Colleges continue cutting tennis programs to fund other sports and athlete payments

TL;DR

Several Division I colleges, including Arkansas and Saint Louis, are cutting their tennis programs due to financial pressures and the need to fund other sports and athlete payments. The trend follows a significant decline in youth tennis participation and rising costs associated with maintaining these programs.

Key points

Several Division I colleges are cutting tennis programs
Financial pressures are driving the cuts to fund other sports
Youth participation in tennis has declined significantly

Mentioned in this story

NCAAArkansasSaint LouisIllinois StateNorth DakotaGardner-Webb

The NCAA men's and women's 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 announcing this week they would be dropping their programs because of the new financial realities in college athletics. Arkansas announced a week ago it would drop its men's and women's programs and Saint Louis followed Monday with the same announcement. Illinois State said Tuesday it would end its men's program, and North Dakota said Thursday it would shut down its men's and women's teams. Gardner-Webb announced in February this would be the last season for the men's and women's programs. Arkansas and Gardner-Webb are among the 64 teams in the men's NCAA Tournament. 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. 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. The Arkansas decision caught the college tennis community off-guard. “We in the tennis world have sort of been battling this at the lower levels of college tennis, but not the big, bad SEC,” ESPN tennis analyst and former college and pro player Patrick McEnroe said on the WholeHogSports podcast. "The Division II schools and some of the smaller Division I programs over the years, you're always sort of on the lookout in the tennis community to fight and protect as many programs as possible." 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. 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). 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. The math didn't work for the Razorbacks anymore. They spent a combined $2.35 million on the two teams in the 2025 fiscal year; the men's team generated $3,202 in revenue and the women $82. Arkansas' 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. 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's player was more than football and baseball. At Saint Louis, cost per player ranked third out of six men's sports and sixth out of eight on the women's side. \\_ AP college sports:

Q&A

Why are colleges cutting tennis programs in 2024?

Colleges are cutting tennis programs primarily due to financial pressures and the need to redirect resources to fund athlete payments in more lucrative sports like football and basketball.

Which colleges have recently dropped their tennis programs?

Colleges that have recently dropped their tennis programs include Arkansas, Saint Louis, Illinois State, North Dakota, and Gardner-Webb.

What impact has COVID-19 had on college tennis programs?

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant number of schools shutting down sports programs, including tennis, as colleges faced financial challenges and declining youth participation in the sport.