In the coronavirus era, colleges and universities have a new top business priority
The coronavirus pandemic has knocked out March Madness and Wimbledon. It’s delayed the start of baseball and postponed the Olympics. And the NBA, NHL and several other sports are still in limbo.
But what about college football?
The idea of having a fall without college football is a possibility, but it’s premature to jump to any sort of conclusions that games won’t be played.
At least to TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati.
“The No. 1 priority is the health and safety of our communities,” Donati said. “Our No. 1 business priority will be playing a football season.”
College football has been around for the last 150 years with its first season in 1869. The seasons never stopped for the 1918 influenza pandemic, two world wars or other types of civil unrest through the decades.
The only season that wasn’t played was in 1871 when the sport was in its infancy. Since then, it’s become our country’s favorite sport and a billion-dollar industry at the college and pro levels.
This is an unprecedented time, though, and the coronavirus has already make substantial dents in athletic budgets across the country.
Concerns over revenue are being seen by colleges after the NCAA announced it would be distributing $225 million, instead of $600 million, to its member institutions and conferences on the heels of canceling the usually highly-lucrative postseason basketball tournaments.
Iowa State announced Wednesday that it would be reducing salaries for coaches and other staff members to save more than $3 million. More schools could follow suit and there will be more drastic measures taken at schools across the country if there isn’t a football season.
(By the way, you might as well get used to the legal term “force majeure,” originally a French phrase that literally translates to “superior strength.” However, in this context it’s defined as being something of unforeseeable circumstances that prevent the fulfillment of a contract or service.)
“If we can’t play football this fall, I mean it’s Ice Age time,” Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard said on a teleconference with reporters Thursday. “Because there is nobody in our industry right now that could reasonably forecast a contingency plan for how they would get through not playing any football games.”
Quite simply, football is the chief economic driver for many schools across the country. And between social distancing measures and on-campus activities being shut down, it is not hyperbole to say the sport has never faced such a threat in its 150 seasons.
Spring football has essentially been eliminated and starting summer workouts on-time is less than certain with several schools going to an online-only model for intersession classes.
The reigning champion LSU, the University of Texas and the University of Florida, among several others, have announced its summer courses would be online-only. TCU hasn’t determined whether it will take a similar approach.
It’s safe to say most don’t see any way for football to be pushed up into the summer months, as a report in the Sports Business Daily last week suggested.
It simply isn’t practical.
Players returning from this lengthy of a delay will need several weeks to go through a strength and conditioning program, and then another few weeks to go through a training camp.
Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said it wouldn’t be possible to play the season on-time if players aren’t on campus by July 1. Some may argue that it has to even be a couple weeks before that. Either way, most are hoping that football season isn’t delayed. But if it must be, the hope is that it wouldn’t be for too long.
College football’s “Week Zero” is set for Aug. 29 with the majority of programs such as TCU scheduled to open the season on Sept. 5.
If it is a long delay, don’t rule out college football being played in the spring.
From a TV contract perspective, ESPN and Fox are in the middle of a 13-year deal worth $2.6 billion with the Big 12. ESPN is also reportedly paying the conference $40 million for the online and broadcast arrangement through ESPN+, the TV network’s streaming service.
From a university perspective on the campus level, home football games are the biggest revenue generator for schools. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby refers to that as “live gate.”
“Anything that I say regarding finances has to make the assumption that we’re going to be back playing football in the fall,” Bowlsby said last week. “If that doesn’t happen, the underpinning of what we’ve known as normal goes away. And we’ll have we’ll have major changes to make.”
To put it in perspective, the University of Texas generated $42.4 million in ticket sales and averaged 97,713 fans per game during the 2018 football season, according to a recent report in the San Antonio Express-News.
Texas is the top revenue-generating school in the country when it comes to athletics, so those numbers are higher than most. Still, it’s clear that every school relies heavily on football.
At Iowa State, according to a report in The Athletic, 14% of its athletics budget ($12.5 million of $87.55 million) for the 2020 fiscal year is projected from football ticket sales.
Another $40 million, the report says, comes from the Big 12 and NCAA with about 85% of that number being football-related.
As crazy as it sounds, maybe schools will check fans’ temperatures before they enter the gates. Or maybe there won’t be any fans at all. That’s obviously not good, but at least the TV revenue would be salvaged.
It’s also realistic to envision a scenario where different conferences go about football season differently. If schools in the Big 12 are located in areas where the coronavirus is deemed to have subsided, maybe it goes on as planned.
If schools in the ACC are located in areas deemed hot spots, maybe it plays a more limited schedule.
Time will tell as it’s difficult to predict where everything will stand in a few months. But college football may not be a one-size-fits-all situation in 2020 given the circumstances.
If you recall, when the NCAA canceled its spring championships, individual conferences didn’t immediately follow. They were still weighing whether to play spring seasons.
Yes, teams wouldn’t have an opportunity to reach the College World Series, but the Big 12 title remained a possibility until the league opted to cancel its spring seasons.
The same might hold true for football. A Big 12 championship may be the only thing on the line, rather than a bowl berth depending on what each conference decides to do.
At the end of the day, schools and conferences will have plenty of reasons to play as many games as possible. “We’ll do everything possible to salvage the football season,” Donati said.
