Who knows how the upcoming season plays out at this point. But if we were to assume it will be played but with distance measures in place (e.g. no crowds or limited attendance) how might that affect bowls? I could see the Pinstripe or ones in California being prohibited from crowds and a ban on the events surrounding the game, so they try moving to other states with less restrictive measures. Even if bowls mostly survive with TV revenue you'd think that if a game on shaky financial ground is looking at bankruptcy without fans that they'd look at temporary cities to move to. Just speculating.

I would presume that the ESPN-owned bowls will go on as scheduled if health conditions allow. ESPN needs the programming. Their bowls are more advertiser and sponsor driven.

Other bowls that depend more on ticket sales are in trouble this year, unless things change.

As a general matter, I'm fairly optimistic that sports will return *without* fans in the stands for TV purposes in short order regardless of how stringent or non-stringent a state might be. The TV revenue is still significant and there's at least a colorable argument that teams and players can meet certain testing and safety standards.

On the flip side, I'm extremely pessimistic that sports will return *with* fans in the stands for the rest of 2020 regardless of how stringent or non-stringent a state might be.

As much as people want to assign some huge difference between the approaches of, say, Georgia versus New York, they're often based more in tone as opposed to actual action (or inaction, as the case may be). Even the "loosest" states see quite a difference between opening up more businesses versus allowing tens of thousands of people to gather in one place for sporting events or concerts.

Plus, in the case of bowls, those tens of thousands of people are generally coming from different parts of the country into one place and then heading back home shortly thereafter, which is exactly where the biggest risk of a superspreader event going from a local outbreak to a national outbreak comes from.

At least when it comes to fans at sporting events, I really don't see the patchwork quilt of different state-by-state standards and regulations that you're seeing now with the phased re-openings of other parts of the economy. Maybe that's a bit naive on my part, but even in the places that are trying to win state-wide Darwin Awards, there's a general recognition that there's no rush to gather tens of thousands of people in stadiums right now.

To follow Frank's point, the US never really shut down.

Look at Apple's mobility tracking for Milan Italy and any part of the US. Columbus Ohio is for example back to almost baseline mobility and so are many states. Probably the best reduction in mobility was the SF Bay Area, and even here it was only a 50% reduction. (I seriously wonder given our half ass approach, declaring so many "essential" that we should have just done what Sweden did, double the ICU capacity and ban gatherings above 50 people and otherwise let it go; our numbers are similar, except we wrecked our economy; in Sweden people on their own used common sense and social distanced similar to the US, but kept things open.)

https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility

California, hemorrhaging from loss of revenue (possibly $40 Billion dollar swing in tax revenue) has seen the Governor do a 180 and say pro sports will return in June without fans. The State taxes players and teams in the State and the tax nexus for teams visiting, the days here. No way they wanted to lose the business to Nevada and Arizona (Darwin at work). It looks like the three FBS CSU's (San Jose State, CSU Fresno, and San Diego State) will almost certainly play sports, which means the P12 schools (Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC) will as well, even with all these campuses closed.

If San Jose State will play without fans, then pretty much everyone in FBS will.

If bowls do go on but with no/limited fans, they might as well group all the ESPN games into three sites, say, Orlando, New Orleans and Los Angeles. Has to be more cost effective and it's not like the other hosts are clamoring to host a game where hardly anyone's coming to town.

No, but I don't see a fall season happening either.

(05-20-2020 10:17 AM)johnintx Wrote:  I would presume that the ESPN-owned bowls will go on as scheduled if health conditions allow. ESPN needs the programming. Their bowls are more advertiser and sponsor driven.

Yeah, for the ESPN owned-and-operated bowls, they don't give a fig whether or not they sell any tickets at all. They are just staging the bowl for TV because any bowl game will have a larger TV audience than whatever programming they would otherwise run at the same time.

(05-20-2020 11:54 AM)Cyniclone Wrote:  If bowls do go on but with no/limited fans, they might as well group all the ESPN games into three sites, say, Orlando, New Orleans and Los Angeles. Has to be more cost effective and it's not like the other hosts are clamoring to host a game where hardly anyone's coming to town.

That's true. Plus, if the games are in Orlando and, to a lesser extent, Los Angeles, ESPN/Disney can fill up hotel rooms that they control around their theme parks with players and coaches even if fans aren't able to attend.

(05-20-2020 12:06 PM)Bronco14 Wrote:  No, but I don't see a fall season happening either.

Well, like I've noted earlier, it all depends upon our standards for what it would take for a season to occur.

I'm personally someone that is more on the "We shouldn't be opening up too quick and I'm not taking my family anywhere" side of the equation, but at least on paper, I can see how it's feasible to have a controlled environment where games can be played for TV purposes without fans in the stands. That's a scenario that at least seems like we could implement a reasonable plan by August. It doesn't mean that we *will* implement a reasonable plan, but I just mean that it's a realistic enough possibility that it's not just wishful thinking.

By the same token, though, I don't know how we could realistically have a plan by August where we can have fans in the stands even in a limited fashion. Most states can barely even deal with the crowds that are coming from opening up a few beaches and other public locations right now. It's going to be a much longer time before we're going to feel that there's any safe way to go to a large scale sporting event in person.

(05-20-2020 11:54 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  To follow Frank's point, the US never really shut down.

Look at Apple's mobility tracking for Milan Italy and any part of the US. Columbus Ohio is for example back to almost baseline mobility and so are many states. Probably the best reduction in mobility was the SF Bay Area, and even here it was only a 50% reduction. (I seriously wonder given our half ass approach, declaring so many "essential" that we should have just done what Sweden did, double the ICU capacity and ban gatherings above 50 people and otherwise let it go; our numbers are similar, except we wrecked our economy; in Sweden people on their own used common sense and social distanced similar to the US, but kept things open.)

https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility

California, hemorrhaging from loss of revenue (possibly $40 Billion dollar swing in tax revenue) has seen the Governor do a 180 and say pro sports will return in June without fans. The State taxes players and teams in the State and the tax nexus for teams visiting, the days here. No way they wanted to lose the business to Nevada and Arizona (Darwin at work). It looks like the three FBS CSU's (San Jose State, CSU Fresno, and San Diego State) will almost certainly play sports, which means the P12 schools (Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC) will as well, even with all these campuses closed.

If San Jose State will play without fans, then pretty much everyone in FBS will.

In a weird way, I wonder if this could actually spike the interest of students at G5 schools or even P5 schools that have had tepid football interest recently (e.g. my alma mater of Illinois).

If students at many places still have to take classes online in the fall, then what's going to provide them with any type of school-wide bonding experience or connection? It will truly just be sports (more specifically football and basketball) at that point. There aren't going to be other on-campus activities that can substitute or compete with sports. That's not a small matter when a lot of full scale universities are trying to convince students to pay a premium for online classes that aren't any different substantively than community college classes that would have much lower tuition.

It goes back to why so many schools (whether right or wrong) continue to hold onto sports programs even if they might be money-losers. The overall boost in school profile that comes with having top level sports is a differentiator in the educational marketplace.

(05-20-2020 01:50 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-20-2020 11:54 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  To follow Frank's point, the US never really shut down.

Look at Apple's mobility tracking for Milan Italy and any part of the US. Columbus Ohio is for example back to almost baseline mobility and so are many states. Probably the best reduction in mobility was the SF Bay Area, and even here it was only a 50% reduction. (I seriously wonder given our half ass approach, declaring so many "essential" that we should have just done what Sweden did, double the ICU capacity and ban gatherings above 50 people and otherwise let it go; our numbers are similar, except we wrecked our economy; in Sweden people on their own used common sense and social distanced similar to the US, but kept things open.)

https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility

California, hemorrhaging from loss of revenue (possibly $40 Billion dollar swing in tax revenue) has seen the Governor do a 180 and say pro sports will return in June without fans. The State taxes players and teams in the State and the tax nexus for teams visiting, the days here. No way they wanted to lose the business to Nevada and Arizona (Darwin at work). It looks like the three FBS CSU's (San Jose State, CSU Fresno, and San Diego State) will almost certainly play sports, which means the P12 schools (Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC) will as well, even with all these campuses closed.

If San Jose State will play without fans, then pretty much everyone in FBS will.

In a weird way, I wonder if this could actually spike the interest of students at G5 schools or even P5 schools that have had tepid football interest recently (e.g. my alma mater of Illinois).

If students at many places still have to take classes online in the fall, then what's going to provide them with any type of school-wide bonding experience or connection? It will truly just be sports (more specifically football and basketball) at that point. There aren't going to be other on-campus activities that can substitute or compete with sports. That's not a small matter when a lot of full scale universities are trying to convince students to pay a premium for online classes that aren't any different substantively than community college classes that would have much lower tuition.

It goes back to why so many schools (whether right or wrong) continue to hold onto sports programs even if they might be money-losers. The overall boost in school profile that comes with having top level sports is a differentiator in the educational marketplace.

On the other hand, it could hurt the college football "student-athlete" concept irreparably. I know if I was a student at a school with a football program, and I had to stay home and do my courses online while players got special privileges yet again, it would turn me off from the sport.

I'm guessing its not going to work that way, but I really do think it has to be all or nothing.

[Note: I am an adjunct professor for many institutions, and online education has come a long way. However, it is still not the same as a in-classroom experience where I can have face to face conversations, etc. If I was in a situation where I was paying thousands to go to state school X for my courses, unless the department was just so above all other departments, I would consider dropping from that school and going to a more local, inexpensive school.]

I have a hard time seeing schools sending teams to a bowl game.

Schools like South Carolina and Notre Dame say they are closing down the campus at Thanksgiving, go home and don't come back.

I can see a lot of college football teams doing the same. Play your last game on Thanksgiving weekend and then pull the plug on the season.

(05-20-2020 12:06 PM)Bronco14 Wrote:  No, but I don't see a fall season happening either.

I see it happening. A few schools might cancel though.

(05-20-2020 03:49 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(05-20-2020 12:06 PM)Bronco14 Wrote:  No, but I don't see a fall season happening either.

I see it happening. A few schools might cancel though.

Institutions tend to mimic behavior of their peers; if the SEC schools are largely on the side of doing football as close to normal as possible, Vandy won't hold out even if they have more doubts than Florida or LSU.

If a few prominent programs announce that they won't be playing this season, that might be the spark that triggers a wave of followers, but they're going to have to act fairly fast because it's already two days from Memorial Day weekend and the logistics of the season are tremendous (how do we handle OOC contracts? will we run afoul of the conference if everyone else is playing? will the ncaa give our players an extra year if we're one of a few holdouts, or did we just burn through a redshirt or season of their eligibility?).

I think the chances of the schools intending to play a full, normal season of football are a good bit better than they were a month ago. But I don't know if it's any more likely that they actually will. Plus there'll be more pushback to returning to quarantine for Round 2 if the only news is that there's more cases than there were two months ago, as opposed to the first wave, when it was new and scary. Unless they discover that the virus makes your ding dong fall off or something. That would be a game-changer.

(05-20-2020 11:54 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  To follow Frank's point, the US never really shut down.

Look at Apple's mobility tracking for Milan Italy and any part of the US. Columbus Ohio is for example back to almost baseline mobility and so are many states. Probably the best reduction in mobility was the SF Bay Area, and even here it was only a 50% reduction. (I seriously wonder given our half ass approach, declaring so many "essential" that we should have just done what Sweden did, double the ICU capacity and ban gatherings above 50 people and otherwise let it go; our numbers are similar, except we wrecked our economy; in Sweden people on their own used common sense and social distanced similar to the US, but kept things open.)

https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility

California, hemorrhaging from loss of revenue (possibly $40 Billion dollar swing in tax revenue) has seen the Governor do a 180 and say pro sports will return in June without fans. The State taxes players and teams in the State and the tax nexus for teams visiting, the days here. No way they wanted to lose the business to Nevada and Arizona (Darwin at work). It looks like the three FBS CSU's (San Jose State, CSU Fresno, and San Diego State) will almost certainly play sports, which means the P12 schools (Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC) will as well, even with all these campuses closed.

If San Jose State will play without fans, then pretty much everyone in FBS will.

Yeah it appears sports will happen though it remains to be seen whether it will be possible to avoid shutdowns due to outbreaks.

As for Sweden, it’s a very different society from the US. It’s healthier, has a better public health system and the population is deeply trusting of government and other institutions. It also routinely practices a large level of social distancing as nearly half of all households are single individuals and it’s a mostly low density place as well. And they’re taking a big hit economically with a high death rate even with their strategy.

It looks like we’re going to find out here what happens when a country tires to do something similar to Sweden, but with many people who won’t follow guidance from health experts and one which is a good bit less healthy.

I have a feeling we may see some bowls collapse this year.

(05-20-2020 05:24 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I have a feeling we may see some bowls collapse this year.

Probably...but a few other cities will be up to the task.

San Antonio and San Diego could each host a 3rd Tier preChristmas bowl
Norfolk (ODU)
Tuscon
Austin-San Marcos, TX (TX St)