The Ivy League has canceled all sports for the fall and will reevaluate whether to allow athletes to compete after Jan. 1, 2021, conference sources told CBS Sports' Matt Norlander. An official announcement from the league is expected Wednesday evening.
The significant move comes as more questions and concerns arise about the feasibility of playing the 2020 college football season amid the coronavirus pandemic. Time is running out for the FBS season to start on time, which is leading many to wonder whether it will ultimately be moved a few months to the spring of 2021.
As to whether the Ivy League would consider playing football this spring -- a notion considered undesirable by the Power Five conferences as the sport weighs contingency plans -- no decision has been made at this time.
"Football hasn't been decided yet if it would be moved to the spring, but logistically, I don't know how that would work," an Ivy League source told CBS Sports. "... You can't move all the sports to the spring; the logistics don't work. The soccer field is the lacrosse field. The scheduling would be a nightmare."
There are also financial considerations to take into account for the Ivy League. The conference loses more money on football than any other sport. Basketball, the league's real money-maker, is its only profitable atheltic venture. The basketball season is unlikely to start on time considering the league's Jan. 1, 2021, mandate, which should eliminate most -- if not all -- of its nonconference games.
Ivy League programs bring in anywhere between $400,000-$500,000 annually in guarantees from nonconference games, money that will likely be gone for the 2020-21 season.
"If things don't get better, we're not even going to pay basketball," the source said. "[Decision makers are] holding out hope we can play basketball."
The Ivy League becomes the first Division I conference to make such a sweeping change. There have been cancellations in college football's lower ranks, including Division II program Morehouse College and at least three Division III schools, but nothing quite like this.
The Ivy league was also the first conference to cancel its tournament on March 10. After initial blowback for supposedly overreacting, the league saw other conferences quickly follow suit once the gravity of the COVID-19 outbreak became clear.
There is resistance to moving the FBS college football season to the spring with doing so being called, among other things, a "last resort" by Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour. Ask 10 different athletic directors, university presidents or conference commissioners about the most possibility, and you'll likely get a variety of answers.
The NCAA's approved preseason calendar is set to begin in a matter of weeks and camp is scheduled to start back up. However, multiple programs, including Houston, Kansas State and Kansas have already been forced to suspend voluntary workout because of COVID-19 spikes among athletes.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said of the upcoming season: "Unless we see a change in the trajectory of the spread of the virus and its impact pretty quickly, I think the situation's a lot more perilous than it was a few weeks ago."
The spike in COVID-19 cases since June has cast more doubt that the upcoming college football season will be played as normal. What that season looks like is still to be determined, though we could have a much clearer idea in the coming weeks. Spring football appears to be very much in play.
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