Winthrop drops idea of an Eagles football team

Winthrop University sports fans who were hoping to cheer on the Eagles on the gridiron will be disappointed, but anyone worried about the bottom line of the school’s budget might be relieved.

On Friday, Winthrop President Dan Mahony presented the results of a yearlong study into the feasibility of the Rock Hill university fielding a Division I football team in the Football Championship Subdivision. The result, Mahony told the school’s student life and athletic committee, the costs – of facilities, scholarships, equipment and the impact on gender-balance in Eagles sports – would far outweigh the benefits.

The Winthrop Board of Trustees later accepted the president’s recommendation unanimously, ending any serious talk of an Eagles football team for some time.

One of Mahony’s first priorities when he became president, he said, was to answer fans’ persistent football questions. A faculty committee, including many of Winthrop’s economics professors, studied national data from schools that recently added football in both FCS and the Football Bowl Subdivision. The study also polled their own students, alumni, faculty and staff, and local football fans (surveyed at high school games) to gauge support for the Eagles picking up the pigskin.

“My objective was to review everything this year,” said Mahony, who just finished his first year in charge of the school.

Mahony estimated the up-front costs of starting a football program would be between $3 and $5 million, depending on whether the team offered athletic scholarships. Facilities costs alone, the study estimated, could eventually cost Winthrop $11 million.

“We’ve talked about playing at (Rock Hill School) District Three Stadium,” Mahony said. “But over time we would have to put in more.”

The estimated financial benefits of adding football, on the other hand, would be about $2 million for a scholarship program, and even less for a non-scholarship program.

“That’s a gap of $3 million in costs versus benefits,” Mahony said.

Those numbers are the norm at most college athletics programs. The NCAA estimates that only 24 programs across its three divisions made more money from the sport than was spent in 2014.

Outgoing athletic director Tom Hickman said he agreed with the study’s conclusions.

“These days, particularly for a state institution, you need to have a sizable student body, because that’s the only way to keep from having a large fee increase,” Hickman said.

Survey results show that would be a problem. While most Winthrop students surveyed said they support their school adding football, 94 percent told pollsters any increase in fees or tuition should be held to less than $100 per student, and half of respondents said they aren’t willing to pay any more for football at all.

UNC Charlotte, a school with a larger student body, added $320 per year to student fees after it added football. The 49ers are preparing for their fourth season on the gridiron.

The group also studied how football affects enrollment, by looking at FCS schools that added football in the last 15 years versus non-football Division I schools. While new football schools saw some growth in applications (especially from male students), the study found the overall enrollment numbers mostly stayed the same.

Another major concern was how a new football team would change other Winthrop sports, especially in terms of the school’s compliance with federal Title IX requirements, which mandate equitable support between men and women’s sports.

Currently, 50 percent of Eagles student-athletes are women, out of a student body that is two-thirds female. With the addition of an (all-male) football team, only 40 percent of student-athletes would be women, and Mahony estimates the school would have to add three or four women’s sports (and possibly scholarships) to maintain Title IX compliance.

“And almost all these programs lose money,” he said.

The president’s report is just the latest chapter in a long-running football conversation around campus. Hickman said the athletic department looked into the possibility a decade ago and came to a similar conclusion.

“We spent a major portion of the year on it,” Hickman said of the 2006-07 study. “Absent a significant donation, you can’t really do it.”

In all his talks with school alumni and supporters over the course of the football study, Mahony says he heard a lot of enthusiasm for the idea but no big offers of financial support.

“Whenever I asked someone how they would support a football program, they said they’d go to the games,” Mahony said.

It wasn’t all bad news for sports fans. After the board of trustees accepted Mahony’s recommendation, one trustee found a silver lining.

“We can still sell those Winthrop ‘Undefeated’ T-shirts,” Ashlye Wilkerson said.

This story was originally published June 10, 2016 at 5:38 PM with the headline "Winthrop drops idea of an Eagles football team."