Sports fans right now are bored out of their minds. With no sports in the foreseeable future, fans are left looking ahead. Many fans, myself included, are looking forward to football in the fall. In particular college football as it’s one of my favorite sports. Unfortunately, the coronavirus may impact college football. So much so that there is a real possibility that the 2020 season could be completely cancelled.

Brett McMurphy of Stadium released his latest article in which nearly one out of five FBS athletic directors believe there is a 50% chance there will be no college football. The survey was conducted with 112 athletic directors participating. The survey asked on a scale from 1-10 (1 being no chance,10 being absolutely yes) if they believe the college football season will happen. 18% gave it a 50% chance, 6% a 60% chance, 27% gave it a 70% chance and 49% gave it an 80% or more chance.

Now for the most part, athletic directors are still confident at the moment that football will happen. No one can really predict how things will be in 6 months let alone 6 days. As long as people continue to stay home and follow social distancing guidelines, the closer we can get back to normal life. But the article paints a depressing reality of what could happen if college football is completely cancelled.

“If there is no college football, a majority of the 130 FBS athletic directors contacted by Stadium predict dire consequences for the sport. ‘

There better be (a season) or many programs will be out of business,’ an athletic director said.

‘Quite simply,’ added another AD, ‘it would be devastating.’

Another AD was more direct: ‘If there’s no season, we would be f*****.”

The article goes on to discuss the potential fallout of no college football could force athletic directors to cancel Olympic and non revenue generating sports. We are talking about not only college football getting screwed, but all other college sports could be eliminated. This would devastate the entirety of college athletics.

Let’s put this in perspective. Since we can’t use Syracuse University as an example because they are a private university, let’s use the University of Texas. According to an NCAA Finance Report released back in 2017, the University of Texas brought in over $219 million in total revenue. So how much of that revenue comes from football? The latest report from Forbes back in September of 2019 shows that Texas football brought in $147 million in total revenue and $92 million in total profit from football. If the college football season were to be cancelled, Texas would lose 67% of their total athletic revenue. That would be absolutely devastating and crushing to their athletic programs. With that kind of loss you can say goodbye to golf, rowing, softball, soccer and other sports at Texas. If that could happen at Texas, imagine what could happen to non-Power 5 schools?

Many non-Power 5 institutions rely on football as their only revenue generating sport. If the season were to be cancelled, there is a good chance even basketball programs could be cancelled from some of these programs. Long story short, no college football would be like dropping a boulder in a community size pool for college athletics. The aftermath would be devastating.

Look I don’t take joy in writing this article, but this is the severity we are dealing with right now with the coronavirus. There are people who still aren’t taking this seriously and are still going out. Just know if you are one of these people, not only are you putting your health and the health of others on the line, but you force us all to have to deal with his pandemic for a longer period of time. The longer we have to stay at home, the more events will be cancelled, including college football. A lot can happen between now and September. But the best and quickest way we can return to normal life is to stay home, stay away from people and wash your hands often. The more people do that, the more likely it is that college football can be played and college athletics can be saved.