(04-18-2020 03:29 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(04-17-2020 10:15 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  The way to go is run a no-contact season without the fans in the fall.

To try to move FB to the Spring in attempt to generate more seat revenue is a fools errand. People are not coming back so you might as well forget it.

So long as universities and the NCAA follow the “student-athlete” model, no fans effectively means no competition. Professional sports can continue without fans, because professional sports are entertainment...pros can reach their audience via TV. If the safety of live fans is a concern, then students shouldn’t be competing. There is a chance that CFB won’t occur this fall.

A move to a spring season is actually not about revenue. The spring season would likely be dramatically shorter...the season would be mainly about providing the ‘student-athletes’ an opportunity to train and compete. There likely wouldn’t be bowls nor playoffs in a spring season. But a spring season could be more competitive than the current version (which has minimal contact and live action).

College sports are entertainment, too. And whether football is played in the spring or the fall, it's not about "providing the ‘student-athletes’ an opportunity to train and compete". It's about giving them an opportunity to display their wares to professional scouts. College football at the FBS level is a business, like any other. And a lucrative one at that.

And if anyone thinks it's dangerous for fans to be seated in close quarters to other fans, try being in a huddle with 10 other teammates, sweating and breathing hard. It only takes one infected player to create havoc. And all it would take for football to be shut down again completely is for one player or coach to die from this virus.

They might have to sequester the team for the duration of the season, but it could be done.

That said, would it be real college football?

They need to go ahead and shut it down until the fall of 2021. It’s going to be an expensive decision but it’s the right one. Stadiums with thousands of fans packed in are just asking for Covid-19 to flair up again in the fall.

(04-20-2020 05:23 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  They might have to sequester the team for the duration of the season, but it could be done.

That said, would it be real college football?

Well guys we have another opportunity to have some fun. Get every football player a video game control for only his position and have a virtual football season with virtual champions and all played by the actual players with plays called by actual coaches.

ESPN could draw in a much younger audience if at the end of the season gamers were allowed to compete against the champions.

What's more is entertainment is provided, if only a novelty, and social distance is maintained. Some rights fees are paid to the schools which participate which will hopefully be all of the P5 and G5. And if that works then they can invite all of the basketball teams that would have made the 2020 tournament to decide it virtually. It would still be fun. Gambling could still make a buck and it's better than reruns.

(04-20-2020 09:23 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  They need to go ahead and shut it down until the fall of 2021. It’s going to be an expensive decision but it’s the right one. Stadiums with thousands of fans packed in are just asking for Covid-19 to flair up again in the fall.

They’re not going to be able to open campuses for students until experts greenlight it. And they’re not going to be able to force student-athletes into a football season if students aren’t allowed on campus. Considering an epidemiologist today said expect a year before an available vaccine, this football season is inching dangerously close to impossible.

(04-20-2020 05:23 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  They might have to sequester the team for the duration of the season, but it could be done.

As long as its unsafe for fans to be milling about together in the stands, it will be unsafe for players to be in close contact with each other on the field.

There will be no football until students are back on campus, that's just the way it's going to, and has to, be.

Which probably means no football until Fall 2021.