SI: Clemson AD has committee exploring potential issues with no football this fall |
College athletic departments are crunching the numbers nationwide after losing a significant amount of revenue with the NCAA men's basketball tournament canceled this March.
Just the idea of no college football this fall is another matter entirely. Clemson, like most any school, is having to at least prepare for the possibility of the worst-case, which has Tigers AD Dan Radakovich forming a committee of administration associates to explore the what-ifs out there. “I don’t know that we’ve named it,” Radakovich told Sports Illustrated, “because I don’t have an acronym for doom.” The story cites that most schools only have two profitable sports, with football and men's basketball, and football is the primary moneymaker for all but Syracuse, Duke, Kentucky and Louisville among the Power 5 schools. “Football allows us to have these other sports. It’s a big amount,” Radakovich told SI. “All the folks working in college athletics understand what a big economic engine it is. You look at big revenue drivers—ticket sales, donations, conference distribution—those are all linked together, and the centerpiece is football.” Another AD told the outlet off-the-record that the pandemic effect could forever change economics in college sports, stunting the rapid growth of facilities and salaries, where Clemson is a primary example of that growth in the last decade-plus. Radakovich maintained that college sports are just a part of a bigger picture nationally. “If we don’t play football, it means campuses are closed. It rolls up to a much bigger circumstance,” Radakovich said to SI. “That’s the place sports finds itself right now: We are a part of a much bigger issue in our country.”
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