An LSU economist warns holding fan-less LSU Football games would hammer the Baton Rouge and LSU athletics budget.
Dr. Loren Scott says fans spent 58.6 million in new sales on LSU game days last year. He says that money finds its way all through the city economy.
“They are spending that on their place to stay when they are here, their gasoline, they go to the mall, and then the restaurants are of course huge gainers during the football weekend,” says Scott.
LSU Football made 56.6 million dollars in profit in 2019, while most of the other sports ran deficits. Scott says the cancellation of the football season could impair other sports’ ability to operate.
“You have six times more football people attending football games than the number two which is men’s basketball, so this is huge for the LSU athletic department, this is a big decision,” Scott
The season is still set to go ahead as usual, but no word has been given on the stadium experience, which can feature up to 102,000 people when full. Scott says turning that many people away would be devastating.
“The football season would be tough. If you think about it for the moment we have 64 parishes and 49 of them have a smaller population than the number of people who fit in that stadium,” says Scott.
COVID cases are spiking statewide, and in East Baton Rouge Parish in particular was the focus of a federal effort that has ferried in capacity to test over 5,000 more people per day.
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