NCAA Board of Governors likely to decide on Fall Sports Championships on Friday

The decision to cancel championships doesn't immediately mean the regular season would be cancelled, but it's a big step in that direction.

July 24, 2020 should be an extremely important day for the future of college athletics.

The NCAA Board of Governors is scheduled to meet on Friday and there is growing speculation that they may shut down all fall sports championship events. The board is primarily made up of presidents at Division I universities across the country.

It's worth noting the board does not have the power to shut down fall sports seasons in general, but by choosing to cancel the championships, they could theoretically force the hand of conferences to forgo playing any games this fall. And that would be an extremely costly decision.

The NCAA does not have the power to eliminate the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) postseason in football because they don't own the College Football Playoff. There's no such thing as a "NCAA Football Championship". The conferences run the playoff and the decision to alter or cancel the postseason lies in their hands. However, the NCAA does own the FCS, Division II and Division III Football Tournaments and it could cancel those on Friday.

This is in direct contrast to March Madness because the NCAA owns the postseason basketball tournament.

That said, many leagues and schools around the country have said over the last few weeks that they won't play fall sports. Most of them won't entertain the idea of competing in any college athletics until after the turn of the calendar. 

Especially at the Division II and Division III level, things are especially pessimistic. The DIII Management Council recommended on Wednesday that all fall sports championships be cancelled. The Board of Governors will also vote on that issue on Friday.

Division I college football is in a rather peculiar position. By next week, essentially every professional sports league will either be competing or reporting for training camps. If the Board of Governors follows through with recommendations to cancel fall sports championship events, the FBS will be left in purgatory. Technically, they could still play, but they'd likely be the only ones doing so. All of the other fall sports (volleyball, soccer, field hockey, etc.) at Division I won't be able to compete for championships. Since the vast majority of those sports don't run at a profit, the burden falls on college football to make a decision to play if there will be any sports at all.

In other words, if football season doesn't happen, I don't see a way that any of the other fall sports happen because there won't be funding for them. If football does play despite all fall sports championships being cancelled, it's possible that Olympic sports could decide to play their regular seasons knowing they won't have a chance at any postseason competition. But I think that's unlikely.

The NCAA is running out of time. Fall sports teams across the country at Division I are ramping up their workouts and preparing to open training camps as they hope for a 2020 season. And while the Board of Governors doesn't have the authority to shut down football season, nor can it stop FCS, DII or DIII from playing their regular seasons, it can make having any fall competitions extremely difficult.

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