I disagree with this.
Football, the game, can happen with things back in session.
But there's a big difference between that and inviting tens of thousands of people into town. That's just asking for an outbreak that could cause the school itself to have to shut down again and the school needs to do everything it can to reduce the chances of that.
It would make the case for the university providing some support to the AD (because attendance $$ is being shut off to protect the academic mission of the school), but the university already expects to lose a fuckload of money from this.