Arizona Athletics is seeing more financial hardships

With the Corona Virus still having a major impact on virtually every aspect of life thus far, Arizona Athletics has certainly been reeling from major financial hardships as well.

It has been a long and rather damning past few months for virtually everyone, and that is especially the case for Arizona Athletics as well, as they are still dealing with the ongoing and lingering effects of Covid.

Since the pandemic hit the United States back in February, it has had an astronomical effect on day-to-day life. And with virtually everything shutting down or slowing down since then, we are just now slowly starting to recover and adjust to the new normal.

Arizona Wildcats

As a result, sports are beginning to come back, albeit slowly and with limited fans. However, the damage has already been done.

Tournaments have been canceled, players are sitting out, transferring, etc. and the financial impact as a result of the pandemic has surely been significant as well.

Now for a small market like Tucson, College Athletics has a huge influence on the economy here. Naturally, when you haven’t had a single game since March, the school and the department is going to suffer as a result.

So much in fact, that we have already seen the Wildcats experience a $7.5 million shortfall last year. And with Football seeing their season cut in half, volleyball, cross country all having delayed or postponed seasons, and Basketball soon about to have no fans in attendance, these are things that will put Arizona behind the ‘8-Ball’ financially in 2021 as well.

Posture all you want about the mismanagement of funds and money on the Universities’ behalf, however, you cannot deny the glaringly obvious, Covid has impacted a major impact on College Athletics, and in particular Arizona Athletics in a major way.

As a result, the University of Arizona is still seeking to make cuts just to save as much money as possible. We have seen coaches and staff take pay cuts just to help the Athletic Department. However, it unfortunately still wasn’t enough.

On Monday afternoon, it was announced that Arizona has had to cut numerous full-time positions within the Athletic Department in order to help save more money.

While the news is unfortunate, it also seemed a bit predictable. I mean let’s face it, these are hard times for a lot of people, and while the UofA tries to operate with the lowest budget possible, College Athletics is still big business that takes money to run. Money that isn’t quite flowing into the department quite like it typically does this time of year.

I highlighted this a while back, stating why having an Arizona Football season was important. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t matter. Until the UofA gets back to operating how they normally are, this is a situation that could intensify if Covid still runs rampant.

At Zona Zealots, our thoughts go out to the ones who are impacted and have been impacted by Covid. In the meantime, let’s Bear Down together and get through this.