Not holding state championship events in spring sports this year could cost the University Interscholastic League about a quarter of a million dollars.
The real financial hit would come if there isn’t a high school football season next fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The UIL could lose upward of $1.5 million in net revenue in football. That is based on The Dallas Morning News’ review of UIL annual financial reports for the fiscal years of 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.
“It would certainly have a financial impact on us in a negative way,” UIL deputy executive director Jamey Harrison said. “Right now we’re working very hopefully to create plans that would allow us to get a football season in, even if it looks different than we typically see. But there is so much unknown right now. It’s difficult to predict.”
The UIL announced April 17 that it was canceling spring sports for the remainder of the school year and that it would not complete the boys basketball state tournament that was suspended March 12 after the Class A and 3A semifinals had been played. Dallas-area athletic departments haven’t felt the brunt of that.
“We are not losing anything [financially] from our district being shut down,” Dallas ISD athletic director Silvia Salinas said. “The postponement of spring sports means we do not have expenditures for those events. There have been no cuts to our budget.
“Although there are different ways to make money on hosting district and regional events, typically there is no money generated in doing so. Our department does not rely on revenue generated from hosting district and regional events for our annual operations.”
The UIL’s financial reports, which are listed on the league’s website, provide a good indication of how much the state’s governing body for public schools could stand to lose if life isn’t back to normal by next fall.
For the fiscal year of 2017-18 — which is the most recent report available online — the UIL had a net revenue of $1.62 million for football. That was after paying all expenses, including $425,106 to play the state championship games at the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium in Arlington and $551,316 in overage that was distributed among schools that participated in the title games.
“I would expect that [the 2017-18 revenue number] is fairly typical,” Harrison said. “That can vary to some degree, but I wouldn’t expect any substantive change outside of some issues where you go through three weeks of really bad weather that could impact that during a football playoff run.”
The net revenue for football in the fiscal year of 2017-18 was more than in 2015-2016 ($1.50 million) and 2016-17 ($1.58 million). The 2015-16 total was lower because the UIL paid less for the football state championship facility in 2016 ($440,460 for AT&T Stadium) than in 2015 ($535,939 for NRG Stadium in Houston), and the UIL made $374,673 more in state championship gate receipts in 2016 than in 2015.
The UIL generates revenue through postseason competitions, namely state championship events.
The UIL keeps 16% of the gross gate receipts for football playoff games for the bi-district round through the state quarterfinals, and it keeps 20% of the gross income from the football state championship games. The UIL receives 16% of the gate revenue, after officials’ expenses, for basketball playoff games from bi-district through regionals, and the league retains 16% of the gross income from state tournaments for volleyball, basketball, soccer, softball and baseball.
That money pays the bills.
The UIL reported total revenue of $12.36 million and total expenses of $11.80 million (including $4.43 million for salaries and wages) for the fiscal year of 2017-18. For athletics, the UIL had total revenue of $5.56 million and total expenses of $4.07 million.
Harrison said it’s too soon to provide a dollar figure for how much revenue could be lost as a result of canceling spring sports. The UIL has a force majeure clause in all of its contracts with state championship sites — which frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event (such as the COVID-19 outbreak) beyond their control arises — so the UIL did not have to pay a cancellation fee or pay for the venue when it couldn’t hold state championship events in 2020.
“Where we are in the academic year, outside of boys basketball, those events don’t generate much in the way of income,” Harrison said. “We’re in the beginning stages of running that analysis, but it’s going to take some time for us to have any real notion of what [the financial impact] is. We’ve been very fiscally responsible and intentionally maintained a fund balance that would allow us, should some weather situation or any other situation like this pandemic develop, to be able to survive it.”
The fund balance is essentially the UIL’s savings account, and the UIL had a fund balance of $5.90 million as of Aug. 31, 2018, according to the most recent financial report on its website. Harrison said the UIL hasn’t dipped into that yet, but that’s “because the year isn’t completed.”
Because of what it has saved up, the UIL has not had to cut back on staffing to offset the potential loss in revenue. Some colleges have announced that they will cut certain sports to save money, but the UIL has no plans to do likewise.
For the 2017-18 fiscal year, the UIL had a combined net revenue of $218,853 for the state championship events in softball, baseball, track and field, soccer, tennis and golf. Those were the spring sports that had their state championship events canceled this year.
State track ($111,746) and state baseball ($93,829) had the largest net revenues for state championships among those sports in 2017-18. The UIL lost money on state softball ($23,587) and state golf ($5,635).
That same fiscal year, the UIL had a net revenue of $136,548 for the boys basketball state tournament at the Alamodome in San Antonio, which was less than 2015-16 ($169,132) and 2016-17 ($149,251). Harrison said there will certainly be a negative financial impact from canceling this year’s boys basketball state tournament, but how much is unclear, because four semifinal games were completed and the contract with the Alamodome was for two weekends (the girls completed their state tournament there the week before the boys started).
Athletic directors for Frisco ISD and Richardson ISD expect their athletic budgets to be minimally affected by this spring’s cancellations. Mansfield ISD and Rockwall ISD have frozen athletic budget spending, with Rockwall ISD athletic director Russ Reeves saying, “We are being financially prudent, and our future decisions will be based on the direction of this crisis and how it will ultimately affect our community and the overall goals of Rockwall ISD in the long term.”
Despite all of that, schools throughout the state have expressed pessimism when communicating with the UIL.
“I would say there is a lot of uncertainty out there and there is a lot of fear that this will have a very negative impact on our schools,” Harrison said. “But nobody knows for sure what that is going to look like until we get a little closer to the end of this whole situation.”
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