Can we Start Football too?

[John Greene]

I'll make one additional point, and it has nothing to do with whether you're viewing this with red or blue glasses.

We couldn't afford to play football. With no revenue from attendance, and minimum TV revenue playing a revised schedule no one would care about, and an Athletic Department that is seriously in the red anyway, would someone who thinks we should be giving this a go explain where the money was going to come from not just from travel but the constant testing and quarantining that would have been required to make this work?

The SEC TV contracts allow Alabama to take that money and spend it on the extra costs of playing during the pandemic. Where do any of you who think we should be playing think the money was coming from for UConn to absorb all these extra costs with almost zero revenue? Were the players and their parents who want to be playing going to pay for it?

Unfortunately, this is the 'elephant in the room' for UConn FB. Will the revenue be there when this is all over. Most here hope and pray it will be. However if the P5 and their media partners end up liking their conference heavy schedules with just a couple of marque OC games it may put UConn's revenue stream from FB in question.

 

[HeGotGame]

And they all quarantine after the storm.

For 14 days? No, and neither did MLB players after a single test. Nor NFL players.

 

[UConnJim]

Unfortunately, this is the 'elephant in the room' for UConn FB. Will the revenue be there when this is all over. Most here hope and pray it will be. However if the P5 and their media partners end up liking their conference heavy schedules with just a couple of marque OFC games it may put UConn's revenue stream from FB in question.

I'm not worried about schools playing more conference games. Why? The big schools make money by having home games and they currently (generally) play 7 home games. If they played 10 conference games, they would probably get reduced to 6 home games per year and take a financial and fan hit.

What I am worried about is the competitiveness of UConn football. If UConn football starts winning games and being competitive in most games, fans will come out and support the team. Remember, in 2014, Diaco went 2-10 and the team scored more than 21 points once in a game and the team averaged 23k per game. In 2015, UConn went 6-6 in the regular season and averaged 28.2k fans with a home slate of Villanova, Army, Navy, USF, ECU, and Houston.

 

[Fairfield_1st]

Also, if the players are tested regularly please tell me why they cannot go visit "ma and pa for four months"? You seem to be missing what the schools that are playing are doing and some basic facts about testing and important stuff like that.

You have far more faith in the process than I do. I doubt CSU is the only school lying about testing given the amount of money on the line. Some of the coaches would do anything, in my jaded opinion.

Colorado State Football Players Claim COVID Coverup

Colorado State University football players and staff claim coaches applied pressure to continue practice and cover-up player symptoms amid a COVID-19 spike.

www.athleticbusiness.com

 

[huskyrob1]

I'll make one additional point, and it has nothing to do with whether you're viewing this with red or blue glasses.

We couldn't afford to play football. With no revenue from attendance, and minimum TV revenue playing a revised schedule no one would care about, and an Athletic Department that is seriously in the red anyway, would someone who thinks we should be giving this a go explain where the money was going to come from not just from travel but the constant testing and quarantining that would have been required to make this work?

The SEC TV contracts allow Alabama to take that money and spend it on the extra costs of playing during the pandemic. Where do any of you who think we should be playing think the money was coming from for UConn to absorb all these extra costs with almost zero revenue? Were the players and their parents who want to be playing going to pay for it?

Open your checkbook counselor.

 

[huskyrob1]

I will trust the official statement by the players over anecdotal comments from posters on here. Of course there will be a few players who want to play, but the majority made the decision to not play.

UConn was going to struggle to cobble together a season and schedule. The risk wasn't worth it. Add in difficulty in testing (slow turnaround time, fake positive, etc) and unknown long term impacts of the virus, and it's easy to see playing football this fall isn't worth the risk.

Only fake positive is you.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

Only fake positive is you.

What does that mean?

 

[John Greene]

I'm not worried about schools playing more conference games. Why? The big schools make money by having home games and they currently (generally) play 7 home games. If they played 10 conference games, they would probably get reduced to 6 home games per year and take a financial and fan hit.

What I am worried about is the competitiveness of UConn football. If UConn football starts winning games and being competitive in most games, fans will come out and support the team. Remember, in 2014, Diaco went 2-10 and the team scored more than 21 points once in a game and the team averaged 23k per game. In 2015, UConn went 6-6 in the regular season and averaged 28.2k fans with a home slate of Villanova, Army, Navy, USF, ECU, and Houston.

You are absolutely correct that the biggest programs love the extra home games but only if they can force feed the cupcakes to season ticket holders and fill the stadium for those games. That said, I have heard that at least one media partner has suggested to the SEC that the only way they can hope to keep their current payouts is by having more product that fans actually want to watch. Not saying this means that current contractual obligations are in question but going forward who knows. The point is that they may have to make some hard decisions that were not necessary in the past between an individual school's take on the buy opponent home game and the conference take on media rights.

 

[DoctorWho85]

You couldn't catch the As game because it was virused out by one positive player test. Good for Cubbies. My Yanks swept the Mets.

Excuse me the Mets won the first 2 games so most definitely wasn’t a sweep

 

[Huskygrad88]

No, never could do a postponement in college, never, be too impossible. For your sake please do not look up the amount of games that have been rescheduled due to hurricanes or other storms in recent years, it would blow your mind that adults can figure out how to utilize a calendar and the millions of dollars they have to make things

I do expect some can be rescheduled. Many of the hurricane impacted games were moved a few hours or a different day on the weekend though. Truly rescheduling for weeks/months later to account for infections will certainly be more of a challenge. College football Teams also face missing a couple of weeks due to a singular shutdown (potential quarantine). So, while some will be rescheduled, my guess is many more will be cancelled than in your hurricane comparison. Baseball is just a complete non-comparison...not a lot of day/night double header makeups in football.

 

[huskyrob1]

Genuine question. Why would you post that when anyone can easily look up legitimate news sources in 30 seconds indicating this represents students, not any of the other population you are trying to jam in there to get this fictitious 175k number. We can all disagree on the impact, whether they should play football, etc., but what is the point of making up random numbers? I really am interested.

I thought given that they have 38,000 and change undergrads, that post grads, employees, and Tuscaloosa natives driving through campus would amount to 175,000 give or take. Why don't you just post any legitimate news sources you found in 30 seconds.

 

[huskyrob1]

There's 80 year olds hiding in their homes and we're worried about football.

None of them are named Lou Holtz.

 

[cohenzone]

Excuse me the Mets won the first 2 games so most definitely wasn’t a sweep

Double header. Playing the Yankee farm team. Good job Mets.

 

[J187Money]

My son can't run cross country for Evansville but he can be an athletic trainer for a HS football team in Evansville. Yeah - that's safer.

Bottom line - if you aren't going to shut down and quarantine the entire country, at some point you just have to let people take the risks they WANT to take.

 

[huskyrob1]

Basketball is going to benefit from watching what is learned from large team sports played in Sept and October (ie college and pro football).

Basketball at Alabama won't benefit if 1200 students have tested positive. Yet shakey, cohen, and God knows who else haven't said boo about shutting down UConn basketball.

 

[Huskygrad88]

I thought given that they have 38,000 and change undergrads, that post grads, employees, and Tuscaloosa natives driving through campus would amount to 175,000 give or take. Why don't you just post any legitimate news sources you found in 30 seconds.

Over 1,000 students have tested positive for Covid-19 at University of Alabama since classes resumed | CNN

More than 1,000 students at the University of Alabama have tested positive for Covid-19 since classes resumed on the Tuscaloosa campus less than two weeks ago, according to the University of Alabama System.

www.google.com

Within the article it gets to the 1,200....The UA System coronavirus dashboard notes another 158 cases were recorded on campus over the course of the year prior to August 18, bringing the total to 1,201 cases. Classes resumed August 19.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

Basketball at Alabama won't benefit if 1200 students have tested positive. Yet shakey, cohen, and God knows who else haven't said boo about shutting down UConn basketball.

First...it is much easier to isolate a hoops team...fewer players. Second...it's not hoops season yet...how about we see where we are then? Third...why not take the anger down a notch.

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

There's 80 year olds hiding in their homes and we're worried about football.

Hey now, Nick Saban and Mack Brown are out and about during their respective campuses' non-events.

 

[huskymedic]

Stop being scared of your own shadow. 1.5 million died of TB last year and which effects all age groups.

Fact check: Tuberculosis is more dangerous than COVID-19, but context matters

A post claims COVID-19 public health measures should be taken for tuberculosis. But it's not a public health concern in the USA.

www.usatoday.com

>>Though tuberculosis is a deadlier disease than COVID-19, geographic, socioeconomic and public health context is lacking from this claim. We rate this claim as MISSING CONTEXT. Tuberculosis has existed for far longer than COVID-19, and making comparisons in terms of cases and mortality is not equivalent. The greatest burden of tuberculosis rests primarily in developing countries in Africa and southeast Asia and those with a high prevalence of HIV infection. The disease is not a significant concern in the USA and does not necessitate that everyone engage in mask-wearing, social distancing and other preventive measures, especially as tuberculosis is easily preventable and curable.<<

BTW - TB is @ an all-time low in the US.

 

[Exit 4]

at some point you just have to let people take the risks they WANT to take.

I'm just looking ahead wondering when that point might come and it has to come. I'm thinking it will be in Jan Feb as we start looking to spring 2021. If the colder weather of November, December and January doesn't usher in an explosion in cases in the northeast, there will be a big push to loosen things up regardless of the state of vaccines. People will have had a enough and have decided things should be open and those that don't want exposure will just have to figure that out on their own way. And those vaccines which are coming eventually will take a long while to roll out and many will resist taking it.

 

[uconnbill]

There are long term health complications with Covid that we’re just starting to understand, and I’m a young person that wants to live the rest of my 50+ years on earth with full lung and heart function. But go off king.

They don't know that and there is no proof of it. You can be scared and stay in your house but with suicides increasing among young people that is a bigger risk. Again look at the stats and stop adding your personal thoughts and fears. 25% of the young people have seriously though about suicide since Covid started. That is the real issue, not the issue that doesn't have stats to back it up, just theories.

 

[uconnbill]

Fact check: Tuberculosis is more dangerous than COVID-19, but context matters

A post claims COVID-19 public health measures should be taken for tuberculosis. But it's not a public health concern in the USA.

www.usatoday.com

>>Though tuberculosis is a deadlier disease than COVID-19, geographic, socioeconomic and public health context is lacking from this claim. We rate this claim as MISSING CONTEXT. Tuberculosis has existed for far longer than COVID-19, and making comparisons in terms of cases and mortality is not equivalent. The greatest burden of tuberculosis rests primarily in developing countries in Africa and southeast Asia and those with a high prevalence of HIV infection. The disease is not a significant concern in the USA and does not necessitate that everyone engage in mask-wearing, social distancing and other preventive measures, especially as tuberculosis is easily preventable and curable.<<

BTW - TB is @ an all-time low in the US.

What about the suicide rate increasing as it is since Covid and those seriously thinking about suicide? Mental health has been ignored through this entire pandemic and what it is doing to children, teens and young adults.

 

[phillionaire]

They don't know that and there is no proof of it. You can be scared and stay in your house but with suicides increasing among young people that is a bigger risk. Again look at the stats and stop adding your personal thoughts and fears. 25% of the young people have seriously though about suicide since Covid started. That is the real issue, not the issue that doesn't have stats to back it up, just theories.

Im not staying in my house, I just don’t think football should come back because the risks to UNPAID student athletes isn’t worth it in my opinion. And the suicidal ideation probably has more to do with the lack of a social safety net in our country than not being able to watch football.

 

[huskymedic]

What about the suicide rate increasing as it is since Covid and those seriously thinking about suicide? Mental health has been ignored through this entire pandemic and what it is doing to children, teens and young adults.

Different argument and a fair relative point but just wanted to point out that you really can't compare TB and Covid in the US.

 

[UConnJim]

You are absolutely correct that the biggest programs love the extra home games but only if they can force feed the cupcakes to season ticket holders and fill the stadium for those games. That said, I have heard that at least one media partner has suggested to the SEC that the only way they can hope to keep their current payouts is by having more product that fans actually want to watch. Not saying this means that current contractual obligations are in question but going forward who knows. The point is that they may have to make some hard decisions that were not necessary in the past between an individual school's take on the buy opponent home game and the conference take on media rights.

For a school like Alabama, one football game brings in $5 to $6 million in revenues just for tickets and that does not include donations, concessions, etc. That extra football game is huge. Alabama's accounting is funny for media rights and contributions as they had $48 million in media rights, but they only assigned $23.6 million to football and contributions were $6.3 million and only $265k was for football. So, who knows what that means.

One last point. The more in conference football games you play, the lower the inventory of games the conference can sell. For example, if the SEC went to 10 conference games vs 8 today, and the number of SEC home games went from 7 to 6 (5 SEC home games and 1 OOC home game), the SEC's TV inventory would drop from 98 games to 84 games. Add the drop in inventory to the loss of ticket sales and I don't see how they can change the current setup.