Budget crunch could impact how college teams opt to travel

When college sports teams finally return to play, they might not be traveling quite as far as they did for road games before the pandemic.

The cancellation of the NCAA Tournament has produced a budget crunch that leaves colleges everywhere looking for cost-saving measures. One simple step is to cut back on travel.

That’s easier for some schools than others.

Chattanooga announced last month that any 2020-21 away games that hadn’t already been scheduled must be played within 150 miles of its campus in southeastern Tennessee. The teams also need to return to campus the day of the game to avoid any lodging costs.

“They understand it was a one-year situation,” Chattanooga athletic director Mark Wharton said of his coaches’ reaction. “I made it clear that after we get through all this and we feel fairly healthy for '21-22, we’d go back within reason and go to the model we were at before.”

Wharton said Chattanooga's entire football schedule and about 60% of the nonconference schedule for basketball had been put together before the new restriction. Wharton added that exceptions would be offered for any “guarantee games” in which the school earns enough money from making the trip to compensate for travel expenses.

While other schools haven’t specified a maximum distance for road games, they are trying to make their trips as short as possible. This doesn't apply to football because those schedules generally are put together years in advance.

“It’s about what we can do to stay regionally and local,” said Northern Illinois athletic director Sean Frazier, who is reducing his 2020-21 salary by 10% along with football coach Thomas Hammock. “If that means postponing a trip to California - pushing that out to later years - yes, we want you to do...