By the numbers: The cost of furloughing service academy sports

The trickle-down effect of the government shutdown has spilled onto the football field for the foreseeable future. 

For fans and alumni of the service-academy football programs, this weekend's Air Force-Navy and Army-Boston College games have gone from "must-see" to "we'll see." The games are potentially on the chopping block as part of the shutdown, which has restricted all other intercollegiate sporting events involving service academies. 

But 32 miles away from the home of the shutdown, the uncertainty surrounding the future of Navy football's season has left local businesses and officials in Annapolis, Md., wondering what the economic hit could be without Navy football in the fall.

"When a game of this magnitude comes to our city, it definitely has a big economic impact," Bob Burdon, president and CEO of the Annapolis Chamber of Commerce, told America Tonight on Wednesday. "If the game is postponed or canceled, we’re going to feel it here in Annapolis. Although we’re the state capital of Maryland, we’re a small business community." Burdon added: "If for some unfortunate set of circumstances that the members of Congress can't get their stuff together and this budget impasse stretches on, it'll turn into significant lost economic opportunities that our businesses are not accustomed to seeing this time of the year."

With Washington lawmakers indicating that the shutdown could last for weeks, the question of when Air Force, Army and Navy can get back on the football field has become an issue not just for local economies, but for the other athletics programs at the service academies. In the 2013 report on Revenues and Expenses of NCAA Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Programs, NCAA research consultant Daniel Fulks found that 60 percent of college football programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision turn a profit. In the FBS, football ticket sales, in large part, help fund the sports that don't make money.

"The number-one revenue source in the FBS is ticket sales," Fulks, accounting program director at Transylvania University, told America Tonight. "Football drives the train for all the other sports, especially at the service academies."

Yet, there's still hope. Navy is expected to make a decision by Thursday at noon on whether they'll play Air Force on Saturday. The Colorado Springs Gazette reported Wednesday that there's a “50-50 chance” that the game will be played. In that scenario, Air Force would use conference fees and conference TV money from the Mountain West Conference, as well as ticket revenue, to make up for a lack of government funding. Late Wednesday, ESPN reported that the Department of Defense was close to potentially allowing this weekend's games to go on.

Even if this weekend's games do go on, what does it mean moving forward for these athletics programs, and the 20 total games left on their football schedules, if the shutdown goes on for weeks? America Tonight goes behind the numbers of how the government shutdown affects service-academy athletics and their local economies.