(CU Independent Photo Illustration/Robert R. Denton)
Colorado hasn’t had a Division One baseball team in nearly 45 years. There is an active club team that is a member of the National Club Baseball Association, but the Colorado community is missing true NCAA baseball spirit.
Athletic Director Rick George held a press conference last Tuesday about the state of CU sports. Among a sea of questions about the football program, one reporter asked about the possible return of D1 baseball.
George was amused by the question when he then answered.
“That’s something I’d love to have at some point in the future, but it’s not something that will happen in the near term in my opinion,” George said.
There are 15 seasons of recorded Division One baseball from the Buffs, spanning from 1965 to 1980. They played in the Big 8 conference and were even coached by Frank Prentup for the first five seasons.
Frank Prentup is a historical figure around campus and was elected to the CU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015. He was the longest-tenured CU coach ever, working for his time with baseball and 15 seasons of football. Following his retirement in 1978, the school revealed the new name of its varsity soccer field, Prentup Field.
CU’s time in the Big Eight was lackluster to say the least, with one good three-year span from 1971 to 1973. Those were the only three seasons with a winning record in the team’s history after finishing top three in the Big 8 all those years.
The Buffs would finish third two more times before being shut down in 1980. The university was having major financial problems to solve over that summer, and along with baseball, ended up cutting wrestling, gymnastics and swimming. All of which have yet to return to the Division One level.
Rick George quickly shifted his answer about baseball to its possibility of returning, saying “The first thing we need to fix is the 22%… so we can start this next trunch of college athletics off on the right foot”
Once Name Image Likeness was introduced in 2021, Colorado was not prepared for the financial commitment, so they quickly fell behind. When George says to “fix the 22%”, he is talking about a settlement between student-athletes and the college athletic department, and how they share 22% of CU’s Big 12 revenue.
Curtis Synder, the Associate AD for Athletics Communications at CU helped break down the financial requirements of a D1 baseball team.
“If we were to add baseball now, we’d be looking at having to find another $27-28 million a year of new money…plus build a new facility, which is probably at least a $100 million investment,” Snyder said.
With the Title IX requirements, if the university were to add an all-male baseball program, there would need to be a new women’s sport as well, which doubles all of the expenses.
All-in-all, the school needs more money and has more important facilities to pump money into.
Andrew Garcia, a senior at CU Boulder and the president of the club baseball team, thinks that a Division One team would be a great addition to the city and community of Boulder.
“It would be amazing…the state of Colorado and Boulder, in particular, is a great sports town that would definitely embrace a team,” Garcia said.
“Obviously there are many differences between club baseball and the NCAA, but I know our guys would love to see that transformation happen,” Garcia said about the current club team.
If a baseball team were to be brought back to Colorado, it would only help the university and its certain wants and needs at this time. In the last two years, the College World Series has had the highest viewership among the sport all-time, with 2023’s thrilling final between LSU and Florida setting the ESPN College World Series record with 2.68 million average viewers.
That went up 75% from the season before, and the tournament as a whole grew in viewership by 48% compared to the year prior. Even the 2024 College World Series last June had the highest-watched college baseball game of all time.
The sport of baseball is seeing a recent revival. This regular season’s viewership of Major League Baseball went up 14% with 14.5 billion minutes watched. Just last March we witnessed the most-watched baseball game of all time in the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship between Japan and the United States.
Nonetheless, this new world of college athletics is being run by name, image and likeness. With the recent popularity of college baseball, bringing back a high-level, action-packed team to Colorado would do wonders for the university. The financials needed to accomplish a new program are messy and prolonged, but with new Division One sports in the picture long term for CU, we can only wait and see.
