DENVER — The decision to postpone or cancel the college football season could impact a University of Colorado sport that has earned 20 championships.
Not the football team.
Skiing has won the most titles at CU. Men's and women's cross country have won eight championships.
The CU football team has one college football title. That happened back in 1990. Nevertheless, the most successful sports at CU still rely on the money that football brings in.
The Mountain West Conference announced on Monday that fall sports would be postponed, which means Colorado State and Air Force are not playing football this year.
Just like at CU, CSU sports rely on the football revenue to keep the budgets balanced.
The presidents of the PAC-12 universities are supposed to talk on Tuesday and decide if football will be played or not.
In 2019, only two sports at all of Colorado's colleges earned revenue: CU football and CU men's basketball.
Every other sport, at every other college, including CSU football, lost money.
Last year, there were 685 student athletes at CU and CSU. Two-thirds of them did not play football.
But, it's a good thing football was played.
In 2019, CU football earned almost $13.8 million more than it cost to run the program.
Combined, women's basketball, men's and women's golf, women's lacrosse, men's and women's skiing, women's soccer, women's tennis, men's and women's cross country and track and field, and women's volleyball lost $12 million.
CU men's basketball earned almost $2.2 million in 2019.
CU skiing, the most successful program at CU, generated $860,250, but cost more than twice as much, at almost $1.8 million.
Maybe it's worth mentioning that the video attached to this story mistakenly only used the men's skiing revenue/expenses.
CU cross country and track and field earned $760,029, but ran through $3 million.
On the plus side, the expenses for CU will no longer include paying off fired football coaches.
The finances aren't much different in Fort Collins.
CSU football took $20 million last year, but the program cost $25 million.
CSU men's basketball cost $3 million more to run than it took in, and women's basketball cost nearly $2.2 million more than it earned.
Women's swimming and diving earned just $29,545 in revenue, but cost $961,185 to run the program.
Overall, the athletic department was up $1.7 million when you take into account sponsorships tied to football and revenue sharing from the NCAA and Mountain West Conference.
Before the announced postponement of the 2020 football season, CSU's Associate Athletic Director for Communications said, "It's a complicated financial structure, but suffice to say, a year without football would have significant financial impacts."
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