A canceled football season would force Ole Miss to revisit its financial planGETTY IMAGES
Ole Miss AD Keith Carter said that he "doesn't foresee" the furloughs and salary reductions happening around the country taking place at his school, "not in the short-term, at least," according to Nick Suss of the Jackson CLARION-LEDGER. Carter said, "We've done a good job of working through this fiscal year's budget and getting through June 30. I think we're in pretty good shape through June 30. We're going to close out the year and be OK." Carter said that he will have to "revisit the plan if [the] football season is canceled or pushed back." He added that realistically, the department "will have to start considering cutbacks if Ole Miss loses donations and ticket revenue for a period of five or six months." Meanwhile, Carter said that the athletics department "gave back $900,000 in donations and ticket sales for spring sporting events." He also said that Ole Miss was "able to defer" $1.4M worth of "sales and donations into ticket packages for events in 2021 and pocket $384,000 in revenue from donations and ticket sales that fans did not ask to be refunded." With that extra money, Ole Miss is "strengthening its economic reserves," and a lot of the $1.7M that was "not refunded will be deferred into Ole Miss' 2021 budget, while some will be used for necessary spending in 2020." Suss noted the athletic department has been "dipping into the reserves out of necessity for the past three years" (Jackson CLARION-LEDGER, 5/6).
