The Crisis with College Athletics

By -

With championship tournaments and entire seasons being canceled, what are the implications for universities now that sports are put on hold?

NCAA Tournament March Madness 2020 Canceled
March Madness canceled from USAToday

On Thursday, March 12, 2020, the National Collegiate Athletic Association canceled all NCAA winter and spring championships, including the highly anticipated NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament lovingly referred to as March Madness due to the looming threat of the Coronavirus pandemic. This occurred only days after teams in the West Coast, Summit League, Southern, Patriot League, Ohio Valley, Northeast, Mountain West, Horizon League, Colonial, Big South, Atlantic Sun, and Missouri Valley Conferences completed their own conference championship tournaments and punched their tickets to the Big Dance. This also occurred only four days after NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball, Dan Gavitt, stated March Madness was going to take place as normal at all planned locations with fans in the stands.

Financial Impact

From the March Madness Tournament alone, the NCAA is estimated to lose approximately $800 million in revenue from television networks paying to broadcast the tournament. In addition, in a press release from NCAA, it was stated that it is planned to distribute $225 million to Division I members to focus on supporting college athletes. The distribution for 2020 was originally budgeted to be a total of $600 million. Division II is currently projected to receive only $13.9 million for the entire division, which is $30 million less than what was received last year. In addition, Division III will see a decrease of $22 million, with only 3.18% of actual revenue being received, which is projected to be $10.7 million for the division.
College NCAA Championships Canceled on March 12, 2020
Initial Championship Cancelations on Thursday, March 12, 2020, from ESPN

Eligibility Impact

With seasons like men’s and women’s basketball, gymnastics, and wrestling being cut short, other seasons were canceled prior to truly beginning. Spring collegiate sports including softball, baseball, track and field, golf, tennis, beach volleyball, rowing, and lacrosse were shut down on that same day before some even saw its first home game. This begged the question, what was to happen for college athletes who were on their last year of eligibility? That answer came on March 30, 2020, when the Division I Council voted to allow universities to grant spring-sport athletes an extra year of eligibility. They also gave universities the opportunity to use the NCAA’s Student Assistance Fund to pay for students’ scholarships that choose to use the eligibility extension in the 2020-21 season. While this is a great step, the decision will ultimately come down to individual coaches and schools on whether or not they will allow athletes to return, or if there is simply not enough funding or space to keep them.

What Lies Ahead

While fans everywhere wait anxiously for the start of the next school year to see their favorite schools begin to compete again there is still major uncertainty that lies ahead. Fates of Fall 2020 sports like Football and Volleyball still remain a mystery. Whether the start of the season is going to begin on time, or if there is going to be fans in the stands to watch are questions that are still left to be answered. One thing is for certain: collegiate sports as we know them are far from going back to normal.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Major League Conundrum

By -
Image
The live entertainment industry, specifically North American professional sports leagues, are arguably taking the hardest hit from the wave of cancellations that have plagued the entire world due to the response of the spread of COVID-19. Cancellations were inevitable for sporting events where attendance can easily exceed 40,000 people, but what lies ahead for the MLB season that was supposed to start, it’s rigorous 162 game schedule at the beginning of April? The answer is unclear, even to the MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. Spring training games were suspended on March 12th with the original plan to postpone the regular season by as little as 2 weeks. This duration has since come and gone, with an increasingly indefinite return date for the nation’s pastime. As precautionary measures have been taken in various industries worldwide concerning the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals are learning how to protect themselves and others. These safety measures will undoubted...
Read more

The Uncertain Future of Sports

By -
Image
P icture this: it's February 2020, which allegedly was just two months ago. Much like the rest of America, we were operating in " normal " mode: attending our college classes, spending time in public, enjoying social gatherings. We decided we wanted to make a blog about the upcoming March Madness tournament, where we would use intricate algorithms, analytical findings, and a bit of common sense to give advice on how to make a winning bracket.   The scene of what was once a standard Wednesday night for basketball in March. Even for the most prepared among us, what seemed like a realistic but distant risk swiftly became reality. On what was once a normal Wednesday night in early March, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Utah Jazz were minutes away from facing off in a potential playoffs preview. Abruptly, the game was suspended, Rudy Gobert was announced to have tested positive, and the NBA shut down its operations indefinitely. After this bombshell announcement, whi...
Read more