When the NCAA announced that its annual revenue distribution would be slashed by some $375 million, my first thought was about Kentucky's non-Power Five Division I schools.
In recent years, lean state budgets for higher education had created significant challenges for the Division I athletics departments in our state that are not substantially self-sustaining _ in other words, all of them except the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville.
For Ohio Valley Conference schools such as nearby Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State, there is no lucrative SEC Network or gargantuan TV contracts with ESPN to cushion this year's unexpected financial blow.
Total NCAA payouts to all Division I schools are slated to be a combined $225 million instead of the projected $600 million. This is mostly a result of the decision to cancel the 2020 men's NCAA basketball tournament as part of the efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
I wondered what impact that reduction might have on sports at schools such as EKU and Morehead. In speaking with each school's athletics director, the phrases that kept coming up were "belt-tightening" and "lean year ahead."
New EKU AD Matt Roan said: "I think, for us, our distribution from the NCAA is going to be ... in total, about 75% less than it was last year. Certainly, there are some variances year-to-year, but never quite as extreme as that."
The reduced payout from the NCAA is "going to provide a challenge for us," Morehead State AD Jaime Gordon said.
"But (NCAA distributions are) just part of our revenue. There are a lot of other concerns based on what the future holds as a result of this health crisis. We rely on sponsorships, ticket revenue, TV contracts, so there's a lot of uncertainty in the future right now and the NCAA distribution is just a part of it."
