Will Auburn play football in 2020? It’s vital to school’s athletics budget, report shows
As the novel coronavirus pandemic has placed the 2020 college football season in unclear territory, the importance of the sport to schools’ athletics budgets cannot be understated. Auburn is no exception.
Football is one of only two sports at Auburn that made a net profit last fiscal year, the most recent financial report from the university shows. And it made far and away the most money.
“I would say if there wasn’t a football season that would be a sizable financial impact,” Auburn Athletic Director Allen Greene said in a Zoom conference on March 20, “to what degree (is) uncertain, but there would definitely be a sizable impact on our finances if we were not to have a football season.”
Greene could not say on March 20 how much of an impact losing spring sports and the NCAA Tournament would have on the athletic department’s bottom line.
“I think we all know and are preparing for some sort of a budget impact, but there’s still a lot to unfold,” Greene said March 20. “Obviously, a lot has unfolded and there’s still more to unfold.”
The Tigers football team made $47,310,954 in Fiscal Year 2019. The only other sport to make a net positive was men’s basketball, which made $5,057,293. All other sports combined for a net loss of more than $28 million.
On a whole, the school’s athletic teams brought in a net profit of $13,194,705.
Ticket sales were by far the football team’s main source of revenue (apart from contributions received) last fiscal year, so playing games with no fans in attendance would leave a sizable impact on the program’s bottom line.
Over $29 million of the profits made by the football team came from ticket sales, while nearly $19 million came from media rights.
The only other program to break the $1 million mark in ticket sales was men’s basketball. Women’s basketball made almost $68,000 in ticket sales, while all other sports combined to make almost $823,000.
The football team made over $95 million in operating revenues, with $47,846,261 in operating expenses such as coaching salaries, support staff pay, travel and “other operating expenses.”
“I’m a half-full perspective person, so I have optimism (that there will be a 2020 football season),” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said on March 18. “We have taken measures as have our colleague conferences, at this time, I think that if I read those health leaders, we’re going to have a period of time to see what happens with the growth of these cases and we’ll make decisions down the road.”
Auburn said in a statement to WAAY-TV that information about fall semester will be announced “no later than early July,” and that it plans to welcome students back to campus in the fall.
That’s a positive step toward a college football season, though there remains a lot of moving parts.
“Obviously, I think about everything going forward because we’re being guided by public health information in decision-making, but my hope is we can return to our normal organized activities, our normal experiences and be part of that celebration around soccer or volleyball, cross-country, football in the fall,” Sankey said in March. “But, we’ll have to see.”
