Greene: Auburn bracing for 'some sort' of financial impact
Allen Greene doesn't want to think about the possibility of not having a football season on the Plains.
Auburn's third-year athletic director has already seen spring sports dashed, along with the final chapter of winter-sport athletes' season's washed away.
While he'd rather not put that image of an empty Jordan-Hare Stadium in his head, that, along with other long-term financial impacts at Auburn, have to be considered at this point of the country's fight against the coronavirus.
"I’ll kind of refer to (Greg) Sankey’s comments," Greene said Friday during a teleconference with reporters. "He’s mentioned about being optimistic about playing the upcoming football season and all sports and getting back to some sort of normalcy. I do think we have to have some conversations about what the world would look like if there wasn’t a football season, even though we’re planning on playing one.
"I would say if there wasn’t a football season, that would be a sizable financial impact. To what degree? Uncertain."
Greene and Auburn do, though, have to assess their current financial situation as it stands with so many cancellations and standstills across Auburn athletics.
While the athletic director will undoubtedly continue to be a beacon of optimism at Auburn as long as he needs to be, Greene said he and his colleagues have to be smart and realistic at this crossroads.
“It’s something we have been discussing, just in terms of broader picture," Greene said of how Auburn is preparing to be hit financially during the pandemic. "We cannot have a concrete answer on the budget impact. I think we all know and are preparing for some sort of a budget impact, but there’s still a lot to unfold. A lot has happened, but a lot more will unfold to give us a clearer picture.”
There are the obvious spring sports for Auburn — like baseball and softball — that saw their 2020 home schedules grounded when all sports were canned by the NCAA in accordance with national health recommendations to contain the virus. Ticket refunds and repurposings have already begun for Auburn in those departments.
Auburn men's basketball was one of 10 teams that didn't see the floor in the SEC Tournament before the cancellations. There will be no revenue for the Tigers from Nashville.
Bruce Pearl's Auburn basketball team was also hoping to make noise in March yet again during the 2020 NCAA tournament. Obviously, that event, too, was canceled altogether earlier this month.
This week, USA TODAY reported that many athletic directors across the country are moving forward with the assumption that the NCAA tournament will not be able to make up all its lost revenue to individual programs. The NCAA has $250 million-plus in insurance on its $600 million worth of scheduled tournament-related distribution — the latter number of which is expected to be reduced.
The 2020 A-Day spring game inside Jordan-Hare Stadium — which, granted, usually has just a $5 general entry fee — was canceled. A source close to the situation told AuburnSports.com that the football department was expecting an above-average crowd for its spring game next month.
And, obviously, Auburn did not budget months ahead of time expecting any of these events — usually routine boosts for its finances — to vanish.
Last fiscal year, Auburn reported a school-record of $152.4 million, including more than $13 million in profit.
"... I don’t know from our league’s perspective if it will be large, per se," Greene said. "I know large or small are relative, but we do expect there to be some sort of financial impact.”
On top of all that, Greene, along with all other athletic directors and coaches, still have to consider the scholarship logistics of spring-sport athletes possibly getting an extra year of eligibility after their seasons were cut short. The NCAA's Division-I council will vote on that eligibility relief March 30.
“You want to try to make that decision without thinking about finances, but you also have to recognize that there is some financial impact,” Greene said of the possible eligibility relief. “I think what’s going to drive the decision-making from an NCAA perspective and a campus perspective is really trying to do what’s in the best interest of the young people.”
Still, despite all the hiccups, there are athletic budget-related endeavors that are proceeding as planned. Planning and production for the new Football Performance Center is moving "full steam ahead," Greene said Friday, and Auburn is expecting to announce a location for the football-only facility by the end of the month.
Greene was happy to report that other athletic projects — such as ballpark renovations or small-scale upkeep across all sports — have not been drastically slowed as of this point.
"If we defer to our university position on capital projects, they're still moving forward," he said. "Again, things change so rapidly that it's hard to tell what tomorrow's going to bring. But we'll continue to press forward as long as we're able to."
Additionally, Greene said he and Auburn are hyper-sensitive right now to how athletics staffers and stadium workers — those that rely on a functioning wheel of Auburn athletics to turn for their livelihood — are being affected.
"The university sent out a statement — it might have been yesterday — that talked about our desire to take care of the people who work at the university," he said. "It's a little bit more challenging when there are people who are ancillary to the university or athletic department operations. There are still some things that we have to work through. But we're still sensitive to members of our community, of all communities, but particularly our community, who utilize our activities and events as a source of income."
It's ever-changing work for the AD — Greene likened the past week to "flying the airplane while we're building it" — and he's sure there will be more wrinkles added to the situation indefinitely. He and Auburn will be continue to attack each unprecedented challenge — "I don’t know how many times I have used the word unprecedented, but it has been more than I care to" — day by day.
"I hope that my batting average of hitting a curveball is better as an AD than it was as a player," Greene said.
