“The unemployment’s on his watch, the canceled seasons are on his watch. I mean, all of this is on Trump’s watch, and he has so bungled this and he could point fingers and blame some elite somebody somewhere, but it’s on him.” nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/…
As someone living in Central Ohio I can attest that people are very disappointed that @OhioStateFB will not be played this Autumn. This is 6 games that were guaranteed to sell out with ~105,000 capacity at Ohio Stadium. But it is more than money, it's a pastime.
While the media reports on the bars and parking and other revenue and business losses, people are sad because these were Saturdays spent with friends and family. It was something to do. We see again the ways this virus is taking fun events away from us.
Politically, I am not sure what the fallout will be. There are people who blame the universities, and there will always be those people. At the same time, if schools will not be open or open under social distancing it is hard to justify playing football.
With teams going into quarantine this summer you run the risk of cancelling several games this season. A conservative projection would say 10% of games would be missed and a much larger percent played without marquee players due to the virus. Is this what fans want?
This is the choice. Any playing will have to contend with the virus and the need to quarantine players, coaches, and staff. We only need look at MLB (more than 20 games thus far) to see how that would play out. The counterfactual is not a "regular" or "normal" season.
The problems the Big 12 and SEC will face are acute. They have several teams in states where hot spots are especially likely to break out, and even more likely once campuses open again. How will they handle player and coach quarantines? What protocols for testing are in place?
The rest of 2020 will be a reminder than we had time. When the NCAA Tournament was cancelled we should have planned for football. We assumed the virus would be behind us. We were wrong. A failure to plan has led us to this point, and we have to face the consequences.
On the bright side, it will be a year of unprecedented feats in college football. @UMichFootball will still lose without playing a single game! They can do everything in Ann Arbor but beat @OhioStateFB!
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