Could football go on without fans in the stands in 2020?
COLUMBUS, Ohio – College football is generally a hotly debated topic across the nation with so many varied allegiances under different school banners, colors and fight songs. But the college football world has come together during these crisis times with the concern that the upcoming 2020 season could be in jeopardy under a very different banner of the COVID-19 pandemic that has essentially seen the world shutdown in large sectors.
While games would not start for several months with the first week of September being the traditional starting point, schools like Ohio State would normally be going through its annual spring game this upcoming weekend. Spring practice has been wiped out, summer conditioning is in danger and athletes for teams across the nation are scattered as almost all schools have moved to a distance learning model for the foreseeable future.
There has been hope however as some treatments for COVID-19 have shown promise but there has not been a general consensus on those and the only thing that medical experts will agree upon is that a vaccine is not in the near-term despite the best efforts of the worldwide medical field in finding a remedy for this ugly killer that has created a standstill.
There have been plenty of discussions of what a regular college football season would look like, with or without fans. What college football could look like with a shortened season with non-conference games stripped from the schedule or even what a season could look like if it were moved into the spring to allow more time for distancing and other measures.
On a Friday conference call with Ohio State Director of Athletics, Gene Smith, he was asked about what games could look like without fans in the stands or students on campus.
“I struggle with that concept because, when I first heard that I was like, ‘Okay, that could work’ but then I figure that if we don’t have fans in the stands that means that we have determined that it is not safe for them in a gathering environment, so why would it be safe for the players?” Smith said.
This is about more than just the economic impact that would surely be felt if you removed ticket, concession and parking revenues. This is about more than the impact that would be felt for campus business and the city in general during those seven home Saturdays. There is much more in play here.
“When I first heard that, that means our state and maybe our governor or maybe our institution has said that we cannot have people sitting that close together, or we can’t monitor them like we monitor the athletes,” Smith added. “I just struggled with that concept because I have not heard enough from the experts or my colleagues to really get to a point where I could have a definitive answer on that.”
As an athletic director, Smith is involved in a lot of decision making that impacts Ohio State and by extension has a major impact on NCAA sports in general with Ohio State supporting 36 different sports teams. But Smith does not operate in a vacuum when it comes to larger issues like this and so much of this is larger than just a sports issue.
“There are doctors out there that are guiding us into space and we better pay attention to them,” Smith said. “I know that I will.”
This does not work if some schools are on board and others are not. This is a national issue.
“There has to be a national resolve for this,” Smith said. “All of these entities have to collaborate to get to a point where we can even think about what would be the right model for the season after we determine what the return to play model is.”
And that return to play is a major first step. Programs are not just going to send players out there with little-to-no training time to get back into the swing of things. This will have to be on top of whatever teams would normally go through in terms of fall camp.
“One of the things that we have talked about that is of utmost importance is what are the things that we have to put in place relative to return to play for the player. Is that an eight-week, six-week, four-week schedule for them to re-acclimate to a grueling, physical, competitive environment?” Smith said.
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day was asked recently about what kind of timeline he felt that his team would need to get back into football-shape and that still had not been determined at that time. Those will be decisions that will have to be held on a national level in order to ensure competitive balance, once things open up and sports are allowed to resume.
All of that is just discussion for now as so many of those decisions will not come into play until medical professionals, politicians and university presidents and chancellors decide that it is safe to open things back up, even if it is just cracking the door open.
Until then, we wait.