Schools are looking at radical changes to how they run college sports if there is no footballGETTY IMAGES
Big Ten and Pac-12 school budgets "could be slashed to the core" as a result of the conferences postponing fall sports, according to Korn & Bachman of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Many athletic departments had "already laid off staff and reduced salaries" due to the ongoing pandemic. Without football, they are "looking at radical changes to how they run college sports, and some are considering borrowing tens of millions of dollars." Oregon AD Rob Mullens said that the school "could lose" $50M of a projected athletics budget of up to $130M for the upcoming year. Korn & Bachman note that "could rise" to as much as $80M if the postponed games are not played in the spring. Football postponement "won't necessarily devastate universities' general budgets, since few schools transfer revenues from athletics to their academic operations," but athletic departments "could rely on their universities' resources or take out loans to stay afloat." Stanford announced before the loss of fall football games that it was cutting 11 varsity sports to "manage an anticipated" $25M deficit on a budget of nearly $120M. Stanford Exec Associate AD/External Relations Tommy Gray said that the school now is "expecting an athletics deficit" of $40-50M. Arizona AD Dave Heeke said that without a football season, the school could lose up to $65M from a projected $94M budget (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 8/17).
BAY AREA LOSSES: In S.F., Killion & Kroichick note each Pac-12 school reaps about $32-33M overall in "conference-generated revenue," including money from the Rose Bowl, the CFP and the NCAA Tournament, although the majority of money comes from TV contracts. Cal AD Jim Knowlton "estimated a potential" $50M hit to his department's budget for the coming fiscal year. Knowlton, on possible layoffs and furloughs because of football's postponement, said, "There certainly will be some personnel actions we'll have to take" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 8/17).
