SI Insider: How an Altered Academic Calendar Could Impact Winter College Athletics

An inside look at how an altered year could impact college sports.

Transcript

00:00 Well, the last few days we've started to see the beginnings of something we wrote about

00:11 last week, and that is schools changing their academic calendar for the fall semester in

00:18 order to end classes on campus before Thanksgiving and then send students home for a long winter

00:25 break of up to two months.

00:27 University of South Carolina is going that route.

00:30 Marquette University also going that route.

00:34 We have no idea what all the permutations could be for a college football season, but

00:37 think ahead to college basketball and what this might mean there.

00:42 That season usually begins in early November, and some of the biggest games really are played

00:47 late November, early December, on through into the Christmas break and beyond.

00:54 Universities are saying that campuses need to be shut down and students need to be home

00:59 for safety during what is a predicted second outbreak of the coronavirus.

01:05 Does it really make sense to have the basketball teams there toiling away producing television

01:09 inventory, or is that bad optics for universities to handle, for that and other winter sports?

01:15 I think there's a possibility we could be looking at a basketball season that is postponed

01:21 and doesn't start until January, possibly even late January, and maybe is just a conference-only

01:27 season.

01:28 A lot of things obviously to be ironed out here, but as schools begin to alter the academic

01:32 calendar, time to start thinking about what that's also going to mean for the athletic

01:36 calendar.

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