Pac-12, Big Ten shelve games and fears grow of ripple effect

The Big Ten and Pac12 became the first Power Five leagues to shift to an all-conference fall schedule as college sports faces a dramatically different landscape due to the coronavirus pandemic. In football alone, 73 games were scrapped in two days, from marquee matchups like Oregon-Ohio State to storied rivalries like USC-Notre Dame.

All eyes are now on the Atlantic Coast, Southeastern and Big 12 conferences to see if more games will be shelved in what is already shaping up as a college football season like no other. Hundreds of games have already been canceled, suspended or pushed to the spring semester at the lowest tiers of college football.

Most of the canceled football games in the Pac-12 and Big Ten are less glamorous matchups against small schools counting on big payouts to keep their athletic budgets afloat when they are already facing ugly bottom lines. Saving that money is crucial for the power conference schools — and a tremendous blow to their opponents.

“It’s significant, to say the least,” Northern Arizona athletic director Mike Marlow said Friday after the Pac-12 announcement. “We’re fortunate in the state of Arizona to have both (Arizona State) and (Arizona) here and we have one or the other scheduled through 2029. That’s a significant part of our budget.”

The Big Ten announced Thursday it will eliminate all nonconference games in football and several other sports amid rising COVID-19 concerns. The Pac12 followed suit a day later, announcing it was eliminating all nonconference games from its fall schedules for football, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball. The Ivy League has called off all fall sports.

A conference-only schedule also allows schools to cut down on travel and other expenses at a time when athletic departments are facing massive budget constraints.

The cancellation of the NCAA Tournament left the NCAA $375 million short in revenue scheduled to be paid to its member schools and the pandemic has continued to exacerbate financial shortcomings with many schools facing a drop in tuition revenue and lower attendance. Stanford has already announced plans to eliminate 11 of its 36 varsity sports next year to help shore up some of a projected $25 million budget shortfall and at least 171 sports programs at four-year schools have been cut during the pandemic.