Ivy League Cancels All Fall Sports Seasons
The Ivy League has canceled all fall sports including football for the 2020 season due to concerns surrounding COVID-19. The conference will also not conduct any sports activity for winter sports until on or after Jan. 1.
The news was first broken by Mark Blaudschun of TMG Sports.
Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports reported the news on Wednesday afternoon:
The cancellation of the fall sports season has long been speculated as a possibility for the Ivy League, with rumors being circulated that the conference is attempting to shift its football season to the spring rather than the fall.
As of right now, only Penn and Cornell have announced that they will be allowing their entire respective student bodies to return to campus for the fall semester.
After the news broke, the Ivy League issued a statement regarding its decision to cancel fall sports.
"With the safety and well-being of students as their highest priority, Ivy League institutions are implementing campus-wide policies including restrictions on student and staff travel, requirements for social distancing, limits on group gatherings, and regulations for visitors to campus," the official statement said. "As athletics is expected to operate consistent with campus policies, it will not be possible for Ivy League teams to participate in intercollegiate athletics competition prior to the end of the fall semester."
In addition to addressing fall sports, the Ivy League's statement also stated that teams who participate in winter sports will be allowed to practice and train on their respective campuses provided that they follow the guidelines permitted by local public health conditions.
Following today's announcement, the Ivy League has made no further news be known regarding whether its football teams will play in early 2021. However, reports are still circulating that football in the spring is still on the table.
While this move as of right now does not directly impact Alabama football, the Ivy League was the first conference to cancel its basketball tournament back in March, setting a precedent that all other conferences soon followed. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see if other conferences once again follow in the Ivy League's footsteps.
Alabama men's basketball was slated to play against Yale this fall, but now will not be able to play them due to the Ivy League's cancelations. The game was also to be a homecoming for Crimson Tide grad-transfer Jordan Bruner, who recently arrived in Tuscaloosa from the Bulldogs.
With Yale no longer an option for the fall, Alabama basketball will now have to either schedule a make-up game with the team in the spring or seek out other options to fill the schedule.
