Football executives across the AFL and NRL have begun to share their fears for the competitions and clubs over just how much money they will lose due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The NRL season opened on Thursday night in front of 21,363 fans at Parramatta’s Bankwest Stadium, while on Friday a combined 33,069 attended matches in Canberra and at Townsville’s new stadium.

Round one will be the last played with crowds in attendance before the NRL plans to go behind closed doors from round two.

However, the New Zealand government’s travel restrictions that have effectively shut down the Warriors could now force the league to postpone its season.

The AFL, which will begin its season with no fans this coming Thursday, and NRL acknowledge their seasons could be postponed if teams are forced into quarantine due to positive tests, as has happened in the NBA and English Premier League.

Models predicting a peak infection period in April or May could also lead to delays to protect players and staff but the AFL is now anticipating a potential government-enforced shutdown in June and July.

With the AFL’s season-opening blockbuster at the MCG to be played in front of 100,000 empty seats, Richmond chief executive Brendon Gale anticipates losses for some clubs to hit seven figures per game.

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“It’s hard (to predict) an average - it does really depend on club to club. It’s an impossible exercise because we don’t know the impact of this at this stage,” he told SEN on Saturday.

“We don’t know how long we’ll be playing games without crowds. Simple maths, if you look at our game on Thursday night we’d probably expect a crowd of around 90,000.

“A crowd of high 80s, 90,000, would probably return a gate of $1.2 to $1.4 million. That’s one game. You extrapolate that and it’s a big number.”

The Tigers were to split the profits from the traditional fixture with Carlton.

“It’s going to be a significant financial impost to all clubs,” Gale said.

Richmond CEO Brendon Gale anticipates losses of up to $1 million per game for some clubs. Credit: Con Chronis / Getty Images

“As I said we just don’t know, we’re flying blind. We don’t know I guess how long we’ll be impacted for.

“But they’re secondary considerations. Right now we’re worried about the health of the public at large, our football public, our football stakeholders and obviously our players and staff.”

Geelong, who pocket more than most AFL clubs due to their arrangement to play at Kardinia Park, expect to lose $1 million per game, president Colin Carter told the club’s season launch.

AFL clubs are yet to decide how to refund members but Gale anticipates a decision won’t be made until more is known about how the season will proceed.

Canberra Raiders chief executive Don Furner said hosting fans at Friday’s NRL home game had still affected their bottom line, with far worse to come.

Canberra Raiders CEO Don Furner believe they will lose up to $400,000 per game played behind closed doors. Credit: Tracey Nearmy / Getty Images

“That (crowd of 10,000) would have hurt us financially because we were tracking for 15,000 with our pre-sales,” he said.

“If we were having a home ground next week with zero crowd that’s a massive drop. We’ve got the Dragons in two weeks and that’s a really big draw for us so it’s going to be financially troubling.”

He said with no ticket sales, refunds to members and corporate hospitality, they will be in the red up to $400,000 per game.

“If we have no crowds for one game, no crowds for another game - all of a sudden it’s up to a million bucks roughly,” Furner said.

He said that club bosses had been in ongoing crisis talks with the NRL about assistance packages but couldn’t see how that could stretch to 16 clubs if the entire season was called off.

“As far as I know insurance doesn’t cover it so three or four weeks maybe but can’t imagine they could cover a season,” Furner said.

“They can’t save 16 clubs. The costs aren’t there without crowds but neither is the revenue. We still have to pay the players, still have to pay the staff - it’s hard to fathom.”

While playing behind closed doors is hurting clubs, one line of thought is that postponing the seasons before it becomes necessary could cost the leagues and clubs double.

In addition to empty stadiums, failing to fit some of the fixtured games into the calendar upon resumption would lead to lost TV revenue from their billion-dollar deals.