Rob Mullens: "Funding of Non-Revenue Sports at Oregon is NOT Going Backwards"

[Charles Fischer]

In an interview with John Canzano, Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullens made an interesting declaration that might be reassuring to the Oregon Baseball fan that I am. He notes how funding is remaining the same for non-revenue sports, (good!) but only mentions womens sports in terms of new scholarships.

 

But the discussion here and other places has been how non-revenue sports could be eliminated, and this below seems to be a statement that they are not at Oregon.

 

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Canzano: I have wondered, not just with Oregon, but around the country, how athletic departments will begin to tier their sports. You want to invest at the maximum level you can with every sport, but you can't do it when you're carrying the number of sports that you're carrying. Hard decisions have to be made. How do you do that?

 

Mullens: Yeah, it’s really difficult. One of the things we’re very fortunate in is that we’re not going to have to go backwards with any team. So the funding is going to stay in place. Resource allocation has always been one of the most difficult parts of this job. Because you want to give everything to everybody. But that’s just not reality, particularly when you look at the economics in our asset base.

 

So we’re going to have to make strategic investments and strategic allocation. And that starts with football. Football generates 80 percent of our resources. We have to be successful in football to generate the resources to help fund the other 19 sports. And so then we’ll study the marketplace, the landscape, obviously, where we have a rich history and tradition. We want to continue our competitive advantage. And then we’re also going to make an investment in the new roster limit scholarship pieces in almost every one of our women’s sports to allow them to remain competitive.

 

As you were noting off the top here in the spring, when you look at what women’s golf has done, what softball has done, what women’s track has done, we want to continue to excel in those sports.

 

 

[30Duck]

Very happy to see this, Oregon Softball and Volleyball are extremely competitive, we just saw what the Women's Golf team did. Go, Lady Ducks!

[Washington Waddler]

     Just curious if Mullens’s “strategic investments” will include ponying-up for a softball head coach who has now earned it - unlike the last time.

[30Duck]

On 5/25/2025 at 12:14 PM, Washington Waddler said:

Just curious if Mullens’s “strategic investments” will include ponying-up for a softball head coach who has now earned it - unlike the last time.

This is a very good que$tion, to which there is only one acceptable answer. 

[The Kamikaze Kid]

I think Sports themselves is the U of O brand. Investing in them at all tiers should make financial sense in the big picture.

[Grandpa Duck]

I don’t understand the negative implication about the hire of Melissa Lombardi that flows from 30 Duck’s “ponying-up” question above.  If it means Mullins should have broken the bank to pay Mike White what may have been an unreasonable salary request in a nonrevenue sport, then I get it.  But I respectfully disagree.

 

if it means that somehow Lombardi was the wrong hire, at first, six years ago, I would have agreed.  However, I think she has overcome my original opinion.

 

Because my wife is a women’s sports nut, there are many games on our primary TV that I would rather not watch.  Admittedly I don’t especially care for college basketball, men or women.  And, I never watch the NBA.  Now we have a steady diet of WNBA, that competes with my golf watching.  I do control the clicker when Duck softball and basketball have home games because the boss is out of the house.

 

i have developed the opinion from all of the women’s sports that dominates winter and spring in our home that a college AD should hire females to coach teams played by women.  I believe that Lombardi is an outstanding recruiter, and that skill is essential when the coach must not only relate to the players, but also to their mothers.
 

Sure, there are exceptions, like Connecticut.  But in the main, an AD will be more successful choosing a female to coach women.  Lombardi meets that test, Mike White does not.

[30Duck]

On 5/26/2025 at 2:48 AM, Grandpa Duck said:

I don’t understand the negative implication about the hire of Melissa Lombardi that flows from 30 Duck’s “ponying-up” question above.

Just to make it clear, I am thrilled that Melyssa Lombardi is the coach of the Oregon Softball team, I thought I was getting redundant in my praise and admiration for the job she has done so far. White left Oregon, where he had great success, during the regular season, because Texas offered a sizably bigger contract, Texas has had good regular seasons under White too. When Lombardi's contract comes up, I feel that she too thinks the grass is green at Oregon and Mullens needs to show the green as well. 

[GeotechDuck]

Also happy to see this.  However, while non-revenue sports may not be going backwards, the men’s basketball program certainly appears to be doing so.  

[30Duck]

On 5/26/2025 at 8:33 AM, GeotechDuck said:

 However, while non-revenue sports may not be going backwards, the men’s basketball program certainly appears to be doing so.  

Oregon basketball has shown that it can't, won't match NIL with the bluebloods for the star players, Dame Sarr expressed an interest in Oregon, but he'll end up at Kansas or Duke or Kentucky. 

[Washington Waddler]

On 5/26/2025 at 2:48 AM, Grandpa Duck said:

If it means Mullins should have broken the bank to pay Mike White what may have been an unreasonable salary request in a nonrevenue sport, then I get it.

     Probably a good idea here to recall that $$ may not have been the primary consideration during ‘negotiations’ between Mullens and White. There were enough off the record, anonymous insider ‘quotes’ that place the final decision on a clash of personalities between two alpha dogs, neither of which was willing to back down.

 

     Costly? Yes. But Mullens had the cash. He just didn’t like the guy.

Edited Monday at 08:36 PM by Washington Waddler
spelling

[30Duck]

On 5/26/2025 at 12:48 PM, Washington Waddler said:

Costly? Yes. But Mullens had the cash. He just didn’t like the guy.

Thank you. Now that I think back, that's exactly the way it was, made even worse when practically all the players left, a lot of them with White to Texas. With whatever players that remained it was a very rough adjustment for Lombardi and the team. It does look like there's a much better relationship between Mullens and Lombardi. 

[JDuck]

Mike White still can't win the big one.  What do we need to do to make T&F, indoor and out...and XC perennial national champions?  I still can't believe we don't have a World Class indoor facility, capable of hosting world's.  We did it with the outdoor WC, certainly the hotel and rental house capacity is there in EUG, outdoors requires 30k seating, indoors just 5k.  Mr. Knight???

[GeotechDuck]

On 5/26/2025 at 9:01 AM, 30Duck said:

Oregon basketball has shown that it can't, won't match NIL with the bluebloods for the star players, Dame Sarr expressed an interest in Oregon, but he'll end up at Kansas or Duke or Kentucky. 

What’s the hang up here?  Does anyone know?   On the surface, having 1/4 of the NIL budget of the top teams in your conference in a revenue generating sport does not seem like a successful strategy.