AD Rick George Addresses the Issues Surrounding the Virus

The Colorado athletic department will have to be extra careful with their budget this upcoming fiscal year.

The Colorado athletic department will have to be extra careful with their budget this upcoming fiscal year. 

Athletic Director Rick George spoke to the media on Wednesday on a variety of topics. 

One of the key discussions was spring sport seniors receiving an extra year of eligibility from the NCAA. 

The decision, reached by a vote on Monday, opens the door for seniors to return but mostly leaves it up to the universities and coaches. 

"It is permissible to provide that extra year of eligibility," George said. "So, there will be a lot of discussions I am sure among coaches and student-athletes. As a point of clarification, in this first year, 2020-21, if seniors decide to come back and coaches are in agreement on what it is going to happen moving forward, squad limits will not be counted in their financial aid limitations. So we can provide scholarships or financial aid to student-athletes above the financial aid limits currently."

Seniors can return so long as the coaches accept them. The scholarship limits opened up so they can still bring in incoming freshmen. But there will be an interesting discussion on how exactly the scholarship money will be allocated.

Contrary to popular belief, the athletic department is not made out of money and they do pay all of the scholarships back to the university. So it is still unknown whether or not the school will be financially capable of providing scholarships to these athletes. 

Last week, The NCAA Board of Governors voted to allot $225 million to member schools, a 62.5% decrease from the expected $600 million. The conferences will also take a hit due to television deals. 

"Fortunately, we don't have a lot of spring revenue that comes from our spring sports teams so we don't really have an impact there," George said. "And the fact that we completed football and our basketball seasons was really important because there is a lot of revenue that comes through donations and ticket sales and our TV contract. Most of those were already done and exercised. There will be a financial impact in this fiscal year for sure, but it won't be big as you might think." 

And if there is no football next year or no fans at football that will be the biggest hit of them all. That is still up in there but the discussions are definitely being had. 

"I think it is a little bit premature," George said. "Certainly there are discussions and people are talking about whether the (football) season will start. You read a lot of different things online, and hear a lot of things about starting at different time frames. I think it is too early for us to discuss."

CU also expects to lose money due to the stock market crashing, fans subsequently losing their jobs and donors taking a big hit on their businesses.

"Discretionary spending with the market, what does that do for some of the fans that have to make those very difficult choices on how they spend their money?" George said. "We'll have to look at that carefully and we'll have to make some projections on what that looks like. Again, as the market continues to go backward, how is that going to impact our donations?"

With the football season in limbo, incomes down and everything else seemingly up in the air. There are no athletic departments currently in good standing. The only thing to hope for is some type of football season next year.