Heeke says not playing football would be 'devastating' for college sports

The thought of not having a college football season this year is something Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke has not put a lot of thought into. Mostly because he doesn't want to think about what it would look like for all sports at Arizona. Football is what drives college athletics because of the money it brings in through ticket sales and TV deals.

The revenue from college football trickles down to other sports and allows them to remain afloat in many instances. The COVID-19 pandemic has threatened to impact the college football season, but just how much remains uncertain.

When speaking with local Tucson media on Thursday, Heeke said he has not yet heard of any scenario where there will not be a college football season this year amid the myriad hypothetical situations that have been discussed.

College athletic departments know that not having a season would drastically change the landscape of the business they are in for the worse.

“I have not heard a ‘no college football season’ scenario,” Heeke said when asked about the worst-case scenario situation for this year. “It’s very important for the economic health of college athletics. ... For my colleagues around the country it is critical to all of us that we play college football, that it happens on some level. Without college football? Devastating to the overall college athletics enterprise. The resources that surround college football at a local level when you talk about tickets, donations and the revenue streams there but then you start to talk about the revenues from media packages, from the Pac-12 that are distributed among our college partners all the way up to the College Football Playoff media package.

“It just has an enormous amount of revenue streams that feed back into our universities, our athletic program and are important to the financial viability and health of our overall programs."

Heeke is moving ahead this spring planning to avoid that type of situation and his feeling is that there will be football this year, even if it has to come in a modified form. The deadline for season tickets has already been extended to June 1, and Heeke is planning for fans to be part of the games that are played in some fashion this fall with ticket revenue being part of the puzzle to make up for the losses caused by the current health crisis.

College football teams playing games this year is the easiest way Heeke views as an option for keeping athletic programs moving forward without having to drastically change how those programs operate.

"Healthy football and healthy basketball is really important for all of our programs otherwise it becomes very difficult to manage the expenses that surround the individual programs that we have across the board," he said.

"That’s something every campus will face, every athletic director and president will face if we lose a college football season. Again, it’s really important that we find a way to play college football and maintain some semblance of order.”

At this point Heeke said his current plan is figuring out a way to get UA's football team back on campus to begin preparations for a season and his hope is that all of the scheduled games this year can take place.

"Our full intention is to have competition in the fall for football," he said. "So, we are taking those steps to bring our players back for when that happens, and to be able to train and be out and prepared for a college football season."

READ: Major points of emphasis from Dave Heeke's latest media session