Furman Drops Baseball and Lacrosse

Victims of COVID-19:

https://soconsports.com/news/2020/5/18/general-furman-discontinues-baseball-mens-lacrosse-programs.aspx

The article referenced above notes that Furman University’s endowment has dropped in value by more than $100 million dollars.

Baseball & lacrosse player scholarships will be honored even though the two sports have been eliminated.

Hopefully the players will be able to find spots to transfer, if they want to.

A number of other schools have cut some sports in the last few months too. That will increase dramatically if football is played this fall

The more than $100 million drop in Furman University’s endowment probably is in the area of a 14% decrease in endowment funds.

@Mwfan1921: Did you intend to write: “if football is not played this Fall” ? As this would significantly drop athletic generated revenue for the 64 Power 5 conference members as well as for Notre Dame and dozens of other schools which generate a profit from college football.

Oops, yes…typo on that!

With regard to the endowment drop…if that is still a $100m decline (on around $700M) after the Dow went from ~29K to ~18K, then back to ~24K…the entire endowment management team should be fired.

For the 14% estimation, I used $695 million endowment decreased by $100 million (“over $100 million”).

While not among the top 100 endowments in value, Furman University’s endowment ranked at #161 with a total endowment of slightly less than $695 million. (Ranking & value of endowment fund for fiscal year ending in 2019. Figures released in February, 2020.)