If there’s no college football season, other sports may be cut

College football drives a huge chunk of revenue for a lot of universities, so the prospect of no 2020 season will have a significant domino effect.

Even though fall camps don’t start until around Aug. 1 with the first games at the end of that month, the coronavirus pandemic has put the sports world on hiatus and college football is no different.

For a lot of schools, football and men’s basketball are the top two revenue drivers for the athletic department. Women’s basketball is prominent at some, as is hockey, baseball or softball at some others, but the top two are clear and can make up for losses taken in the less prominent sports.

The smaller schools, from the Group of 5 on down, taking a game (and a likely loss) to a Power 5 school in football can account for a substantial chunk of an athletic department budget.

Brett McMurphy of Stadium took a survey of 130 FBS athletic directors, of which 112 participated. They were asked to rank their optimism on the 2020 college football season being played on a scale of 1-to-10, with one meaning “will not be played” and 10 meaning “definitely will be played.”

No one gave less than a “five” in response, 51 percent gave a seven or an eight and 25 percent gave a nine or a 10. But an anonymous AD gave a precise response to the idea of no college football season this year.

“If there’s no season, we will be f*****,” an anonymous AD told McMurphy.

SI’s Ross Dellenger looked back on the 2016-17 cycle for LSU. The years since surely look similar for LSU, and plenty of other bigger schools who have football and little else that brings profits.

The years since surely look similar for LSU, the reigning national champions in football. For plenty of other big schools, the balance sheet is driven by football with every else coming in a distance second. Breaking even, let alone turning a profit, is a challenge down the totem pole of sports.

Having success in those sports helps, but being relatively off the radar doesn’t bring in money the way football does based on television contracts alone.

Starting the season early or late may help save the 2020 college football season, and there’s been talk (realistic or not) on each end of that spectrum as all options are on the table. It’s a fluid situation, as it is everywhere right now, but the immediate future of the lesser sports at virtually every major university is riding on there being some college football this year.

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