LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The future of college football in 2020 is cloudy, but one study aims to make the fallout of a cancelled season crystal clear.
The online learning platform OneClass created a study to determine the financial effects of cancelling the 2020 season or moving it to the spring.
"The implications of moving something as gigantic as college football either to the spring or cancelling it outright has unbelievably astronomical financial consequences," said Dr. Rich DeCapua, who was part of the study.
The numbers reveal that the Power Five conferences alone would suffer a loss of around $4 billion.
"Twenty million of that is just in ticket sales,"Â DeCapua said. "When you talk about the power football conferences, and you talk about those schools, not only are those huge revenue generators for the institutions, but they are revenue generators for the athletic department themselves and offset a lot of costs for some of the smaller sports."Â
Some large schools, like Stanford, have already cut some of those smaller sports in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The fallout of losing a revenue generator like football would be devastating for the smaller sports at other schools. It would also have a financial impact on the communities where those colleges and universities are located.
"They basically base revenue off of those weekends that you’re having these home football games,"  DeCapua said. "So not only are you talking it’s going to affect the institutions, obviously, is it going to affect the student athletes? Absolutely. This could lead to getting rid of some other sports, and it’s going to mean a loss of revenue for the town."
To read the OneClass study in its entirety, click here.
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