Smash That “Follow” Button
When it comes to the future of the Arkansas tennis programs, the ball is officially back in Hunter Yurachek’s court.
The UA athletics director sent a shockwave through the sport late last month when he announced the discontinuation of the Razorbacks’ 71-year-old men’s tennis team and 46-year-old women’s tennis team.
Since being served that devastating news, Arkansas tennis alumni and supporters have rallied to the tune of more than $5 million in pledged money for the next two years.
It’s an impressive response from supporters of one of the smaller Olympic sports in Fayetteville. The efforts even commanded a face-to-face with Yurachek, news of which surfaced last week.
After initially postponing last Thursday’s meeting, the Arkansas AD met with the group Monday morning. Details of the meeting remain unclear.
While members of the group — which consists of alumni, boosters and others — have expressed optimism throughout the process, it also remains a mystery on how the situation will be resolved.
Possibilities for Arkansas Tennis
It is unknown what the actual options could be for the UA, but after following the story closely over the last two-plus weeks, Best of Arkansas Sports has a few ideas as to what might ultimately unfold.
One option would be for Hunter Yurachek to stick to his decision to cut the programs. After all, the original press release Q&A stated that “fundraising is not a sustainable option for the long-term operation of the programs.”
Plus, BoAS has heard that the group trying to save Arkansas tennis were told they must not only raise the $2.5 million the UA claimed it was saving by dropping the sport, but enough to sustain it for a lengthy period of time – possibly as much as a decade.
However, the fact that more than $5 million was pledged in just one week of fundraising might be enough for Yurachek to change his mind and reinstate the program. Of course, that would mean swallowing his pride and admitting he made a mistake by not trying to fundraise from the beginning.
Another possibility: reinstating the programs on a sort of probationary status.
Even if they can’t fund the sport in perpetuity, that $5 million is nothing to scoff at and could be used as a two-year bandaid. Then, instead of having just two weeks to come up with a long-term plan, the program would have two years to figure things out.
As noted sports lawyer Tom Mars put it, “Who knows what college sports will look like in two years?”
The UA could also explore other ways to generate revenue from the program. One idea specifically pitched by Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) CEO David Mullins in a letter to Yurachek and Chancellor Charles Robinson is opening the Billingsley Tennis Center to the public. Several programs, including Memphis just across the border in Tennessee, have already successfully implemented this strategy.
National Perspective
According to an online database compiled by Jason Bryant at Mat Talk Online, at least 43 Division I programs have been dropped since the start of the 2024-25 college sports season, which is when details of the House settlement that went into effect last summer first emerged.
With schools suddenly on the hook for up to $20.5 million in direct payments to athletes, such a purge was widely predicted. However, Arkansas is just the third Power Four school to do so.
In fact, the Razorbacks are the first to cut a sport solely for financial reasons.
Iowa State discontinued women’s gymnastics because of internal strife between players, coaches and parents, but announced it would be adding an unknown replacement sport, while Utah dropped women’s beach volleyball because of its move from the Pac-12 to the Big 12, which doesn’t have enough teams to earn an automatic bid to the sport’s NCAA Tournament.
There is a precedent for discontinued programs being saved, though. When Stanford dropped 11 of its 36 varsity sports because of financial challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the school reversed its decision just 10 months later.
However, that isn’t exactly an apples-to-apples comparison for Arkansas tennis because those programs already had a combined $23 million endowment. But the $50 million in pledges the 11 sports generated isn’t too far off, on a per-sport basis, from what the two Arkansas tennis programs have landed so far.
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