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It’s a subject athletic directors don’t like to discuss: The cost of the pandemic. It's significant.

Mike Bobinski knows the pain. The Purdue athletic director discussed the financial hardships the pandemic is causing during an interview on the Purdue radio network on Thursday.

A truncated football season and lack of fans at games mean less money for Purdue’s athletic department, which has undergone budget cuts and furloughs to help cope with the shortfall.

“Our people have been great about tightening the belt, and have been willing to accept sacrifice and focus on really what's necessary and not on what's nice to do,” said Bobinski. “Even personally, you know, accept different types of responsibilities, do their work differently, get paid less to do the same work, or do more work. Everyone has just really stepped up like you would expect Boilermakers to and have accepted that challenge and I'm really proud of the way they responded.”

How much of the Big Ten media money will Purdue be able to recoup?

“It’s still a moving target,” said Bobinski. “It'll be something less than, for sure, and millions less than what it ordinarily would have been. When you start out with a reduced schedule in both football and basketball, right out of the box, so you reduce the number of opportunities for our broadcast partners. And then in the midst of all that, you have cancellations on top of it which then further reduces value to our media partners.”

Bobinski estimates that because of the reduced schedule and subsequent cancellations, Purdue could land in the 70-80 percent range of what the original value might have been. If so, he feels the school will have done well in his estimations.

“That still leaves us with millions of dollars of shortfall,” said Bobinski. “Never mind the fact that we can't sell a ticket, we can't do all the other things that go into the large scale events that we typically have. So, it's a year of significant financial challenge.”

Another area that will cause financial strain: Coming up with money to pay for the scholarships of senior student-athletes who want to return in 2021-22 after the NCAA passed a waiver making 2020-21 a free season of eligibility.

“Conversations are underway with that group of young men,” said Bobinski. “Some are clearly ready to take the next step and move on with their lives and their personal and professional aspirations. And that's fully understood. The fortunate thing, I think, in our case, is to minimize the impact of that circumstances that we didn't have a large senior class. It’s not like we had 25 guys walking out the door. We had 12 or 13. And so, you know, the reality is probably half of those might be legitimately in play as to thinking about coming back.

"What we would do in that case would be able to use some private funds that have been given to us in support of the football program to be able to get us through that financial scholarship increase during that next year.”

Aside from the financial burden, the return of seniors also will cause rosters to be crowded.

“The coaches are going to have to deal with that reality and that sort of roster compression that this is going to cause,” said Bobinski.

The ultimate goal in all of this: The pandemic impacts just the 2020-21 school year.

“That is still my absolute focus and hope,” said Bobinski. “I don't want us to be burdened with the effects of this year down the road here. I think we'll be ahead of some of our peers if we can do that. So, that is an everyday conversation that I have with our team about how do we make sure that we do our very best to have this be just a 2020-21 problem, and not an ongoing issue. It will not be easy, but we are continuing to work towards that. I probably won't know the true answer to that, but that is our absolute hope and focus. I think we have a chance to make that happen.”

To help bridge the gap, Purdue has come up with a couple of initiatives. One is the “More Than A Game” campaign, the other is the “1869 Society.”

“The ‘More Than A Game’ campaign, I think at this point, is we're over $7 million, I believe, in commitments to this point," said Bobinski. "Compared to lots of our colleagues around the country, I'm incredibly grateful for that. The Purdue community has done what I thought they would do and that is really step up in a time of great need.

“The next initiative, the 1869 Society, which is really part of ‘More Than A Game’ campaign, is really focused on Purdue-led, Purdue-friendly businesses that would like to help us through this time. That was just launched a week or so ago, and the early response has been just terrific.”

Bobinski remains hopeful and feels Purdue is on a good path to working its way through this financially challenging time.

“We still have a ways to go,” said Bobinski. “We set an $18 million goal. I’d like to think we can get before the end of this month, I think, with some things that are about to happen, I think we'll get in the close to $10 million range, which is terrific. That target starts to look very real at that point in time. If we can get there, it'll really help us do what we talked about earlier and that's contain this to this year.”

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