The COVID-19 pandemic is not only having a significant impact on professional sports, but on the college sports that depend on game revenue, as well.
Its near future is unclear, including the large money-making football programs that gear up when the next academic year begins in the fall.
Dr. Jeremy Jordan, the Associate Dean of Sports, Tourism and Hospitality Management at Temple University, says that canceling the upcoming college football season because of the coronavirus would present a serious problem for the colleges and universities that depend on those programs for a significant portion of their budgets.
“If you’re a school that draws crowds, then uses those events for sponsorships and donations and…TV revenue, not having football would put quite a few athletic departments in a very precarious situation,” Dr. Jordan said.
Dr. Jordon isn’t sure schools will have to eliminate sports programs as a result of the pandemic, but he said sports programs likely will see their budgets cut.
“I would be really surprised if there’s not football next year, but I also think it’s very realistic that football will not look the same next year,” he said. “Whether that means the time of year that it’s offered or the number of games that schools are able to play.”
He added that sports programs likely won’t resume until schools are comfortable letting all students back on campus.
“No one really knows how this is going to play out or when it’s really going to calm down again and go away and when it is safe for us to be around other people,” Dr. Jordan said. “That another part of it, are we all going to fill stadiums with 100,000 people again?”
