(05-11-2018 07:21 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-10-2018 11:50 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(05-10-2018 11:42 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-10-2018 07:45 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Illinois should consider dropping baseball and only adding men’s hockey.

http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illin...facilities

Baseball badly needs a facility upgrade, while hockey would have a new arena. If they needed a Title IX sport, add W Lax.

Women’s hockey has become such a cash burner, as Wisconsin and Minnesota so dominate that sport in the West. Even Ohio St can’t compete with them.

Illinois is NOT going to consider dropping baseball. That’s absolute insanity. I want hockey to come to Illinois, but the conditions are that it must be a 100% fully-funded addition to the athletic department without cutting other sports. Period. The athletic department has been very clear on this point. There are no “investments” from Illinois here or budgeting or reallocations - there needs to be a straight up cash donation that’s purely additive for hockey to happen.

Wisconsin dropped baseball and converted their old baseball stadium into a softball field. Guess the Badgers are just insane.

IMHO, yes, Wisconsin was insane. They’re the only Big Ten school without a baseball program. That’s not something to be proud of. Wisconsin also dropped that sport in 1991 before they turned their football program around (going from one of the worst revenue generators in the Big Ten to one of the best) and they started receiving the gusher of Big Ten TV money. The Badgers would have NEVER dropped baseball in today’s environment. Illinois is not going to follow suit. You’ve completely twisted the article. The entire crux of that article is that Illinois baseball has actually been pretty good competitively, so it needs facilities upgrades to stay that way with how the other Big Ten schools have upgraded over the past decade. You can pretty much say that about any sport at any P5 school in the facilities arms race.

The comment was mostly made in jest, but even a BIG school doesn’t have much shot at making the College World Series. But Illinois can and should be a national power in sports like hockey and lacrosse, which would both likely take in more revenue the baseball. Dropping baseball has enormous repercussions among alumni so it wouldn’t be done for adding another sport.