Takedown Report

University of Tulsa to Consider Adding New Sports: Why Wrestling Should be it

TDR Editor’s Notes : It would be a wise move for University of Tulsa to add wrestling as it would increase student enrollment, bring in revenue and generate good public relations. The answer is YES, YES and emphatically YES to the question if they should add wrestling. Keep Wrestling Onward!
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According to Kelly Hines of the Tulsa World, the University of Tulsa Athletic Director Rick Dickson has said the school is considering adding new sports in an effort to grow enrollment.
Unfortunately, in the D1 wrestling world, we’ve seen countless programs get dropped as universities flood money into their revenue sports of football and basketball.
On other levels, that has not been the case. Wrestling is growing at a very high pace in D2, D3, NAIA, and on the Junior College level. The reason this works for those smaller schools is those programs in a unique way end up paying for themselves.
The massive growth of women’s wrestling has been a game-changer for the sport. Many smaller schools can add both a men’s and women’s program with a fairly minimal investment. And as these schools add a small contingent of scholarship athletes, they also add several walk-ons or partial scholarship recipients that are paying their own way. So, when a school makes the investment of hiring a coach, purchasing equipment, and paying other basic costs for their program, those are all offset by the additional revenue generated when they grow their student body and tuition revenue.

This is seen all over college athletics, but in our part of the country, you can look at schools across Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and see they’ve taken note.

Arkansas has added Little Rock, Ouachita Baptist, University of the Ozarks, Lyon College, Central Baptist, Williams Baptist, and Arkansas Baptist.

Texas went from having zero college wrestling programs to adding Wayland Baptist, Texas Wesleyan, Schreiner University, Texas Women’s University, and most recently Jarvis Christian.

The state of Oklahoma has been a traditional power in wrestling from youth to college to International wrestling. But they’ve still seen some similar growth at the college level recently with NEO bringing back their program a few years ago, Oklahoma Wesleyan starting a program, and Carl Albert State College adding a men and women’s program just this past year.

If Tulsa were to add a wrestling program, it would be dwarfed by its two in-state rivals Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, who are both long-time traditional powers. But there is a very real benefit and enticement to having those programs nearby. If the University of Tulsa were to host a dual with Oklahoma State it would be a huge ticket draw and likely their biggest sporting event outside of football and basketball. Oklahoma State averages over 5,000 attendees per dual.

It’s tough to expect a road dual to do those numbers, but the large contingency of OSU fans and alumni in Tulsa would show up for a dual at Tulsa and would bring in a large chunk of annual revenue for the program.

There are also a lot of solid programs in the region to build early schedules with. Tulsa likely wouldn’t immediately be a superpower in the sport. Building a program takes time, but even with putting OSU and OU on their schedule, they could still schedule Arkansas Little-Rock, UCO, NEO, and other schools to help get matches early with minimal travel costs that still put up a solid challenge. … rest of the story at https://owrestle.com/the-university-of-tulsa-to-consider-adding-new-sports-why-wrestling-should-be-it/

August 20, 2021 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized