In the weeks leading up to Friday's opening of the NCAA men's and women's tennis tournaments, at least five schools — including two tournament qualifiers — announced they were discontinuing their programs after this season in an effort to make ends meet in the new financial landscape of college athletics.
Last week alone, Saint Louis University, Illinois State and North Dakota all made announcements of program cuts. Prior to that, Arkansas and Garder-Webb, the two schools to advance to this year's men's 64-team bracket, made their announcements.
Related: Saint Louis University, Arkansas Announce Discontinuation of Men's and Women's Tennis
"Dozens of schools across all divisions shut down programs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic," Eric Olson reported Friday for The Associated Press. "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."
Brian Vahaly, chairman of the board and president and interim co-CEO of the U.S. Tennis Association, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Friday that visibility of the college game needs to be elevated, the pathway for players to continue competing beyond juniors needs to be strengthened and tennis leaders need to work more directly with athletics departments.
“A strong collegiate tennis landscape is fundamental to the future of our sport,” Vahaly said, “and we will continue to look for ways to support its growth and long-term sustainability.”
Arkansas’ decision to drop the sport caught the tennis community off guard, Olson reported.
“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.”
Per Olson's reporting, 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 Razorbacks 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 athletics 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," Olson wrote. "At Saint Louis, cost per player ranked third out of six men’s sports and sixth out of eight on the women’s side."
