College football signed a mega-TV deal with ESPN to broadcast the College Football Playoffs in 2012. It was a 12-year deal for about $6.6 billion. TV became even more significant in terms of a source of revenue compared to tickets sold.
Still, tickets sold are crucial to the health of the college football industrial complex—the schools, the community, you—and we are about to find out how crucial.
TicketIQ, which is in the business of selling tickets on the secondary market, says that if the college football is cancelled by Power 5 schools the estimated loss in market value would be a staggering $4.2 billion…for one season.
If venues were to limit attendance to 20 percent capacity, which some NFL teams have already announced, that number is $3.4 billion, according to Jesse Lawrence of TicketIQ.
Lawrence said the calculations are “based on secondary market value, number of seats, number of games canceled, as of two days before the event cancellations.” “This is not a precise measure, but the simplest way to benchmark the magnitude of losses, by team,” Lawrence wrote.
The numbers show you just how much tickets are marked up above face value with high-demand teams before they are scanned by a ticket taker. You’ve heard the stories of $70 tickets fetching $500.
The biggest market in the SEC? It’s not Alabama.
It’s Georgia.
TicketIQ says the lost revenue from UGa tickets turning to bit-dust would be almost $200 million. UGa’s football season ticket sales—on face value—earn the athletic department around $35 million, but tickets do not stop with the initial holder. They are packaged with hotels, sold on the secondary market (sometimes more than once) and the value keeps going up and up.
Alabama sold $39.1 million in football tickets in 2019. The market value of those tickets in 2020, after they have churned through the system, is about $173 million. Florida, LSU, and Auburn follow Georgia and Alabama.
The numbers paint a picture of just how much money revolves around football in the south. The reluctance of Georgia governor Brian Kemp and Florida governor Ron DeSantis to mandate masks in their states has surely hurt the cause of fans who want a season. The “personal decision” not to wear a mask has likely doomed the idea of a college football season with 12 games and full stadiums. With those decisions is a huge loss of revenue around the games, not just with tickets, but with hotels, restaurants, and other game day moneymakers.
Georgia’s athletic department could lose $50 million without a 2020 season, if you consider lost revenue with its tickets and loss of money from a multi-media rights deal with IMG/Learfield. When you consider SEC schools receive $43-44 million each in payouts from the conference, you are talking about $90-$100 million in lost revenue from the season.
The details of a fall without football get more grim by the week.
I work according to a quote by baseball’s marketing genius, Bill Veeck, “If you’re not buying what I’m selling, it’s my fault, not yours.” This Journalism business is
I work according to a quote by baseball’s marketing genius, Bill Veeck, “If you’re not buying what I’m selling, it’s my fault, not yours.” This Journalism business is about accountability, just like athletes who are held accountable for every whiff, drop, error, pick. I have been accountable for my work in The New York Times (17 years) and USA TODAY (25 years), as well as work for The Washington Post, MSNBC, OZY, and others. Opinions on Sports have to be fact-based so I try and be a better reporter than writer. The idea is to get as close to the truth as possible. Let me help you find the angle you weren’t thinking about, and wish you had. I know what I’m doing. I’m one of 11 children. You learned to make your own way.