University of Utah athletics director Mark Harlan announced Tuesday that the Utes' beach volleyball program will be discontinued at the conclusion of the academic year, a casualty of the school's move from the Pac-12 Conference to the Big 12.
According to the athletic department's announcement, Utah first introduced beach volleyball as an intercollegiate varsity sport in 2017, and was a member of the Pac-12 for its first eight seasons.
For the 2025 season that concluded last Friday in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament, Utah competed as a member of the Big 12. Currently, there are only three other Big 12 institutions that sponsor beach volleyball. With only four sponsored programs in the conference, there is no automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament for the Big 12 champion.
The 2025 season was the Utes' most successful to date, with a program-record 21 wins against 14 losses.
"This was an extremely difficult decision, and we did not arrive at this conclusion without a significant and appropriate amount of thought, consideration and consultation," Harlan said. "We looked at the landscape of intercollegiate beach volleyball and the future opportunities of our student-athletes. Currently, there are only 12 beach volleyball programs among power conference institutions, with little evidence of the sport expanding at this time. With the sport's growth stunted, and without the home facilities with amenities that allow us to host championship-level events, we are not providing the world-class experience that we seek to provide to our student-athletes."
The addition of the Utes' beach volleyball program in 2017 made the Pac-12 a nine-member conference for beach volleyball, and the nation's dominant beach volleyball league. This positioned the Utah program to grow and compete on a national level as the sport was rising, but that trajectory has not continued nationally, the announcement stated.
"We are mindful of the impact this decision has on the current students in our beach volleyball program, as well as on the incoming student-athletes who committed to Utah," Harlan said. "We will work closely with each of our impacted student-athletes to provide them with all of the support they need. Should any member of the team decide to remain at the University, their scholarship will be honored through the receipt of their undergraduate degree, and the incoming student-athletes also will have their scholarship offers honored. Should a current or incoming student-athlete elect to pursue their sport at another school, Utah will do all that it can to facilitate the process. Scholarship funds previously dedicated to the beach volleyball program will be redirected to our other women's sports programs."
With the discontinuation of beach volleyball, Utah will now sponsor 19 intercollegiate sport programs.
