Whither College Athletics?

[Jojogunne]

The tip of the iceberg?

https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronav ... 00327.html?

[Polito]

This is an extremely interesting and intense read, thanks for sharing Jojo, hadn't seen it before. Really praying we are back to almost normal by summer, with hopefully at least a viable treatment formulated. At lot of this article is truly worst-case, but it's not out of the realm of possibility... if this goes through the summer, my goodness, things could get catastrophic economically.

That said, this just supports what I have said for some time now re HU - this athletic dept needs to streamline asap and focus all efforts and $ on the sports that matter - sorry folks, harsh, but this is business - and if they don't, they may be forced to anyway, so I'd much rather do it on 'our' terms first.

HU has no business or reason to be fielding all the sports it does - it just doesn't. Bigger schools w/MUCH bigger budgets are cutting, no reason HU shouldn't. And they should get ahead of such now (should've already done it). This is survival of the fittest. Let's be smart and have a targeted focus.

Mens Hoops, Mens Lax, and key Womens Sports - that's the order, and I dig it 100%. Past that it's Wrestling and Soccer. The rest, sorry, but gots to go. Keep the minimum and use any all other dollars to finance a top notch championship dept in the CAA in the priority sports for years to come.

[Wags]

The home state of the CAA office (VA) locked down today until June 10. We're unfortunately still in the early stages of this in most U.S. states. We'll have therapeutics this year, but we won't have a vaccine until next year. In the meantime, even after we get this under control, a second wave can sprout up during the months of what would be the next college hoops seasons (not as bad as what we're seeing right now, but could have an impact). So, the worst-case scenario for college sports is definitely possible. Right now, even pro sports are all secondary with about 18K-20K new cases in the U.S. daily over the past several days. We've got a long way to go to limit the loss of life and suffering before stuff like this even comes into focus -- to the point where if we're even talking about the negative economic effects on sports, that's actually a good sign that things are even beginning to return to normal because right now, that's far down on the list of what we still have to go through as a country and even as a world community for a while. Hopefully, we can stop spiking and start plateauing by May. That would seem at this point to be the other extreme, which is still possible. But even if it is, there's still the possibility of that second wave that could hit later. If that were to happen, it's indeterminable at this point how much that may or may not have an impact on everything, including college sports.

[Polito]

Yep my VA peeps are on stay at home lockdown now. Problem is many southern and midwestern states are running around like it's just another day, so they are now having to take these measures - they haven't yet seen the real impact, but they're about to have a rude awakening. This will reach every area of the population, and many in the rural parts don't get it yet. But they will.

That said, it's not the impact of sports economics, it's the impact sports has on the entire economy. It's HUGE. This isn't an afterthought because it's sports - it sounds silly initially, but the impact of college and pro sports to business in this country is enormous. If there's no college football season, let me tell you, NYer's won't believe it or get it right away, but it will have huge sweeping impact to business AND educational institutions around the country.

Losing the NCAAT would be small compared to that, and that fallout of millions lost has yet to be fully felt yet, although this article starts to highlight it - it's big. It would be a devastating blow to our education system funding if those measures have to be taken. All those folks who think sports don't or shouldn't matter to education are also in for a rude awakening when the money dries up. No students on campus, tuition / room & board reimbursements and no athletic revenue = very bad news - ton of lost scholly's / students forced out, and education folks across the nation looking for work w/nowhere to go.

Def get there will be long lasting impact, but we cannot sustain full shutdowns through the summer and into the fall, we simply must do better than next year. And I have to believe we can. Donating all we can to the right orgs, and praying for our med folks/scientists/leaders to make breakthroughs.

[Wags]

Yep my VA peeps are on stay at home lockdown now. Problem is many southern and midwestern states are running around like it's just another day, so they are now having to take these measures - they haven't yet seen the real impact, but they're about to have a rude awakening. This will reach every area of the population, and many in the rural parts don't get it yet. But they will.

That said, it's not the impact of sports economics, it's the impact sports has on the entire economy. It's HUGE. This isn't an afterthought because it's sports - it sounds silly initially, but the impact of college and pro sports to business in this country is enormous. If there's no college football season, let me tell you, NYer's won't believe it or get it right away, but it will have huge sweeping impact to business AND educational institutions around the country.

Losing the NCAAT would be small compared to that, and that fallout of millions lost has yet to be fully felt yet, although this article starts to highlight it - it's big. It would be a devastating blow to our education system funding if those measures have to be taken. All those folks who think sports don't or shouldn't matter to education are also in for a rude awakening when the money dries up. No students on campus, tuition / room & board reimbursements and no athletic revenue = very bad news - ton of lost scholly's / students forced out, and education folks across the nation looking for work w/nowhere to go.

Def get there will be long lasting impact, but we cannot sustain full shutdowns through the summer and into the fall, we simply must do better than next year. And I have to believe we can. Donating all we can to the right orgs, and praying for our med folks/scientists/leaders to make breakthroughs.

All very true, but the first thing you said is part of the problem. We're already playing catchup (and will be for a while longer) in places where the impact has been felt the most, but as you said, there are too many places where the impact hasn't been felt at that same level which haven't learned that lesson and aren't getting ahead of the curve before it becomes a much h bigger problem for their locations.

Florida has the 6th-most cases in the nation (approaching 6,000) right now. We know about the spring break stuff, but even after that, especially with its elderly population, Florida is STILL not on lockdown like other states. Coincidentally, just as I'm writing this, a Flordia resident was just interviewed and said, "There's no social distancing that I can see... It's a big hangout party" and she spoke about "balcony parties."

That type of stuff is only going to extend the timeline of those kinds of states and the timeline of the nation that much further down the road. And like I said, we don't know what kind of impact a second wave, from the fall to next spring, might have. It won't be like this, it might still be fairly disruptive, in sports and everywhere.

No doubt, sports are tremendous multi-billion dollar industries, but with a legitimate threat of 20%-30% unemployment and a depression, they're still going to remain secondary until other types of businesses are back up and running and until millions are simply able to know their health is not at risk, and until they can go back to work and pay their bills. Some of those dominoes might have to get back in place first before sports come back into the fold. At the very least, sports will be only on the same timeline, not before those other things, and those other things might still take a while.

Shortly after the NCAA tourney was canceled, I started watching the numbers each day. When we were climbing, quickly with the world's seventh-most cases, then up to third, I figured we'd start plateauing and bringing the curve down a bit by around mid-May. But, I never thought back then, that before April, we'd shoot all the way up, way past China's count of 81K+ (though we know those numbers could actually be a lot more) fast approaching 200,000 cases with so many other states and places (even several rural ones) starting to have outbreaks. The rate is still accelerating with high numbers on a daily basis. And tomorrow's already April. I'm now thinking this could take a lot longer than mid-May. If so, sports might be pushed far down the road along with everything else.

[Wags]

Welcome, April.

Let's hope this month is a lot brighter for all.