[chrisk]

I think reasonable people agree that Football will not happen this year.

Disagree. Compared to a week ago, I'm more inclined to think football will happen this fall:
a.) Lack of strong opposition from players. I really thought we'd hear of many stories similar to what occurred at UCLA (players demanding independent health monitoring). Hasn't happened. If it does, this is when I'll start to think seriously that football won't happen.
b.) Many, many economies affected if there is a true cancellation of football: university budgets, college town gameday revenues, ESPN and other networks, jersey merch, etc. These hungry mouths are not silent behind the scenes.
c.) No vocal opponent with a high Q rating. There has not yet been a retired athlete or coach with tremendous name recognition come out and say playing football is bad. Give Paul Finebaum some credit, as he's been willing to have guests on who are openly stating that CFB is not looking like a safe bet. But these guests are not household names.

https://twitter.com/GetUpESPN/status/127...3155640323

The "catch" was that very early in the process Mark Emmert commented that the NCAA should not have sports if students are not attending classes on campus.   

So using that logic the CSUs, USC and UCLA should not have fall sports this year.   Hate to sound California centric, but it will be tough for the Pac-12 to have a season if that set of schools is not playing.

If students are not on campus, the NCAA just won't be able to have STUDENT-athletes playing games.    If the hybrid and online only model spreads the seasons will be cancelled or postponed. 

Most schools announced in May and early June that they would open for the fall, but they were using projections with less than 20 daily deaths nationwide by early August.    We are off that trajectory, so look for more schools to announce revisions to plans like USC.

---

Risk of travel is becoming clear....even to POTUS I suspect/hope.

POTUS administration continues to announce that more and more of the Secret Service agents have tested positive for COVID in advance of the MAGA rally.  The recent MAGA rally trips have also included a few members of the Trump's election campaign testing positive too.

And tonight we discovered that Kimberly Guilfoyle joined the positive test group.   She is Jr's girlfriend and part of that POTUS administration re-election campaign.  She traveled to Oklahoma, Arizona and South Dakota for the various rallies.   Hope she does well but her situation hints at the challenges of trying to travel the USA while COVID is thriving.


Her back story is not really critical for this board.   My point is team Trump can't even avoid COVID in circles that close to POTUS despite all of the testing and precautions.   It is very, very hard to imagine your average NCAA team that travels on commercial airlines for road contests would successful avoid a COVID outbreak for a full season given Team Trump's lack of success with its last three road trips.

As a top fund-raising official, Guilfoyle may have been pandering to the maskless sensibilities of Trump's big donors.

[chrisk]

I think reasonable people agree that Football will not happen this year.

Disagree. Compared to a week ago, I'm more inclined to think football will happen this fall:
a.) Lack of strong opposition from players. I really thought we'd hear of many stories similar to what occurred at UCLA (players demanding independent health monitoring). Hasn't happened. If it does, this is when I'll start to think seriously that football won't happen.
b.) Many, many economies affected if there is a true cancellation of football: university budgets, college town gameday revenues, ESPN and other networks, jersey merch, etc. These hungry mouths are not silent behind the scenes.
c.) No vocal opponent with a high Q rating. There has not yet been a retired athlete or coach with tremendous name recognition come out and say playing football is bad. Give Paul Finebaum some credit, as he's been willing to have guests on who are openly stating that CFB is not looking like a safe bet. But these guests are not household names.

https://twitter.com/GetUpESPN/status/127...3155640323

The "catch" was that very early in the process Mark Emmert commented that the NCAA should not have sports if students are not attending classes on campus.   

So using that logic the CSUs, USC and UCLA should not have fall sports this year.   Hate to sound California centric, but it will be tough for the Pac-12 to have a season if that set of schools is not playing.

If students are not on campus, the NCAA just won't be able to have STUDENT-athletes playing games.    If the hybrid and online only model spreads the seasons will be cancelled or postponed. 

Most schools announced in May and early June that they would open for the fall, but they were using projections with less than 20 daily deaths nationwide by early August.    We are off that trajectory, so look for more schools to announce revisions to plans like USC.

---

Risk of travel is becoming clear....even to POTUS I suspect/hope.

POTUS administration continues to announce that more and more of the Secret Service agents have tested positive for COVID in advance of the MAGA rally.  The recent MAGA rally trips have also included a few members of the Trump's election campaign testing positive too.

And tonight we discovered that Kimberly Guilfoyle joined the positive test group.   She is Jr's girlfriend and part of that POTUS administration re-election campaign.  She traveled to Oklahoma, Arizona and South Dakota for the various rallies.   Hope she does well but her situation hints at the challenges of trying to travel the USA while COVID is thriving.


Her back story is not really critical for this board.   My point is team Trump can't even avoid COVID in circles that close to POTUS despite all of the testing and precautions.   It is very, very hard to imagine your average NCAA team that travels on commercial airlines for road contests would successful avoid a COVID outbreak for a full season given Team Trump's lack of success with its last three road trips.

As a top fund-raising official, Guilfoyle may have been pandering to the maskless sensibilities of Trump's big donors.