Orlando Sentinel: Gators AD Scott Stricklin: Canceling football ‘would shake financial foundation of college athletics’

[Nostical]

I'll feel more confident about the football season moving forward when I hear that Anthony Fauci has been hired as the new defensive coordinator at LSU.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

To some extent it's comforting that Herbstreit's logic isn't based in a lot of science-based logic of how pandemics end and instead on loosely-pieced nuggets of information and some leaps to conclusions.

I'm not saying at all that he's 100% wrong, but that his scenario discounts a lot of what can happen between now and the fall. I'd encourage him and anyone else interested to read this article: How the Pandemic Will End

 

[LBird33]

The coronavirus crisis may accelerate the superconference theory many have predicted, especially in football. AFC/NFC style conferences made up of the top 5-6 from the current P5. No reason Rutgers, BC, Wake, Vandy, Cuse deserve to make the same as Ohio State, Bama, Clemson, Texas, USC, etc.

Maybe true but I think in the end. It will create a deeper death spiral - revenue longer term will plateau and shrink as the millennials move into their top earning years. I don’t think find an exclusive sports conference interesting. They seem more the type to open up the competition.

 

[huskymedic]

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[Waquoit]

I want college football, period. I don't like the set up and how UConn got screwed by the ACC, ESPN and the old Big East.
You can't cut off your nose to spite your face

Rooting against the status quo isn't cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's enlightened self-interest. If the entire current system collapses, that's good for UConn. CFB wouldn't go away and perhaps UConn gets a better deal in the rebuild.

 

[Watchdog]

To some extent it's comforting that Herbstreit's logic isn't based in a lot of science-based logic of how pandemics end and instead on loosely-pieced nuggets of information and some leaps to conclusions.

I'm not saying at all that he's 100% wrong, but that his scenario discounts a lot of what can happen between now and the fall. I'd encourage him and anyone else interested to read this article: How the Pandemic Will End

The author quoted a British university prediction of 500,000 deaths in the UK and 2.2 million in the USA. That prediction has now been revised to 20,000 deaths in the UK (no word on a revision to the USA prediction). Too much premature speculation about a problem that only became known to the world on December 31, 2019 and which has only exploded in numbers over the past two months. First case here on January 21. We are doing studies now that should have started in December at the latest but China prevented that.

China hid this virus from the world for over six weeks (November 17 to December 31) and then told the WHO that it was not transmissible from human to human, then imprisoned doctors who divulged its presence (a number of whom have mysteriously disappeared), then destroyed early case samples of the virus, then refused to provide samples to Western scientists who could have started sequencing the genome in December instead of January, then expelled journalists from the NY Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal who were asking too many questions and now China goes around the world providing supplies and ventilators to the countries suffering as a result of their wanton failure to tell the world the truth about what likely escaped from their bioweapons lab in Wuhan.

 

[Redding Husky]

The coronavirus crisis may accelerate the superconference theory many have predicted, especially in football. AFC/NFC style conferences made up of the top 5-6 from the current P5. No reason Rutgers, BC, Wake, Vandy, Cuse deserve to make the same as Ohio State, Bama, Clemson, Texas, USC, etc.

Could be. But an elite group of 32 teams would be so boring. College football will never succeed as a junior NFL.

 

[polycom]

Could be. But an elite group of 32 teams would be so boring. College football will never succeed as a junior NFL.

To you. It’ll likely work because recruiting will change. The best players would go to those 32 schools and then there would be everyone else. Why would anyone watch the everyone else? Unless they were fans of a particular school

 

[billybud]

Already sort of that way with the 65 P5 programs.....

Just winnow out the Wake Forests. Indianas, Rutgers, Vanderbilts, etc.

 

[06029]

Already sort of that way with the 65 P5 programs.....

Just winnow out the Wake Forests. Indianas, Rutgers, Vanderbilts, etc.

And then the super conference is 500 records since they are almost all equal (not likely) or some schools rise and then complain that the bottom half don’t pull their weight, just like now.

 

[Watchdog]

To you. It’ll likely work because recruiting will change. The best players would go to those 32 schools and then there would be everyone else. Why would anyone watch the everyone else? Unless they were fans of a particular school

Good point about recruiting, but I'm not sure that would be much of a change. Isn't that the way it already is except for the late bloomers and Edsall-type "finds" the top 32 miss on?

As to viewership and game attendance, I wonder if forming a super league of 32 wouldn't just speed up the death of college football television contracts and ultimately college football entirely.

The FL AD knows what a shutdown this fall due to the virus would do to football revenue and it doesn't seem an overstatement to figure the grads and fans of the Non-32 would walk away from the sport if their school has no chance to beat one of the 32 and its league TV contract is miniscule compared to the 32. Too little money combined with limited exposure and already declining attendance would seem to be a recipe for schools to shut down their programs.

The field of 68 makes the BB tournament special because of the potential for upsets and the fans of the smaller schools dream of their school making the tournament and having a chance to do what UMBC did to mighty Virginia two years ago.

If few or no graduates or fans of the Non-32 cared about football anymore, ratings would fall, advertising rates would plummet and soon the whole house of cards would collapse.

 

[ccsuphanner]

Hate to see it.

 

[SU1968]

This shouldn't affect P-5 football. NCAA receives nothing from P-5 football and the distribution is from other sports' income. Cancelling March Madness and the conference tournaments is where this loss is coming from.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Just saw something saying they may actually try to move up the season to run July-September to play in what they expect to be the dormant summer months.

 

[huskymedic]

Just saw something saying they may actually try to move up the season to run July-September to play in what they expect to be the dormant summer months.

Context

 

[huskymedic]

 

[billybud]

 

[polycom]

People need to just get over that CFB isn't happening this year... If it does happen it will be with no fans, the warm weather thing isn't true I thought.

 

[kingdobbs]

People need to just get over that CFB isn't happening this year... If it does happen it will be with no fans, the warm weather thing isn't true I thought.

The current understanding and hypothesizing on the subject of the novel coronavirus and how warmer weather impacts it is something like “yeah, transmission rates may slow in the summer: people are less crammed together into buildings and in close quarters, more exposure to sunlight has a small positive benefit to our immune responses as well as stronger likelihood of UV light affecting the virus itself when it is airborne or on objects exposed to sunlight, we suspect this virus is similar to most in that it has a particular level of temperature and relative humidity in which it incubates and spreads the best, and doesn’t thrive as well when humidity or temperature increases, and the simple depletion of potential hosts as more and more people get infected and either recover or die over time. With this all being said, it is highly unlikely in this case that this alone will stop the virus dead and it is highly likely we will see a resurgence in fall and winter.”

Or in a tl;dr, summer won’t be the miraculous end of the virus, but if we aren’t idiots and don’t get complacent, it won’t come back as Coronavirus 2: Virus Harder or skip straight to Coronavirus 3: Virus with a Vengeance

 

[DarthGrumpy]

The sheer volume of people involved in major college fotball games will male the healthcare professional very nervous. While Covid-19 should make its way trhough the big metros over the 3 months (end of June), it will likley be making a slow crawl through the smaller cities and rural areas like Tuscaloosa and Amarillo, Bloomington, Stillwater, etc. during the summer. Those cities likely do not have the medical facilities to help their own residents, never an additional 30,000 students when they move back into town. Not to mention the effects of a second wave of infections as a result of cramming 100K people into Texas Memorial Stadium and then having those folks scatter to the 4 course of the US afterwards.

 

[freescooter]

Pure guess on my part but assuming the pandemic is under control by June I don’t see a summer season being at all viable. Late June at best before life returns to normal and if we actually succeed in flattening the curve it might actually be longer before normal life fully returns. My guess is that the season gets moved back a few weeks and ends up as maybe 10 games. We could actually get really screwed since teams are more likely to play their league games.
On the baby NFL I do think that is going to happen and this could speed it along. Though I also think it is doomed to failure. It will involve paying players and all manner of nonsense. I could even see Alabama trading their back up left guard to Texas for a future scholarship though they won’t exactly call it that. They’ll say he transferred. LOL. But I also suspect that it will ultimately fail as virtually all non-nfl minor leagues have since the AFL merger. All it would take would be a few NFL Saturday games. And given the new 17 game schedule that is far from impossible. As for the others I could actually see a return to rationality. The BCs and Indiana’s and Wake Forests of the world stop spending millions chasing what they’ll never get and return to playing college football at a good level against regional opponents.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[Waquoit]

"Said one AD: "If there’s no (football) season, we will be duck***”

That's our edge and we need to take advantage of it. If there's no season, we save money!

 

[UConnTrumbull]

What about making college football a spring sport for next season. Better than losing millions, no?

 

[huskymedic]

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Ohio State has moved all of its summer classes to online, I suspect many other universities will do the same. Some are regarding this as the first domino to fall in eventual postponement/cancellation of fall sports.

That may be the case, but I'm hesitant to jump to that conclusion now for a few reasons:
- Students enrolled in summer classes generally have made or are currently making their housing decisions right now. Therefore, this information is necessary for them to have now.
- The amount of summer classes is far less than the general school year, and is more easily completed online.
- This allows professors the time to tailor their class structure to an online model.
- This does *not* preclude athletes from moving into dorms for late July/early August if it's deemed safe to do so.
- This actually increases the viability of a return to normalcy on campus in the fall semester as it provides more time for proper maintenance/cleaning/infrastructure planning to handle everyone returning in fall if it's deemed safe.
- No decision on fall sports needs to be made at this time. That decision can easily be made in two months on June 1 when there's much more information on where we stand nationally. That would give teams/coaches about two more months before anyone would realistically be back on campus.
- No decision on NCAA fall sports will be made prior to NBA, NHL, and MLB making decisions on their current seasons.

Knee-jerk decisions for events far down the line serve no purpose. If you cancel everything now based on panic, it only further infuriates the public and reduces the chances they comply with necessary physical distancing orders that are vital right now. If you tell everyone now that the seasons are going forward, it only fuels doubt. Logic and rational decision-making are even more important than normal in times like these.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[huskymedic]

 

[huskymedic]