Cost-Cutting Cal Drops Several Sports Programs, Including Baseball

Berkeley, CA, United States (AHN) – The University of California, Berkeley, in its latest move to cut costs, announced Tuesday it will drop five of its intercollegiate sports programs, including baseball, at the end of the 2011 academic year.

Citing the economy and decreased state funding, the university arrived at the difficult and painful decision that is expected to result in an annual savings of about $4 million beginning in the next fiscal year.

The athletic department of the University of California, Berkeley, has been over budget by about $10 million to $13 million for several years.

The move will affect 163 of the school’s more than 800 student-athletes, as well as 13 full-time coaches.

It also reduces the number of athletic teams from 29 to 24, including baseball, which Cal has had since 1892.

Cal’s baseball team, which won the first College World Series in 1947, has been to the NCAA baseball tournament 10 times, most recently in 2008.

The Bears last captured the NCAA baseball crown in 1957. Last season, Cal earned an NCAA regional berth.

Cal has also made five trips to the CWS, but has not won a Pac-10 title since 1980.

In addition to baseball, which according to Athletic Director Sandy Barbour had the highest net cost to the university among men’s programs, the men’s and women’s gymnastics and women’s lacrosse will also be cut.

Meanwhile, the men’s rugby team, winner of 25 national championships since 1980, will be stripped of its varsity status. It will be reclassified as a “varsity club sport,” a new category at Cal.

Cal, which has had rugby as a varsity team since 1882, is the only NCAA Division I school that has the sport rugby with that status.

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who wrote in a letter to the Cal community, indicating that the steady increase of financial support to the university’s 29 team athletics program was “not sustainable” for Cal, said no more teams will be cut.

Birgeneau believes that the cuts will allow the university to take a financially sustainable path by 2014.

View full post on All Stories