Reality looms over sports economy, even as a Browns draft headline amuses the nation (Cleveland: home)

[WRnative]

https://sports.theonion.com/browns-d...bit-1834312517

A few laughs at our expense during these dire times. Several times I heard the above headline mentioned on the national cable news networks. Cleveland put-down jokes still are comedic magic, although the Browns are fair game. Actually, I'm glad that we can provide a few chuckles to a stressed out nation.

https://sports.theonion.com/cautious...tha-1837312318

I do wonder if college and pro sports, especially Cleveland's unearned loyalty to the Browns, will return to "normal" excesses after this epidemic. Wealth discretion and discretionary spending surely are two casualties of this epidemic in addition to the great health toll.

I have a friend who is a loyal Ohio State alumnus and football fan. He has a cadre of elderly friends who each must contribute $2,500 to the OSU athletic fund for the RIGHT to buy their season tickets and parking passes and to keep their prime tailgating spot on the roof of a parking garage near Ohio Stadium.

He's wondering whether his love of OSU football exceeds his fear of contracting the COVID-19 virus. He worries that several of his cadre will decide this is the year to retire from OSU home game fandom, breaking up their group. He also wonders if Ohio State plays home games without spectators, especially a likelihood if the "second wave" feared by epidemiologists and virologists still is a concern come time for the first kick-off, if Ohio State will require a maintenance fee in order to keep seats, parking passes, etc.

He recently was in the hospital with COVID-19 symptoms, but tested negative. He's very conscious now that his priorities necessarily may be reordered.

Are the days of $7 million + Big Ten head football coaches and $1 million + assistants over? The Ohio State athletic department has massive debt obligations used to build some of the finest athletic facilities in the U.S. How large will the OSU operating deficit be this year, and what will the sports networks pay for future broadcast rights contracts?

An ax likely will obliterate many Ohio State athletic programs in the year ahead.

<<“There’s no way I would be sitting here with 36 sports if we had a $10 million deficit,” Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said. “It just wouldn’t happen. I’d be dropping sports and ticket prices would go up.”>>

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...ey/4760028002/

Debt payments were $25 million. If interest expense, this suggest athletic department debt of several hundred millions.

Here's a very dated article (Ohio State lost to the Univ. of Florida in the national football championship in 2007). Note the annual sports operating budget was only $109 million, compared to over $200 million today.

https://ohiostatebuckeyes.com/inside...money-machine/

The impact of this epidemic will be pervasive and very difficult in ways not even yet under consideration.