Programs are starting to wrestle with two weighty issues: Getting ready to play some kind of season if it is safe to do so and trying to manage what for many would be a substantial financial blow if the season is shortened or canceled.
This past week the NCAA put together a working group to look at issues such as how much preseason practice and conditioning would be required once play is green-lighted again. The NCAA said "it is premature to establish a timeline for when these scenarios may be put into place."
As Sports Illustrated (SI) noted, “before football games, there must be football practice, and, before that, some say, there must be football training. In June, there’s eight weeks of summer training—theoretically voluntary, but in all reality mandatory, as players report for camp in August.”
Most football teams begin preseason camp around Aug. 1, so schools probably would need to know at least a few weeks in advance, potentially as early as by July 1, whether they have the go ahead to have their football players and coaches begin making arrangements to be on campus.
COVID-19 could affect the bottomline
Even if the season kicks off as scheduled Aug. 29, many athletic directors expect some type of effect on their bottom line because of fears of a resurgence.
“The financial model of major college athletics is built around the revenue we generate in those three months,” said UCF Athletic Director Danny White, referring to the football season. “There is no financial solution to solve that if [the football season] doesn’t happen.”
The University of Central Florida, depends heavily on student fees to support its athletic department. The school assesses a roughly $172 fee to every full-time undergraduate student on campus which provides more than $23 million of the athletic department’s $68 million in annual revenue. “If the students aren’t on campus those fees would likely be waived,” White said.
On the financial side, losing football would be a devastating blow. Football programs typically pump funding into less lucrative sports. Not having football this year would be a huge blow to many athletic departments, coming on the heels of the NCAA slashing its payout to member schools by $375 million after the cancellation of this year’s NCAA Tournament due to the coronavirus.
The soft economy has already seen FAMU extend the deadline for season ticket renewals, and renewals of its Investment in Champions programs.
“It’s probably going to take a while for people to feel comfortable sitting close to each other in a stadium or arena again,” Tom McMillen, CEO at Lead1 — a nonprofit that represents the 130 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision told SI.
With hospitals overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, testing capacity limited and a vaccine not yet in sight, it’s far from clear if health officials will even sign off on mass gatherings this fall.
In the grand scheme of things, if college football can’t be played this fall and winter, it probably means there are far more significant problems confronting the nation.