College sports that don’t generate money must be suspended if the college football season doesn’t happen.
As we all know, the fate of college football hangs in the balance with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. If the season doesn’t happen, athletic departments across America will be decimated. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North
Football (and to a much lesser extent men’s basketball) funds all the other sports that lose money. For example, at LSU, the sport of football covers and makes up for the tens of millions lost by other sports.
When you hear things from ADs like “football allows us to have other sports,” this is what they mean.
Take #LSU. Here are profit/loss numbers from each LSU sport in the 2016-17 cycle, from my time as a beat writer.
– Football: $56M in profit
– Other sports: ~$23M in losses pic.twitter.com/3Giw1YrdZF— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) March 31, 2020
In another mind-boggling stat, the average Power 5 school is expected to lose nearly $80 million each without football.
Those are numbers that are honestly hard to comprehend.
View this post on Instagram
Given the financial realities schools will face in the fall without football, there’s one easy fix that must be the top option.
Every sport that doesn’t generate money must be suspended until further notice. Sorry to all the track people and softball players, but those sports simply can’t proceed and drain athletic departments of resources.
Tough times require tough decisions. Nobody wants to see those sports get canceled, but we don’t have much of a choice.
Athletic departments simply can’t be funneling resources into sports that will lose all the money and generate none.
During a regular season, that’s fine. Football literally exists to fund everything else. Without football, nothing other than men’s basketball can afford to exist.
Nobody is cheering for this outcome, but it’s the most realistic option on the table to save these athletic departments.
I pray it never comes to that, but all options must be on the table. If the football season doesn’t happen, then all non-revenue sports must be suspended immediately.
Once this crisis passes, then they can come back. I hate to do it, but it’s the only option that will absolutely work.