The Ivy League Has Postponed Fall Sports, Including Football. Will the FBS Follow Suit?
The status of football being played this fall is very much up in the air due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
With recent spikes in positive cases in Arizona, California, Texas, and Florida, there have been rising questions about how realistic it is that college sports will be played this fall.
The most important fall sport from a revenue standpoint, of course, is college football.
Amidst the rise in cases, there has still been a fair amount of positive news being shared related to the virus as student-athletes return to campus for summer workouts.
Notre Dame reported zero positive cases within their football program.
Tulane reported no positive cases among any student-athletes tested since the 4th of July, which was a testing universe of 115 student-athletes.
However, other news has not been so positive, such as the Ivy League's announcement on Wednesday that no sports will be played this fall, and that winter sports will be evaluated after January 1st.
The Ivy League is still in the evaluation process regarding whether or not fall sports can be played next spring, but per The Athletic's Dana O'Neill, who was the first to report the news, there are questions as to how realistic that scenario would be.
So how will the FBS respond? That is the major question being posed as this news breaks on Wednesday.
On the surface, the Ivy League participates in athletics on the FCS level, and the schools simply do not produce as much revenue as major college football programs do at the FBS level. From television contracts to merchandise, FBS programs across the country produce much more revenue than the Ivy League does on an annual basis from college football.
There is so much on the line for athletic departments across the nation, as almost all schools who play major FBS football rely on the sport to drive revenue for the entirety of their respective athletic department.
Without football being played at the FBS level, the effects across athletic departments for other sports could be extremely detrimental.
Look no further than Stanford, who entered the news cycle prior to the Ivy League on Wednesday with the announcement that the university would be eliminating 11 of its 36 varsity sports. Stanford's decision is the most recent example of the effect that the Coronavirus has had on schools, large and small, nationwide.
Regardless, some major decisions about the fall will need to be made at a higher level of competition in the FBS sooner rather than later.
The Ivy League set the standard in the spring by canceling its conference basketball tournaments.
Will the league once again lead the way on decision making and set the precedent again for sports this fall?
