Ferd Lewis: Mountain West Conference surges forward with football

In the space of less than 24 hours one university, Connecticut, canceled its football season and 12 others in the Mountain West Conference, including Hawaii, Wednesday pledged to press on in an attempt to preserve theirs.

Ironically, for all the talk about health and safety, both also reflected something that was hardly mentioned but also looms large — bottom-line business decisions.

Rarely has the business of college athletics been more underlined in such a short period.

Consider that UConn, a football independent that had reported no COVID-19 cases among its players and does not sit in a hotspot, became the first school in the 130-member NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision to cancel its 2020 season.

“After receiving guidance from state and public health officials and consulting with football (players), we’ve decided that we will not compete on the gridiron this season,” athletic director David Benedict said in a statement. “The safety challenges created by COVID-19 place our football student-athletes at an unacceptable level of risk.”

Benedict added, “The necessary measures needed to mitigate risk of football (players) contracting the coronavirus are not conducive to delivering an optimal experience for our team.”

Hours later the MWC Board of Directors, some of whose schools are located in hotspots and have had to push back workouts because of virus cases, announced a “modified” framework for eight conference games and an option to play two nonconference games. Competition would begin no earlier than Sept. 26, the impact of the pandemic permitting.

“The health and welfare of our student-athletes and campus communities continue to be paramount in our decision-making process,” commissioner Craig Thompson said in a statement. “The modified fall structure as presently configured allows flexibility and time for our athletic programs to be in the best possible position to play collegiate sports this season.”

The MWC also plans to permit conference-only play for its women’s volleyball, soccer and cross country teams. (UH’s teams in those sports compete in the Big West, which earlier announced cancellation of their seasons).

UConn had four of its football games canceled by opponents due to various conference policies and was facing the possibility of losing two big payday contests. On top of that, the struggling Huskies football team (2-10, 0-8 in the American Athletic Conference in 2019), takes in less ticket revenue than the school’s highly successful and popular men’s and women’s basketball programs and is a significant contributor to the rising double-figure deficits.

Across the Mountain West, meanwhile, football remains the chief financial engine in its athletic departments and TV rights fees a major component, especially if the seats are empty. Not that anybody in the MWC is going to get rich off football this year, especially UH with its heavy travel overhead.

But without its modest contributions this year, however scaled back, the already tattered budgets would be further devastated.

In between the announcements by UConn and the Mountain West, more than 700 schools in the NCAA’s Division II and III ranks, for whom football is not the bread winner, had the championships in all their 2020 fall sports canceled by NCAA Councils on Wednesday.

For most of the rest of the schools, it has come down to a bottom-line call, which means doing everything they can to see that the football games go on.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.