BATON ROUGE - Business owners who shut down when the coronavirus outbreak started are now heartbroken there won't be any Southern football fans to drive business this fall.

"We're going to miss those dollars that would normally be trickling in on our home games,"  Chicken Shack General Manager Troy Carter said.

There will be no cheers from Mumford Stadium at Southern University until at least the spring.

The Southwest Athletic Conference put a pause on fall sports, in turn making the football season here another victim of COVID-19.

"When there's a home game, it's crazy at all three of our locations. But we would rather sacrifice a little business than to sacrifice somebody's life," Carter said.

Carter says football season is normally Chicken Shack's busiest time of year. And it's not just at his place.

Howard White owns Top Choice, an apparel store, and he's worried about the already sluggish economy.

"For North Baton Rouge, Southern is the key driver of economics during football season. Without football season, there's going to be a difference. Even if the season would have happened and you couldn't tailgate, that would have been a huge drop. But now, we're at zero," White said.

White says jerseys, flags, and other apparel may not be flying off the shelves right now, but he's hopeful for a recovery in the spring.