Stadium– After weeks of uncertainty surrounding the upcoming college football season, 99 percent of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) athletic directors polled by Stadium believe a season will be played in one form or another. When exactly the season begins is the biggest question. Even though the start of college football is still four months away, 75 percent of the athletic directors believe the season will be delayed. Sixty-one percent of the ADs predict the season won’t start until October or November, while 14 percent think the season won’t begin until the spring semester in January or February. One Power Five athletic director doesn’t expect the season to be played at all because of the impact of COVID-19.
Thank the Lord! There has been a lot of uncertainty swirling about the college football season recently and this makes me feel so much better. The interesting thing is that the only alternative I had really heard about is pushing the season to the spring, but the most popular opinion among ADs is actually just a late fall start to the season. That actually makes a lot more sense to me and seems like a realistic option that would give us a real college football season. The big problem with starting the season on time is that the players can’t be on campus until all students are allowed back on campus and we don’t know when that will be. But this late start would allow players to get back and have some time with coaches before the season starts.
I have talked about this before, but if you are someone that is being pessimistic about sports coming back just so that you can make sure everyone knows that you’re taking quarantine super seriously and score a couple woke points, then fuckkkkk you. If you are someone with actual influence in a position of power and you are making a prediction on where you see things going, fine. But if you are a random “fan” or “media member” that is putting these negative vibes out into the universe, you don’t deserve to watch sports ever again.
Also, for people that aren’t college football fans (losers), and prefer women’s tennis or water polo or equestrian or whatever the hell you’re into, I have some news for you… if there is no college football season there is a good chance your sport will CEASE TO EXIST. As rich and corrupt as the NCAA is, a majority of colleges are right on the borderline of going broke and college football is the lifeblood of almost every athletic department, no matter the state of the program. Here’s a quote from a Power Five conference AD,
“There’s too much money at stake, it impacts too many people,” a Power Five AD said. “If there’s no football, we will have bigger issues. This will be worse than the Great Depression and make the 1930s look like a cakewalk.”
And despite a FAKE NEWS report from Darren Rovell, schools don’t necessarily need fans in the stands to keep up the profits they expect as a majority of their profits come from TV deals, donor contributions, student fees, and government support.
This is not accurate. Here's info for the University of Michigan for example. Ticket sales are almost exactly 25% of revenue. https://t.co/X0PbiAw5sE pic.twitter.com/IMVv2AXFc6
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) April 15, 2020
@darrenrovell An example from the SEC in 2018 (side by side with C-USA). pic.twitter.com/ianABfUhUL
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) April 15, 2020
And I would guess, donor figures would be even higher than usual if the schools reached out to their higher-profile donors and made it clear they were really in need of some extra help.
As far as my thoughts, I think the October start time seems like the best option for a full college football season. It would give the players 6-8 weeks as a team with coaches to prepare for the season and then the season would lead right into March Madness (which would be INCREDIBLE). I would also be totally fine with a spring season as long as it meant we had a full season of college football. The only thing is that the spring presents a few more obstacles in terms of the football calendar (leading straight into the draft, almost no offseason leading into the 2020-21 season). In conclusion, I’m not an expert. I’m not even a particularly smart person, all I know is that if you’re rooting against a college football season, you are effectively rooting against America and against God. With that, I leave you with this thread.
There will be college football this fall. We must speak this into existence. If there’s no college football there is no point in carrying on as a society.
— Blake (@BlakeyLocks) March 29, 2020
