CLEVELAND, Ohio — With the start of the fall season just weeks away, Mid-American Conference Commissioner John Steinbrecher made a major announcement Saturday.
What You Need To Know
- Mid-American Conference cancels fall sports season, have not made a decision on winter sports
- Trying to give athletes opportunity to compete in spring
- Around 2,500 student athletes are impacted from Kent State, Akron, Miami, Ohio, Toledo, and Bowling Green
- MAC is the first Division I Football Bowl Subdivision conference to cancel
“As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States and around the world and its effect on student athletes, the conference will postpone the fall seasons,” he said.
The decision impacts student athletes from multiple universities including Kent State University, the University of Akron, Miami University, Ohio University, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University.
“Clearly we are charting a conservative path and it is one that has been recommended by our medical advisory group,” Steinbrecher said. “There are simply too many unknowns for us to put our student athletes in situations that are not clearly understood.”
Matt Cacciato, executive director of the AECOM Center for Sports Administration at Ohio University, said this was one of several possible outcomes.
“They’ve been scenario planning for months, really, the athletic directors and the commissioner and certainly the staff at each respective school so they had strategic plans in place for any one of a number of decisions,” Cacciato said.
Steinbrecher said the decision was based on information from the NCAA COVID-19 Task Force, the World Health Organization and the CDC., but there are reports of a financial aspect, too.
“Money is a part of every decision made in higher education regardless of the department,” he said. “Clearly, that was one of the factors that were weighed but at the end of the evaluation this really came down to everyone being on the same page and having the utmost care for the student athletes.”
Around 2,500 student athletes are impacted by the decision, but it’s one Cacciato thinks other conferences will follow.
“It might be easier for some that have a tighter geographic distribution, but the reality is I think we’ll see more decisions like this for schools outside the power five,” Cacciato said.
Steinbrecher said a decision has not yet been made about winter sports, but says the MAC is working on a way to give fall athletes the chance to compete.
“It is the intention of the membership to provide competitive opportunities for the student athletes in these sports during the spring semester of 2021,” Steinbrecher said.
In the meantime, Cacciato said there’s a lot for the coaches, athletes, and administrators to process.
“Well there’s the emotions, I think, and the spirit of college sports and literally all sports, you know, football certainly gets the attention in this decision,” Cacciato said.
