In just more than four months, high school football season is scheduled to kick off across Tennessee, bringing with it the return of a much-needed sense of normalcy.
However, a return to any playing field for high school sports will depend on concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic improving.
When the TSSAA was forced to cancel the remainder of the girls’ and boys’ state basketball tournaments as well as the entire spring sports season because of the pandemic, it cost the state’s prep sports governing body $1.1 million in lost revenue.
Executive director Bernard Childress said the financial reserve the TSSAA has built through the years will ensure the organization can withstand such losses. But should health concerns linger and force campuses to remain closed into next school year – either severely cutting into or canceling football season outright – Childress admitted the TSSAA could not recover from the resulting financial losses.
“To lose football would be devastating,” Childress said. “I cannot see a scenario where we could survive losing football, plain and simple. It’s no secret that you could combine the postseason for every other sport and it wouldn’t add up to what football brings in. There are several other sports where even the championship tournaments actually lose money.