NCAA President: Not Enough Schools Participating to Have Fall Championships
With announcements of fall sports being postponed or canceled from multiple conferences, fall championships appeared unlikely. NCAA President Mark Emmert made it official on Thursday.
“We cannot now, at this point, have fall NCAA championships, because there’s not enough schools participating,” Emmert said on NCAA.com. “The Board of Governors also said, ‘Look, if you don’t have half of the schools playing a sport, you can’t have a legitimate championship.’ So we can’t in any Division I NCAA championship sport, which is everything other than FBS football, that goes on in the fall. Sadly, tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall, full-stop.”
The number of “participating schools” dropped below 50% after the Big East announced on Wednesday its fall sports wouldn’t be played.
Also, the reason Emmert said “everything other than FBS football” is because the NCAA “has never had oversight over the FBS, its bowl games and any postseason play for the highest level of college football.”
The idea of winter or spring championships is apparently still on the table.
As for winter and spring sports, they are the highest priority because those student-athletes lost their championships earlier this year, Emmert said.
Also, in case you forgot, both NCAA Division II and III already canceled their fall championships.
