thependulumswings

Schools out for summer.  Schools out forever.  So sang Alice Cooper.

We always got the summer part.  We never understood the forever part.

Perhaps, now we do.  During these (are you ready?) new normal, COVID-19 pandemic, #aparttogether, together apart, times are changing.  Unprecedented is the time we are told repeatedly.

And with it, our sacred fall NCAA football season is in peril.

It’s one thing for the Ivy League to cancel its fall sports season.  No one watches them anyway.  How about paying a full year’s tuition to Harvard for virtual classes and no sporting life?  If they keep this up pretty soon they won’t have anyone falsifying records and puffing up resumes to get into that dump, but we digress.

But it’s quite another thing when the Big 10 announced yesterday that at best they will only play an in-conference schedule of football games this fall.  Gone amongst other matchups are Oregon and THE Ohio St. U, and Notre Dame v. Wisconsin at Lambeau Field.

Isn’t the appropriate question “why?”  Why drop non-conference games?   The smart money yesterday told us it was about player safety and schedule flexibility.  We think that the smart money forgot to tell us that it’s about money as well.  Isn’t it always?

The argument for safety is that the Big 10 (and when others like the Big 12 and the PAC 12 schedule similarly) can insure across the conference protocols for regular testing and appropriate quarantining while out of conference teams may not have the same.  We can’t have this virus spreading you may have heard.

The argument for flexibility is that you can start the season earlier, later, or provide off weeks within as medical needs warrant.  If you’re only going to have 10 games you’ve found two more weeks within the season plus already scheduled off weeks to rearrange all of it as needed.

Ah, but the argument for money is very real as well.   If you’re going down to ten games, you play bigger opponents every week.  More gate if there is a gate and more TV money follows.  If you’re Michigan St. do you keep Ball St. on the schedule and not pick up a game against Nebraska?  Duh.  Plus you can collect insurance for the canceled Ball St. game.

So, the bottom line is that the Power 5 conferences will find a path, if there is one, to maximize the money.  It’s refreshing that they think his way when the malcontents run around wanting socialism and guerilla gardens in its place, but we digress.

But what about the non Power 5 teams like Ball St.?  Apparently, the answer to the question is the question, “what about them?”  Their guaranteed pay of a million or more to get waxed by the big boys is gone.  If their fans cannot attend their games most all of their revenue is gone too.

Then the question becomes, “are their sports programs gone?”

If they have no football they have no revenue to support the other programs.  If no football, no women’s lacrosse.  For the little guys, is football out for fall?  Is football out, as they currently know it, forever?

Go on, take the money and run.  So sang The Steve Miller Band.