He isn’t alone, of course. There’s been a void in the sports world the past two months, especially in sports-starved Nebraska, its main squeeze no longer producing any juice with no spring game, no sidelines full of recruits, no near-daily updates about the inner-workings of the Huskers.
There is a craving for football, which Moos understands.
But the bottom line is, even cash-flush Nebraska needs that football money. It’s now halted the groundbreaking of the new $155 million football facility and forces Moos to make “tough decisions,” he said last week.
“If the football season doesn’t look like a traditional season, we’re out millions and millions upon millions of dollars,” Moos told The World-Herald. “It’s eye-opening, to say the least.”
According to Nebraska’s 2019 financial year report, NU brought in a total of $35 million of revenue in seven home games in 2018, all of which were sold out. With its relatively minimal expenses, that’s $32 million of net income from home football games that helps fuel NU’s athletic budget.
If capacity for the 2020 season fell to 20,000 or 30,000 fans, as some in the sport have suggested, Nebraska could lose as much as $27 million of game-day revenue, slicing total game day revenue to only $8 million.
The $27 million is significant, and consider this: It is almost the exact cost of running all 12 of Nebraska’s non-revenue sports for one school year, according to figures in Nebraska’s 2019 financial report. In 2019, it cost $26.9 million for NU to field teams in beach volleyball, rifle, bowling, baseball, golf, wrestling, swimming and diving, tennis, softball, soccer, gymnastics, cross country and track and field.
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