UC Athletics Surviving With Limited Crowds

With COVID numbers decreasing, the TSSAA will allow more people to attend winter sporting events beginning Monday.

Each school system will set attendance regulations. It could help schools that have seen crowd numbers and revenue way down in January.

Stone Memorial High School Athletic Director Lance Kennedy said the school has tried in recent years to be less dependent on gate receipts. Kennedy said advertisements on video boards have been the school’s biggest revenue generator.

“Gate wise, that’s kind of supplemental in a sense,” Kennedy said. “We can’t really depend on that to run the program.”

White County Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said normally basketball would be a revenue generating sport. Dronebarger said there are thousands of dollars being lost for big home games.

He said the school system can help the athletics budget with savings elsewhere.

“There’s a lot of places in which we have not spent money this year,” Dronebarger said. “Say in travel for administrators to different training and things like that. So, there’s been a little extra money to maybe help some of these programs and weather the storm, so to speak. We’ll plan to continue that through the Spring season of sports, as well.”

Dronebarger said the impacts go beyond gate receipts. He said the school band usually runs the concessions.

“We saw that in football season as well, if people aren’t able to come to the games,” Dronebarger said. “Football team’s not making money and the bands not making money either. They’ve felt that pinch here. Just recently, we’ve had to supplement their needs a little bit. I just signed a purchase order for some music stands that they needed to social distance their students a little bit more. That’s money they would have normally had in their account with the concession money.”

Kennedy said reduced travel has been a money saver. He said that a girls basketball tournament in Florida that was cancelled would have been one of the biggest expenses. Dronebarger said the real goal of this season, was to have a season. He said any athletic revenue deficits are not concerning at this time because of the system’s fund balance.