Smart spenders
UConn has largely avoided athletic department layoffs
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great economic hardship and cost millions of jobs, and college athletic departments are no exception.
Numerous schools, including UConn, have been forced to cut sports. Many others have had to lay off employees in their respective athletic departments.
Some of the largest and most financiallysound athletics programs in the country, including Ohio State, Michigan, Texas and Iowa, have announced layoffs over the past few months. Vanderbilt eliminated its entire sports communications department.
On Friday, Memphis became the latest to join the fray, announcing layoffs of 19 full-time staff members.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, UConn has largely avoided cuts to its athletics department staff, and isn’t likely to make many — if any — more.
Despite a university-directed mandate for a 25-percent reduction in institutional support over the next three years that had long preceded COVID-19, UConn has only let go of a small amount of athletics employees. The school made cuts in its ticket operations and its sales and services staff. Also, several paid interns who helped out in athletic communications and other departments have been let go.
Most, if not all of those employees were part
time, special-payroll staff whose jobs were deemed non-essential when COVID-19 began canceling sports. None of UConn’s fall sports are competing right now. If there is a need to re-hire some of those employees once sports start being played again, UConn intends to reach out to them.
More to the point, all of those jobs were non-union. In fact, the main reason why UConn has not cut any full-time athletics employees is because the vast majority — including coaches — belong to unions.
No full-time department employees have been laid off. Any staff reductions of union members would have to be negotiated between the university and its various unions. Athletic director David Benedict has no say in such decisions, though he admits if athletics employees weren’t unionized, UConn would likely be on that same list along with Memphis, Vanderbilt and others.
“I think you would have seen some consistency in that area, probably, but we’re fairly unique in that way,” Benedict said. “I don’t think the majority of athletic departments, especially their staff and coaches, are part of unions.”
Instead, UConn has looked at other ways of cutting its budget. Some are built-in and universal: Coaches aren’t allowed to go on the road and recruit in any sport, so there has been no recruiting budget the past six months. With no games going on, there is no game-day staff to pay, no rent to pay at Rentschler Field for football games. This winter, there will be no rent or expenses to play in Hartford at the XL Center. All men’s and women’s basketball home games will be played at Gampel Pavilion.
Some full-time employees have taken pay reductions in the form of furloughs. It has already been announced that Benedict would take a voluntary, 15-percent pay cut and will not take any cash bonuses, and he will take additional reductions, as well. (Highpaid coaches like Dan Hurley, Geno Auriemma and Randy Edsall are members of the American Association of University Professors union and are covered by their collective bargaining agreement).
It’s not abundantly clear how much UConn was helped or hurt, financially, by not having a football season.
“There was some loss in revenues, and some loss in expenses,” Benedict said. “In this case, I don’t think that’s going to significantly impact things. There are offsets there, on both sides. There’s not a significant impact.”
FEWER ‘BUY GAMES’ WILL HELP BUDGET
There are other ways for the athletics department to cut costs. The UConn men’s basketball team is expected to play just three non-conference home games this season, and it will likely be against in-state opponents.
Although nothing is official yet, Central Connectiut State, coached by Husky legend Donyell Marshall, and Sacred Heart are expected to be two of the foes. It’s not clear who the third opponent would be. Sources have indicated that it is unlikely to be either Quinnipiac or Hartford, although things can change on a dime during these unprecedented times. Since the Ivy League has canceled all sports until after Jan. 1, it won’t be Yale.
Playing fewer non-conference home games, against local teams, makes sense in a number of ways. Although the price of socalled “buy games” — where high-major teams pay mid-majors to come play on their home floor — is expected to be drastically reduced this season, with COVID-19 likely to keep
most or all fans out of games, playing fewer such games at a lower cost is a money-saver.
“It’s hard to justify paying someone the same amount of money when you have fans, versus having zero fans or maybe a very small number,” Benedict said. “There’s obviously been an effort on our part, working with the teams we’re planning on playing having reduced amounts. In general — not everybody — but in general, I think most of the schools understand the predicament. A we’re certainly not in a position — even more so this year — we can’t just afford to pay those amounts of money.
Playing in-state opponents also helps logistically, in terms of testing protocols and other issues related to COVID-19.
“As it relates to the nonconference, the closer in proximity that you can make those games, the more likely it is to happen,” Benedict said. “If we’re able to have games with people that are all from the state of Connecticut, now you’re guaranteeing there’s no state restrictions in travel. We have control of the virus, to a degree, in our state. Those people, most likely, would have to get on a bus, versus having to fly in from somewhere.”
The non-conference games would likely be played some time between Nov. 25, the official start of the college basketball season, and Dec. 12, when Big East play is expected to begin.
The current plan is for the league to play games at on-campus arenas (i.e., Gampel), and not in some sort of bubble, as has been proposed. That would also be more cost-efficient for teams.
“At this point in time, we’re somewhat committed to trying to execute what we would refer to as the ‘travel model,’ which is the normal travel that you encounter during the season,” Benedict said. “But, things could change, and we’ll obviously have to have options. The bubble situation would certainly be more costly than what the normal travel model would be.”
Any type of Big East bubble would more likely occur around mid-January, when residential students begin returning to campuses for spring semester. UConn’s spring semester begins on Jan. 19.
UConn is also slated to play in the Legends Classic, which will be held Dec. 2-3 at Mohegan Sun Arena. USC, Vanderbilt and BYU will also be on-hand. The Huskies are expected to play two of those teams.
UConn is still slated to play at Florida this season in early December — for now, anyway.
“Much like you’re seeing in football now, things are changing on a fairly consistent and regular basis,” Benedict said. “Obviously, it’s our intent to play that game right now, but there are still things we have to work through to make sure that happens. I haven’t heard any announcements out of the SEC. I know they’re planning on (playing) more league games, I think. Things can change, but it’s our intent to play that game.”
UConn is scheduled to begin official practices on Friday. The NCAA set Wednesday as the first official day for teams to begin practicing, but UConn has opted to wait a couple of days. Teams are allowed 30 practices before the official start of the season on Nov. 25.
Benedict said he hopes to have a clear answer on whether fans will be able to attend UConn’s home games by the end of October.
“That will give us enough time to communicate to our people as to what we’re going to be able to do, or not do,” he said. “We’ll go from there.”