Rick George is excited about what's ahead despite $18-20 million deficit

BOULDER — 2020 was a difficult year for just about everybody and the CU Athletic Department is no exception.

Colorado’s athletic director, Rick George, addressed the media on Thursday, the first day of the final quarter of the 2020-21 fiscal year. As expected, the news wasn’t all good.

George expects to run a deficit somewhere between $18-20 million this year, the same projection he offered last time he spoke with reporters, ahead of the Alamo Bowl. The exact amount of the deficit won’t be known until early this summer, but that amount will be borrowed from the Pac-12 and repaid by reducing or eliminating the conference’s financial distributions to the school in coming year. For reference, the conference distributed just over $32 million to each school for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

This year, the payouts won’t be as big. The Pac-12 didn’t hold as many competitions in this fiscal year because of Covid, which reduces the TV revenue, which is the single greatest source of revenue for the Pac-12. And the games that were played were largely played in empty arenas, which also cuts down Colorado’s revenue.

“We’re about 50% off in our revenue and that has to do with the fact that we didn’t have any fans in our stadium or arena this year, paying fans, and we’re probably down about 50% in conference distribution,” George said. “So, those two numbers combined put us kind of where we are.”

Ticket sales, at least in theory, should be back to normal next year. All adults in Colorado will be allowed access to the Covid-19 vaccine on Friday, leaving almost five months for enough people to be vaccinated for the state and county to allow fans. Thursday is also Opening Day for the Colorado Rockies and the state allowed the Rockies to fill 21,000 of their 50,000 seats for the early stretch of the season.

“We’ll work with with the county and we’ll work with the state and our hope is is that (the regulations) will be consistent across the entire state,” George said. “If everybody can start getting vaccinated starting tomorrow, I think that gives us great hope that we’ll be able to come back and be able to put a lot of fans in Folsom Stadium and in our events center.”

While George said he’s cautiously optimistic, he also said that there’s no guarantee he’ll be allowed to fill Folsom.

“We’ve had to adjust in a variety of different ways over the past 13 months and I still see some of that as we move forward but we’ll lay out our plan,” George said.

Ticket sales would be huge for Colorado’s financial situation but there’s already some help on the way.

The NCAA Tournament splits some of its profit among the teams that participate. For each game a team plays, the team earns one unit. Each unit equates to between $300,000 and $350,000 per year for the next six years for that teams conference. The Pac-12 earned 19 units in the 2020 tournament, which will be worth more than $3 million for every Pac-12 school, not just those who participated in the tournament.

The Pac-12’s spectacular showing in the tournament won’t save the Buffs from their current predicament, though.

“We won’t see the impact of that in this fiscal year and we’ll see what impact it has on next fiscal year, and where those units are,” George said. “But I think from a perception standpoint, I think our conferences made a significant statement.”

The statement that the Pac-12 sent is that it isn’t to be overlooked any longer by the national media. George was bothered by the fact that Colorado was the Pac-12’s highest-ranked Pac-12 team at the end of the regular season, despite sitting at No. 22. George has long said that conference performance is cyclical and that the decline in Pac-12 basketball in recent years would end. He was proven right over the past few weeks and now the question is whether the same theory will hold true on the football side.

“We’ve scheduled non-conference (games) in football really well this year,” George said. “If you look at our conference schedule we have a number of key matchups against the Big Ten, SEC, the Big 12 and the ACC, so I think this will be an opportunity for our football programs around our conference to do some significant things with these non-conference games.”

One of the marquee non-conference matchups for the Pac-12 is when Colorado will meet Texas A&M in Denver in early September.

“I think that’s going to be great exposure for our program and I think they’ve already been listed as a top-five team in the country, so that’ll give us an opportunity to kind of see where we’re at,” George said.

If fans are in the stands, that game figures to be one of many that will help Colorado bounce back financially from a tough 2020.

“I think we’ve got a great home schedule in football and men’s basketball,” George said. “I think we could fill (the stadiums), if we have the opportunity to do that.”

Filling the stadium would go a long way toward recouping CU’s losses, and there’s plenty of other reasons to be excited. The athletic department posted its best ever cumulative GPA in the fall. It was so high that it matched the average for the general student population for the first time ever. Of 16 total varsity sports, 15 were playing at the same time and the various staffs within the department were able to handle the overload. Six of those teams have concluded their seasons, and many have posted notable successes

“It’s been a really difficult few months—actually, 13 months that it’s been really challenging for our staff—but everybody stayed together,” George said. “We’ve got an incredible team over here. I’m excited about what’s ahead, what next year could potentially look like.”