Media types are notoriously bad when it comes to predicting the outcomes of sporting events, so forgive me for not being overly concerned about their predictions for what's coming next with the coronavirus pandemic.
Kirk Hebstreit says he doesn't think there's going to be a college football season this fall.
Guess what? His guess is as good as yours.
I heard another national college football reporter say on the radio this week that he doesn't think students will be on campuses in the fall.
Guess what? His guess is as good as Herbstreit's.
After watching just about every White House coronavirus briefing during the past few weeks, it's fairly apparent that the world's leaders can't predict what's going to happen next week with this health crisis. So we're supposed to put stock in what the sports media think is going to happen five months from now?
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That's not to say we should be mocking any gloom-and-doom predictions, while most of the nation enters the third week of a self-imposed lockdown. Obviously, everything is on the table right now. If they can cancel Wimbledon and the Olympics and shut down Disney World, then obviously college football is not "too big" to be shuttered.
What I would say, though, is the harsh realities the college sports world are facing right now are disconcerting enough without making any panicked predictions.
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Anyone who's reading this knows that college football pays the bills for most of the other athletic programs on a college campus. What people might not realize is exactly how much those other sports depend on it -- and how quickly things can go south -- if football isn't cranking out money like normal.
Take, I don't know, Florida State for example.
According to an annual report filed by the school last summer, the Seminoles made more than $185 million in revenue during the 2018-19 academic year but racked up $198 million in expenses. A large reason for that shortfall, of course, was that football wasn't nearly as profitable as it had been in recent years. After producing about $37 million in profits in 2017-18 and $42 million the year before that, the football program netted just $24 million last year, according to FSU documents.
That's a problem when you consider the vast majority of sports programs on campus are losing money each year. In this particular year, men's basketball was the only other sport that generated more money than it spent -- to the tune of about $3.4 million. Baseball turns a profit in some seasons, but it actually lost $1.5 million that year.
The deficit for women's basketball was about $1.86 million; for soccer, it was $900,000; it was roughly $500,000 for men's golf and $400,000 for softball. Men's and women's track combined to lose about $2.5 million, while men's and women's swimming came out $1.5 million in the red, and men's and women's tennis were about $1 million in the hole.
That's not a knock on the management of those programs. Those sports struggle to make ends meet on virtually every campus around the country. Most of them are either not spectator sports or they don't charge admission fees. So there aren't a lot of opportunities to create revenue.
And as long as football is bringing in the big bucks, it's not really an issue. Most everybody in the university community appreciates having a comprehensive athletics program -- especially one that's as successful as Florida State's. So losing a million here or there traditionally hasn't been a huge issue.
