The NCAA has authoritatively canceled fall championships – a decision that might push fall sports to the spring.
“We cannot now at this point have fall NCAA championships,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said Thursday via Twitter.
A week ago, the NCAA Board of Governors declared that if half of qualified teams in a specific game, and a specific division, cancel their fall season, there will be no fall NCAA championship in that sport.
On Wednesday, that became official when the Big East chose to defer its fall season until 2021.
Despite the fact that the NCAA’s decision puts each fall sport, including FBS football, into a spiral, it doesn’t imply that fall sports just won’t occur, Emmert said.
For one, the NCAA doesn’t control FBS football, the conferences do. Thus, until further notice, FBS football is as yet a go.
Concerning the other NCAA sports, Emmert said the NCAA has been in contact with Division I commissioners and they are thinking about approaches to push ahead with championships in the spring.
“If schools and conferences want to move forward, and try and have it and more than half of them want to do it — and that’s surely the indication now — then let’s do it,” he said. “We can use the fall, as I said, to keep kids healthy, keep them engaged with their coaches and their athletic departments. Focus on their academic success. Work with them and let them practice and stay ready to play, then let’s go compete at that time.”
Emmert referenced the chance of using bubble sites – like what the WNBA and NBA are doing now – trying to guard players. In any case, he said winter and spring sports have the highest priority, since they lost their championships last March.
The decision by the NCAA comes in the midst of critical alerts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that whenever suggested coronavirus measures aren’t followed, the US hazards the most noticeably awful fall in public health history.
The infection has contaminated more than 5.2 million individuals in the US and murdered more than 166,000, as per Johns Hopkins University. On Wednesday, there were 55,910 detailed new cases and 1,499 deaths – the highest number of fatalities since May.
