‘In Shock’: Why College Tennis Programs Are Disappearing

The Arkansas men’s tennis program made this year’s NCAA Division I men’s tournament. When their run concludes, the team won’t just be saying goodbye to departing seniors or potential transfers—they’ll be saying goodbye to Razorbacks tennis for good. Last week, Arkansas announced the permanent discontinuation of the men’s and women’s programs. 

“The whole college tennis community is in shock,” Intercollegiate Tennis Association CEO David Mullins told Front Office Sports regarding the Arkansas decision. “When you see an SEC program of such great wealth, great tradition, amazing facilities—and that team can be eliminated—then it strikes fear in every coach across the country.”

In the past week alone, three other Division I schools have also announced tennis cuts: Saint Louis is discontinuing its men’s and women’s programs; Illinois State is discontinuing men’s;  North Dakota is discontinuing men’s and women’s. During the 2025–26 season, 21 programs have been eliminated across the NCAA—nine of which are at the D-I level, according to ITA data shared with FOS.Only one D-I school, Iona, has announced it will add tennis programs in the future. 

At the collegiate level, the sport is facing a potential crisis.

House Settlement Woes 

Administrators nationwide have warned that increasing costs of operating D-I athletic departments would result in cutting Olympic sports. The main culprit, they say: the House v. NCAA settlement, which allows schools to share up to $20.5 million worth of revenue with players as well as offer more scholarships across the board. 

Power conference schools are required to participate in the House settlement; the rest of Division I had the option to opt in, with Arkansas among them. According to a list provided by the College Sports Commission, the other three non-power conference schools that cut tennis programs this week all decided to participate, meaning they are offering some kind of extra benefits allowed to players through the settlement.

With the exception of Illinois State, all the schools cited the rapidly changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics. 

“Over the past five years, Division I athletics has experienced more change than the previous 30 years combined,” North Dakota AD Bill Chaves said. “This has required us to adapt to a new landscape by reinventing the way we operate our athletic department, as well as analyzing the existing resources we have and reallocating those resources moving forward.” 

Saint Louis, North Dakota, and Illinois State are hardly rich—they don’t have access to the billion-dollar media-rights revenue offered to power conference programs—so budget cuts might be more justifiable. But Arkansas is a beneficiary of the SEC’s riches, making its decision more puzzling to people in the tennis community. The Razorbacks reported $195 million in revenue for the 2025 fiscal year; the tennis programs combined cost only $2.5 million.

In its statement, Arkansas wrote: “Change within college athletics is accelerating rapidly, particularly for Power Four programs. College athletics is shifting away from the traditional model to adapt to the post-House settlement environment. As a result, institutions must make deliberate, data informed decisions focused on financial sustainability, resource allocation and return on investment.” 

FOS reached out to a dozen impacted coaches and players, none of whom responded to requests for comment.

But Why Tennis?

Mullins said he expected the House v. NCAA settlement to be used as a justification to cut tennis programs, as well as other Olympic sports, this year. But it doesn’t explain why tennis, specifically, is being targeted. 

In many cases, the reason is related to facilities, Mullins said. If schools don’t have courts of their own, they often have to rent out time and space for players to use community courts—a decision that can be both costly and less than ideal for athletes, especially when schools can only reserve time late in the evening or early in the morning. 

The health of the sport overall could be a factor, too. Mullins cited the rise of pickleball, as well as the fact that many of the top U.S. tennis players choose not to play college tennis at all. 

There’s also the question of international athletes, who comprise a large portion of the overall college tennis population. Some in the tennis world have wondered whether the sport would be better protected if more of its players were domestic. 

In the wake of the Arkansas news, ESPN tennis analyst Patrick McEnroe suggested a cap on international players in college programs. “If American college tennis doesn’t serve, at least in part, American tennis, then don’t be shocked that more of the athletic directors decide we don’t need this,” he said on his SiriusXM radio show Holding Court with Patrick McEnroe.

Mullins, who hails from Ireland and has coached multiple D-I tennis programs, said it might be a factor. “Could it be in America in 2026 with everything that’s going on within the political landscape. Is it more front and center? Possibly,” he said. But he added that in all the conversations he’s had with athletic directors, “I’ve never heard that brought up to me once.”

Something more likely, he says: the fact that tennis programs have smaller rosters than some other Olympic sports, meaning that fewer players are impacted by the decision to cut their programs. 

Fighting for the Future

There is a way to force schools to get some of these teams reinstated: Take the schools to court on Title IX grounds.

Title IX is the statute that requires schools to offer equitable sports participation opportunities for men and women. Arthur Bryant, a pioneer of Title IX litigation, told FOS that schools need to make sure they’re offering the right number of opportunities regardless of their financial situation.

He said some of these schools were already in violation of Title IX even before cutting tennis programs; now, he believes they’ve made their lack of compliance even more egregious.

“At both the University of Arkansas and Saint Louis, the schools are already depriving women of a huge number of equal opportunities to participate,” Bryant told FOS. “By cutting the women’s and men’s tennis teams, they are perpetuating that discrimination and creating new female victims of that discrimination. That’s a straightforward violation of Title IX. The schools should know better.” (Representatives for Arkansas and Saint Louis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Players impacted at any of the schools that eliminated tennis programs have the opportunity to research whether their athletic departments might have Title IX issues—and could potentially take their schools to court to get their teams reinstated.

Beyond getting current programs restored, the ITA and the United States Tennis Association have been in discussions about how to support college tennis through the new era. Mullins noted that USTA has, already, offered sizable grants to college programs for facilities.
“Now more than ever, as the landscape of collegiate athletics is ever shifting and evolving, and institutions face even more difficult decisions, we need to take a more active role in supporting college tennis,” Brian Vahaly, interim co-CEO of USTA, said in a statement to FOS. “That starts with elevating the visibility of the college game, strengthening the pathway for players to continue competing beyond junior tennis, and working more directly with programs as they navigate a period of significant change.”

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