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Not Looking Good

The Ivy League cancelled fall sports. The Big Ten is going to conference-only, with the Pac-12 following suit shortly after. The athletic directors were cautiously optimistic in early June, but my sense is everyone is teetering and skeptical if anything will continue.

Many outlets have noted that the Ivies were the first to cancel the basketball conference tournaments, and that made it acceptable for the rest of the nation’s league to do the same. It looks like the Ivy is ahead of the game here as well. The mitigating factor is of course — and always is — money. The P5 leagues cancelling, or postponing fall sports is dangerous for the budget.

For CUSA, the loss of guarantee games means a loss of guaranteed money that makes up a large percentage of the athletic budget. Having the big conferences go internal-only, may make it easier for G5 leagues to cancel things altogether. After all, intra-conference travel is a much-maligned expense for spread-out, reactionary leagues like this one and the Sun Belt Conference, that saving money by cancelling things is an obvious solution to the budget crisis.

Going forward in the hopes of holding on to a pillar of revenue in the form of paycheck games — the others being season tickets was a driver to figure out a season in some form.

On the other hand, maybe everyone has a turn playing BYU — they need opponents now that everyone is cancelling.

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