{"id":770533,"date":"2026-05-03T14:06:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T14:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/770533\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T14:06:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T14:06:46","slug":"colleges-continue-to-cut-tennis-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/770533\/","title":{"rendered":"Colleges continue to cut tennis programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NCAA men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis tournaments opened Friday, and what should be a time of celebration for the sport has had a pall cast over it with more Division I schools<\/a> announcing this week they would be dropping their programs<\/a> because of the new financial realities in college athletics.<\/p>\n

Arkansas announced a week ago it would drop its men\u2019s and women\u2019s programs<\/a> and Saint Louis followed Monday with the same announcement. Illinois State said Tuesday it would end its men\u2019s program, and North Dakota said Thursday it would shut down its men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams. Gardner-Webb announced in February this would be the last season for the men\u2019s and women\u2019s programs.<\/p>\n

Arkansas and Gardner-Webb are among the 64 teams in the men\u2019s NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

The number of Division I schools sponsoring tennis in 2024-25 was 237 for men and 304 for women. An NCAA spokeswoman said Friday that numbers for 2025-26 were unavailable.<\/p>\n

Dozens of schools across all divisions shut down programs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since revenue sharing with athletes started last year, Division I schools have chosen to redirect resources to fund direct payments to athletes in football, basketball and a few other sports.<\/p>\n

Brian Vahaly, chairman of the board and president and interim co-CEO of the U.S. Tennis Association, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Friday that visibility of the college game needs to be elevated, the pathway for players to continue competing beyond juniors needs to be strengthened and tennis leaders need to work more directly with athletic departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cA strong collegiate tennis landscape is fundamental to the future of our sport,\u201d Vahaly said, \u201cand we will continue to look for ways to support its growth and long-term sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arkansas\u2019 decision to drop the sport caught the tennis community off guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe in the tennis world have sort of been battling this at the lower levels of college tennis, but not the big, bad SEC,\u201d ESPN tennis analyst and former college and pro player Patrick McEnroe said on the WholeHogSports podcast. \u201cThe Division II schools and some of the smaller Division I programs over the years, you\u2019re always sort of on the lookout in the tennis community to fight and protect as many programs as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tennis has been targeted as youth participation for American boys and girls has declined and the ratio of international players at U.S. colleges has continued to grow.<\/p>\n

In 2006, the number of boys and girls ages 12-17 playing tennis was equal, at 1.1 million, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. Over the last 20 years, participation has dropped 23% for boys in that age group (849,000) and 26% for girls (811,000).<\/p>\n

The most recent NCAA data showed that among first-year college players in 2022, 64% of men and 61% of women were international students. At Arkansas, seven of the nine men and seven of the 11 women on the 2025-26 rosters are international students.<\/p>\n

The math didn\u2019t work for the Razorbacks anymore. They spent a combined $2.35 million on the two teams in the 2025 fiscal year; the men\u2019s team generated $3,202 in revenue and the women $82.<\/p>\n

Arkansas\u2019 operating expense per player in 2025 was $41,772 for the men and $41,582 for the women, among the highest in the athletic department.<\/p>\n

Tennis also ranked among the most expensive sports per player at North Dakota and Gardner-Webb, and at Illinois State the $10,224 cost per men\u2019s player was more than football and baseball. At Saint Louis, cost per player ranked third out of six men\u2019s sports and sixth out of eight on the women\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP college sports: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NCAA men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis tournaments opened Friday, and what should be a time of celebration for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":770534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[63738,5027,1578,133789,1369,9540,21719,3879,3880,123158,3060,62,23993,1464,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-770533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ar-state-wire","9":"tag-arkansas","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-brian-vahaly","12":"tag-college-sports","13":"tag-missouri","14":"tag-mo-state-wire","15":"tag-nd-state-wire","16":"tag-north-dakota","17":"tag-patrick-mcenroe","18":"tag-schools","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-st-louis","21":"tag-tennis","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116511033737837907","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}