College football 2020 offseason thread

My point was, if this was just about better health numbers, improved testing and safety of athletes, all the fall sports could try to schedule games.

Of course, it's not.

 

The warning signs are there that the gravy train can get derailed, but will the ADs take heed or just blow this off as an outlier? I can't see how rights fees can continue to escalate indefinitely. But they have, which is why every big university blows millions of dollars every year on newer, fancier sports facilities.

Hey, it works for student loans!

The end game if the rights race slows might lead to dumping everything that: 1. doesn't make money, 2. doesn't cost much in the first place, 3. isn't required by Title IX.

Football, men's basketball land in No. 1 for most D1 schools.
Men's golf, men's tennis, track and field may or may not land in No. 2.
Women's basketball, softball, women's soccer, women's track and field, swimming and diving land in No. 3.

Wrestling? Water polo? Crew? Men's soccer? Lacrosse? I guess those situations are driven by individual economics.

And what happens to the NCAA? They bet the house on March Madness. If they go two years without one, the Indianapolis headquarters are going to be a ghost town.

 

Who doesn't love the Ole Mich Wolverebels?

 

The decision is in:

College basketball season starts November 25th (day before Thanksgiving). Practice can begin October 14th.

No scrimmages or exhibitions with other teams allowed.

Recruiting dead period in all sports extended until January 1, 2021.

More details to come with the official announcement.

 

Fanatics embarassing fanatics

 

Damned libruhl media. Not sure what counts as libruhl in this column. Unless it's a uncomplimentary reference to Poor President Trump.

 

I went through some athletic departments this week, line-by-line, over their 2021 budgets that assumed no football. It's dark. Not just zero dollars from no ticket sales but all of the ancillary stuff as well -- the merchandise, local advertising rights, the radio broadcast rights, booster club donations, etc. All the stuff that we never really "see" but keeps the wheels turning.

Athletic departments will use the pandemic as a reason to keep chopping the non-rev sports and that's their right. But don't act like they weren't going to chop them before.

It's like Walmart saying they're cutting hours to "clean and sanitize". Bullshit. They're doing this to save on labor costs. If they really cared about the pandemic, they'd stay open 24 hours a day (instead of 14) and not funnel people into the same entrance.

 

I should be fair: Brennan is entitled to her opinion and at least has the conviction to not watch the games. But you can look at her archive over the last however many months. This is not a person who particularly wants sports to be played, or particularly likes sports outside of what sports can say about politics.

At some point, Brennan should probably be a political commentator.

 

The Trumpandemic gives them cover to cut everything they can and to start a movement to reduce the minimum number of sports required for Division I membership. As you said, it's something they've wanted to do for years. And now they can muster the support. The number of tennis programs getting whacked is amazing. I suspect that's because so many tennis players are foreign students. Nobody will mount a campaign to save a sport with so (relatively) few Americans. Also easier to whack a sport in which the parents don't speak your language and can't be around town to bug you all the time.

 

I think that it might be wise to wait and do the write up on this season after it is over. If the last six months have taught me nothing else it is that things can change drastically in far less time than I ever would have believed possible.

 

I'd like to know where all that CFP money went.