscure ways like when an administration thinking of adding a team has to scuttle that notion because of the pandemic.
I want to save Old Dominion and I want to see the at-risk programs preserved. So far my wife and I are still employed and are still scheduled for normal donations, but I'd be lying if I told you that there weren't fears of how this will all end up. Nobody knows. The stock market is all treasury money and speculation, the jobless numbers are awful but could completely rebound, the federal government has stopped supported testing (but states haven't). There is just no clear vision of what tomorrow will bring, much less October and the start of the collegiate season.
The best we can do is keep these programs in our mind and dispatch to as many alumni as we can that the time to support is now. The time to write a nice letter to the AD is now. The time to make any gesture you can in support of a collegiate program or at-risk program is now.
Also, the time to innovate is now. You might not be able to create a vaccine, but in this time you can come up with solutions to issues in our community around any number of topics regarding the sport's vulnerabilities. Improved approaches to funding, increasing attendance, decreasing liabilities … literally anything and everything.
Send me an email or leave a comment below, I think a community brainstorming session can bring out some ideas that have a chance for top-level implementation and a real chance to positively impact the direction of our sport during this crisis.
Multimedia
Stay Strong, Stay Home
Stay Strong, Stay Home 2
An interview with Abdulrashid Sadulaev
Awesome throwback match
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