Big 10 and Pac-12 Cancel Football for the Fall

 There will be no college football this fall out of the Big 10 and Pac-12, a decision made by both conferences that is sure to reverberate like an earthquake on many levels through the sport of football, throughout college athletics, and throughout the ways in which institutions finance themselves. 

As many have pointed out, no college football this year could mean a loss of some $4 billion in business. College Towns as they are called like Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the Michigan Wolverines, and Columbus, Ohio, home of the Ohio State Buckeyes make boatloads of cash during football season. 

Business is a booming during the fall from last August through early December for college towns across America. 

Not to mention, the institutions themselves use football as a way to garner strong revenue for their other programs. Women's soccer, volleyball, Men's soccer. Their success and failure in many cases hinges on how much revenue football brings in from sponsorships, ticket sales, and media packages.  And in the Power 5 schools, they bring in a lot of dough. 

As Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes is quoted as saying in a FOX News article, "Anywhere from 75 up to almost 85 percent of all revenue to our departments are derived directly or indirectly from football." 

So as the BIG 10 and Pac-12 cancel their football seasons, potentially moving them to the Spring of 2021, it leaves nothing but questions and little answers. 

Players are not happy. Nebraska and its head coach Scott Frost have stated over and over again that it will stop at nothing to play football even though the BIG 10 pulled the plug. Those ideas may have been squashed after BIG 10 Commissioner Kevin Warren said that Nebraska would not be allowed to pursue football elsewhere, according to Yahoo and CBS Sports. It also seems highly unlikely that the school will jeopordize its chances to keep playing BIG 10 sports in future years just to play football amid a global pandemic. 

Meanwhile the ACC, SEC and BIG XII all seem poised to play football this fall, even though 2/5 of the Power 5 have backed out along with the Mountain West, Ivy League and Mid-Atlantic Conference. The BIG XII already released a schedule Wednesday where their season begins in late September. 

Clearly the divide in the United States over what to do with the virus, and seriousness by which people have taken it has take geographic and political boundaries. The Southern part of the country was very slow, almost in denial about the impact of the Coronavirus until numbers in Texas, Arizona and Florida started to spike, while the Northeastern United States saw its numbers go down. 

Masks have become a political hot button, with some people refusing to wear them for any number of reasons, while others continue to comply with CDC recommendations. (FYI, if you can talk through your mask, you haven't been gagged).

The fact the SEC, ACC and BIG XII are willing to put the health and safety of its student athletes, students, faculty, and coaches on the line while the virus spreads is a bad look. If they need evidence, they can look at schools in Georgia that opened up this month. Remember the photo of kids piling into a hallway? Yeah, well nine people got sick at that school. 

While it is easy to condemn some of the southern conferences for not taking the virus seriously enough, the fact that this is such a disorganized mess in college is the fault of the NCAA  which should have set parameters from the start. 

Right now College Football is looking at the BIG XII, SEC, ACC, Sun Belt, Conference USA and independents such as Army, BYU, Libery and New Mexico all intent on playing this year. Notre Dame is part of the ACC this season. That is at least half the FBS playing in 2020, and half the FBS will not be playing. This will create a slew of problems.

If there is a spring football for other conferences, what will that do to the draft status of those students for the NFL? What will it mean for those schools next year? Will they be playing two football seasons in a single calendar year with the 2020 make-up season going from February to May of 2021, and the 2021 season from September to December? It's insane!! 

The NCAA should have stepped in and made a decision one way or the other for all FBS schools. Leaving it in the hands of the conferences has proven to be nothing more than a mess that will hurt the sport, the industry and economy for years to come.