Franchise value of money making athletic programs

TheRoarOfTheCrowd

top 65 teams with previous substantial cash flow and major investment and debt associated with athletic stadiums and facilities are in a completely different position with respect to continuing to invest in revenue generating sports

Uw owes a small fortune for facilities and have a virtual gun to their head to continue to fund sports; however I think the conversation at a lot of smaller and less established sports program schools could turn out to be quite different

Won’t surprise me to see a sizable percentage of schools drop sports all together if the TV money is not their to subsidize the programs

If shortfalls continue, WSU and Oregon state as an example, will have a hard time rationalizing how and where to get the money to continue... the legislature will not want to make up the difference and the perceived franchise value of the continuing opEration is questionable at best

seemingly obvious outcome: Not a wake up call but realignment with substantial elimination of lower rung programs based on sustainable cash flow in the new world seems like a likely outcome

BleachedAnusDawg

Coug will never die. UW is too gay for the Apple Cup to let that happen. Too many Cougs in Western Washington and as public institutions they would be in lock step in Olympia lobbying for money if it comes to that. What I'd like to see is UW loan the cash to WSU. That would make for great trash talk fodder.

1to392831weretaken

This is not a Harley Davidson situation, where a gradually changing marketplace, stubborn refusal to broaden the product line for fear of losing the core customer base, and increased competition points toward a business's eventual restructuring or demise. This is a single year catastrophe. To continue using motorcycles as my analogy, 2008 all but completely wiped out the PNW sportbike scene. We went from three track day providers to one--who hung on by the skin of his teeth and accumulated massive debt to keep anything going at all.

By 2014, there were three operators who were overfilling sessions to meet the ridiculous demand, turning every day into a dangerous crashfest. Average bikes went from $4000 clapped out Gixxers on shitty utility trailers to brand new BMWs and Ducatis in toy haulers. One--even three--bad (BAAAAAAAD) years for that industry didn't kill it. There were always people who wanted to participate, they just temporarily didn't have the money.

Turning on your TV and watching football--or even having season tickets--has a far lower bar to entry, bread and circuses, a far broader audience, etc., etc., so college football cruised right through 2008 and after. Hell, probably picked up ratings. This time is different, though, as the game is not being played and fans aren't able to watch even if they wanted to. It doesn't change the desire, though. It doesn't fundamentally restructure the market for college sports. This is a one, maybe two, year complete hit for every athletic department in the country. ADs and money people are going to scramble to work deals to postpone payments, borrow money, etc., but it's not the end of the world. College football will be played again, and the demand will be at least what it was before. The financials of individual institutions will be the same then as they were last year: if they were profitable, they'll continue to be.

I don't get the doom and gloom. These aren't small mom and pop shops that can't miss a year. They're multimillion dollar businesses with major branding benefits, a thirsty locked-in customer base, and ties to even more multimillion (or billion) dollar institutions. I doubt much will change in the long run. Schools will service debt with loans or forbearance, things will pick up where they left off, life will go on. America loves football. That only changed on the edgelordiest of edgelord football forums.