After the recent events that have occurred with the news of the Big Ten, ACC, and Pac 12 confirming that conference-only schedules will be inducted for the upcoming 2020 season, we can only assume that the rest of the conferences will follow these actions, as the Ivy League and Patriot League are shutting down all fall sports for the year 2020.
As I am here to tell you why college football can not perform without any fans, I can only assure you one thing. The upcoming 2020 college football season is definitely going to be a weird one.
The majority of the problem with not having fans in attendance for the 2020-21 season is the economics that comes from the entire season. This is what keeps the majority of college sports continue to keep on competing, as ticket sales lead the way by a large amount because of how much money it generates for that season.
In fact, most tickets for Division I schools go from $100-$400 depending on which game you attend.
If you are wondering how much a college program makes a whole football season from ticket sales, the top 20 college programs in ticket sales brought in around $925 million combined. The Texas Longhorns brought in around $92 million in ticket sales, while the South Carolina Gamecocks brought in about $28 million through just ticket sales alone.
Now, what would happen if the college football season operated with no fans? We would see a major increase of college sports being eliminated, as the profit from college football as a whole pays for many other sports from the program.
Stanford University has alone lost 11 out of 36 of its varsity sports before their seasons have even started. Every program, including Power 5 programs, can expect to be in debt from the effects of this pandemic.
But we’ve got to think about the programs that are not a part of the Power 5, who are also the teams that don’t always get the big-ticket sales.
Since ticket sales are what the majority of the profit from college football comes from, if teams like Georgia Southern don’t make a profit off of their football program, sports like baseball, basketball, and many more may not come into play this coming year.
Only time will tell what happens from these tough times that we are all in together.
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