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2020 Buckeyes Football

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This is all about liability:

No one is going to want to explain this is parents and the public if one of these guys drop dead after contracting Corona.
So much stupid discussion around how this is being portrayed as a binary disease (i.e. you die or you live and you have situations where you survive Corona and then you either have a shitty heart or die from heart failure while playing with myocarditis)

Delay it to the spring is the right thing to do (virus should be available by the end of the year and likely better therapeutics such as monoclonal ABs)
Also screw these college football coaches: so many of these Trump loving fools now want to advocate for football now while the rest of the industrialized world can have sports

That's where I stand on this, too. It's a "you're not going to die because you're young and healthy thing so let's play sports." The truth is we have no clear idea yet on what the long-term effects of simply contracting the virus are. As you mentioned there's suspicion of heart issues, lung issues, neurological issues, etc.

Let's say you're a healthy 19-year-old with hopes of playing in the NFL. You catch Covid-19, and while you live, your lung capacity is cut by 10%. While you don't die, the reduced lung capacity prevents you from performing at the same level and also sticks with you for the rest of your life. This is a more likely scenario with younger kids. Also, we can't forget about all the coaches and staff involved as well.

If MLB has all the resources, with significantly smaller rosters, paychecks at stake for the players, and they still can't really control it, I fail to see how a team of 85+ kids will manage to do so. The MLB teams have been having players who test positive drive home in rental cars. Can you imagine a university asking a student-athlete to do that? It seems kind of outlandish.

Do you think a college athlete is safer from Coivd playing football or not? I tend to think he is at more risk once the structure is gone. They all have a mission to win and be part of a group. I think taking that away would cause more harm.

This very well could be true, but this isn't the universities concern. It's all about liability. If they get it playing football, it's on the university. If it happens outside of football, they don't have to foot the bill for treatment or face the lawsuits.

Also, I don't know when schools create their budgets for any given school year or how they allocate money for emergencies. They simply might not have the budget to be able to cover the cost of additional medical treatment especially with enrollment likely to be down and no fans in the stands.
 
This very well could be true, but this isn't the universities concern. It's all about liability. If they get it playing football, it's on the university. If it happens outside of football, they don't have to foot the bill for treatment or face the lawsuits.

Also, I don't know when schools create their budgets for any given school year or how they allocate money for emergencies. They simply might not have the budget to be able to cover the cost of additional medical treatment especially with enrollment likely to be down and no fans in the stands.

I think there could be a flip side to liability too where it's not just the players and the football program. If the universities disproportionately allocates PPE, cleaning, and testing to a football program then the higher risk faculty, staff, and student body get sick, I think they could have lawsuits on their hands. I would think that is clearly neglect to provide a safe work environment. They would have evidence that they had the ability to prove it with the football program and failed to prove it to the rest of the university.
 
(virus should be available by the end of the year
The virus should be available for years to come as long as the vaccine is 50% effective like they expect it to be. Fall of 2022 is more realistic.
 
I think there could be a flip side to liability too where it's not just the players and the football program. If the universities disproportionately allocates PPE, cleaning, and testing to a football program then the higher risk faculty, staff, and student body get sick, I think they could have lawsuits on their hands. I would think that is clearly neglect to provide a safe work environment. They would have evidence that they had the ability to prove it with the football program and failed to prove it to the rest of the university.


100%. You're allocating all these resources to cover what probably amounts to 125 people or so when at a university such as OSU you have an additional 60,000 or so students and faculty that you need to keep safe as well.
 
The virus should be available for years to come as long as the vaccine is 50% effective. 2022 is more realistic.

Maybe: I guess I'm fairly optimistic on the vaccine end. I expect we'll have several good vaccines by the end of the year but the trick will upscaling manufacturing and then distribution by that point. So maybe more realistic to think summer rather than spring

Also depends on what 50% means: if you have 50% of people who get an effective antibody response to the vaccine and then you have areas such as New York which likely had a range 10-20% infected you're pretty close to the 70% needed for herd immunity based on a R0 of 2-3 people for every infected person
 
Maybe: I guess I'm fairly optimistic on the vaccine end. I expect we'll have several good vaccines by the end of the year but the trick will upscaling manufacturing and then distribution by that point. So maybe more realistic to think summer rather than spring

Also depends on what 50% means: if you have 50% of people who get an effective antibody response to the vaccine and then you have areas such as New York which likely had a range 10-20% infected you're pretty close to the 70% needed for herd immunity based on a R0 of 2-3 people for every infected person
I see most people either waiting awhile to see if people start developing side effects or have no interest in getting a vaccine that isn't 100% effective...... Unless the government starts requiring showing proof you have been vaccinated to enter certain businesses and facilities.
 
I see most people either waiting awhile to see if people start developing side effects or have no interest in getting a vaccine that isn't 100% effective...... Unless the government starts requiring showing proof you have been vaccinated to enter certain businesses and facilities.

Sure but luckily it's not measles which has much higher R0.
I suspect based on what we know of the virus (minimal mutational capacity versus something like HIV and and that a lot of the targets that would prevent the virus from infecting humans sit on the outside of the virus membrane) that getting a good and effective antibody response well north of 50% is likely

So if you have vaccines that more along the lines of say 80-90% efficacy and 50% of the population gets it your close to 50 plus 10-20% infected by then so you are again pretty close to the 70% threshold to prevent spread
 
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Do you think a college athlete is safer from Coivd playing football or not? I tend to think he is at more risk once the structure is gone. They all have a mission to win and be part of a group. I think taking that away would cause more harm.

Not sure I get the question, but if you're asking just about COVID, I don't see how the players would be safer from more activity/exposure via a season. What would the structure have to do with it if they spend less time around people?

I don’t think a season would work out either. You’ve got 100 players on a team, all the coaches, training staff, etc. Then you’ve got the thousands of students returning to campus who will also spread the virus. It’d only work if you did a bubble like the NBA, and that’s not feasible for a number of reasons. I just hate that it’s not going to work because there’s nothing better than football and fall.

Ugh, yes. Losing the summer sucked and having fall essentially canceled is a kick in the balls. Basically resigning myself to the fact that college football is not happening and I likely won't be able to see family for the holidays.
 
Maybe: I guess I'm fairly optimistic on the vaccine end. I expect we'll have several good vaccines by the end of the year but the trick will upscaling manufacturing and then distribution by that point. So maybe more realistic to think summer rather than spring

Also depends on what 50% means: if you have 50% of people who get an effective antibody response to the vaccine and then you have areas such as New York which likely had a range 10-20% infected you're pretty close to the 70% needed for herd immunity based on a R0 of 2-3 people for every infected person

The true question will be if a vaccine is effective at stopping the virus completely or stopping the disease from being more than a cold. I hope there is a clear break down of the data and with age groups.

I really hope that at minimum it is real effective at preventing the worse of the disease and takes out the chances of being hospitalized. Blocking the virus completely at a high rate would be real nice but might be too much to hope for.

Hopefully monoclonal antibodies cover any holes in the vaccine and people can get them easily.
 
I agree with your points re: Unionization. However, the smart and safe call is to cancel the season regardless of the other NCAA-related politics BS.

No league has done what the NCAA is attempting to do. And where would they look? An NBA-type bubble is not possible. The MLB looks bad and their season could very well collapse. The NFL hasn't started yet. And the leagues operating internationally have the supreme advantage of existing in countries that understood how to respond to the pandemic and don't deal with our daily catastrophic numbers.

There's just too many variables IMO. The pandemic is going far too poorly here and it just seems like needless risk for kids who aren't even getting paid.

This is the real debate, IMO.

Kids want to play, they see other health and safety protocols put in place to make game play possible in other leagues. They see enormous budgets, enormous TV rights deals and the money train which funds this sport and know its possible to fund similar protocols in college football.

They have buildings where they can house athletes, facilities which they can practice and play safely. They deserve the opportunity to try and play if that is what the organized players want, with the option to opt out if they are not on board.


It requires diligence and adherence to protocol, which is more than they're likely to get outside of this plan.


All of that being considered, I listen to the athletes, get the money and try to play.
 
This is the real debate, IMO.

Kids want to play, they see other health and safety protocols put in place to make game play possible in other leagues. They see enormous budgets, enormous TV rights deals and the money train which funds this sport and know its possible to fund similar protocols in college football.

They have buildings where they can house athletes, facilities which they can practice and play safely. They deserve the opportunity to try and play if that is what the organized players want, with the option to opt out if they are not on board.


It requires diligence and adherence to protocol, which is more than they're likely to get outside of this plan.


All of that being considered, I listen to the athletes, get the money and try to play.

Like I mentioned previously, due to lost revenue from ticket sales and concessions the money to actually cover the extensive health protocols for a full season might not be there for an individual school, let alone a conference.

Remember, colleges and universities are NON-Profit, meaning they have to budget and account for all revenue and expenses a full year in advance. If you're budgeting for your athletic department to make $200 mill and suddenly a pandemic hits and it's going to only make $10 mill or less (just arbitrary numbers), that unexpected loss suddenly puts you in a shitty position. This isn't even mentioning the potential loss of revenue due to lower-than-projected enrollment.

This is precisely why the MAC and other smaller conferences have already canceled their seasons. Without the big paychecks from the Power 5 games, they have to find ways to trim their budget. Most of the smaller schools and conferences keep their athletic programs afloat by voluntarily getting their face smashed in once or twice a year for a few million dollars.

If you're a university President, the first thing on your mind isn't how do we play football. It's how do I keep the student body safe, how do I keep the staff safe, how do we provide meals in a safe manner, how do we keep dorms clean, how can I find the money to not have to let go of faculty, etc.

Also, you're protecting the university against potential lawsuits. If all of these players, parents, coaches, and staff want to sign waivers that they're absolving the university of any responsibility and will personally cover any medical related expenses, by all means go for it.

I just think many people, including the players and parents, aren't considering the fact that the resources might not actually be there for the university to commit to cover a full season and potential playoff birth (should that exist).

The professional leagues are legitimate businesses and have much deeper pockets and resources than the college level. To put this in perspective, each MLB team has 40 players on their active roster, plus coaches and other staff. That's well over 1300 people total. I believe I saw they have done around 13,000 tests for Covid-19, or about 100 per person. They're only about a quarter of the way through the season. That's 50,000 or more tests if they make it through the whole thing, not counting playoffs.

With the size of football rosters, the Big 10 alone would use at least 50,000 tests. Where does that money come from? That's just accounting for testing, and not additional PPE, presumably additional travel costs from having to split the team up more than usual, treatment and containment plans if/when someone gets sick, etc.

Just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. It's way more complex than "college football makes a lot of money. Just find some and let them play." Most of the money people are saying to find was spent a while ago during the budgeting process, to protect the tens of thousands of paying students that are actually required to keep the university viable, or was completely lost due to not being able to have fans in the stands.
 
Like I mentioned previously, due to lost revenue from ticket sales and concessions the money to actually cover the extensive health protocols for a full season might not be there for an individual school, let alone a conference.

Remember, colleges and universities are NON-Profit, meaning they have to budget and account for all revenue and expenses a full year in advance. If you're budgeting for your athletic department to make $200 mill and suddenly a pandemic hits and it's going to only make $10 mill or less (just arbitrary numbers), that unexpected loss suddenly puts you in a shitty position. This isn't even mentioning the potential loss of revenue due to lower-than-projected enrollment.

This is precisely why the MAC and other smaller conferences have already canceled their seasons. Without the big paychecks from the Power 5 games, they have to find ways to trim their budget. Most of the smaller schools and conferences keep their athletic programs afloat by voluntarily getting their face smashed in once or twice a year for a few million dollars.

If you're a university President, the first thing on your mind isn't how do we play football. It's how do I keep the student body safe, how do I keep the staff safe, how do we provide meals in a safe manner, how do we keep dorms clean, how can I find the money to not have to let go of faculty, etc.

Also, you're protecting the university against potential lawsuits. If all of these players, parents, coaches, and staff want to sign waivers that they're absolving the university of any responsibility and will personally cover any medical related expenses, by all means go for it.

I just think many people, including the players and parents, aren't considering the fact that the resources might not actually be there for the university to commit to cover a full season and potential playoff birth (should that exist).

The professional leagues are legitimate businesses and have much deeper pockets and resources than the college level. To put this in perspective, each MLB team has 40 players on their active roster, plus coaches and other staff. That's well over 1300 people total. I believe I saw they have done around 13,000 tests for Covid-19, or about 100 per person. They're only about a quarter of the way through the season. That's 50,000 or more tests if they make it through the whole thing, not counting playoffs.

With the size of football rosters, the Big 10 alone would use at least 50,000 tests. Where does that money come from? That's just accounting for testing, and not additional PPE, presumably additional travel costs from having to split the team up more than usual, treatment and containment plans if/when someone gets sick, etc.

Just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. It's way more complex than "college football makes a lot of money. Just find some and let them play." Most of the money people are saying to find was spent a while ago during the budgeting process, to protect the tens of thousands of paying students that are actually required to keep the university viable, or was completely lost due to not being able to have fans in the stands.

I don't disagree with too much of this. The cost is hefty, and while college athletic departments are "not for profit" in name only, they were FULLY committed to playing right up until the kids organized and demanded health and safety protocols that actually kept them safe.

The universities and athletic departments were fine until they realized they needed to take this virus seriously and couldn't skate by without the public pressure of actually having to do what is best for their student athletes.

MLB, NFL and every other league pays player salaries. College Football, especially at the conference and NCAA level, have made billions in profits while not having to pay the student athletes a dime of it.

The Big Ten alone dished out $55 million in revenue to each school from their rights deal. Am I really supposed to believe that 50,000 tests and added protocols for ONE YEAR, on an immensely profitable business, is not feasible?


I'm sorry, I just don't buy that.
 
Like I mentioned previously, due to lost revenue from ticket sales and concessions the money to actually cover the extensive health protocols for a full season might not be there for an individual school, let alone a conference.

Remember, colleges and universities are NON-Profit, meaning they have to budget and account for all revenue and expenses a full year in advance. If you're budgeting for your athletic department to make $200 mill and suddenly a pandemic hits and it's going to only make $10 mill or less (just arbitrary numbers), that unexpected loss suddenly puts you in a shitty position. This isn't even mentioning the potential loss of revenue due to lower-than-projected enrollment.

This is precisely why the MAC and other smaller conferences have already canceled their seasons. Without the big paychecks from the Power 5 games, they have to find ways to trim their budget. Most of the smaller schools and conferences keep their athletic programs afloat by voluntarily getting their face smashed in once or twice a year for a few million dollars.

If you're a university President, the first thing on your mind isn't how do we play football. It's how do I keep the student body safe, how do I keep the staff safe, how do we provide meals in a safe manner, how do we keep dorms clean, how can I find the money to not have to let go of faculty, etc.

Also, you're protecting the university against potential lawsuits. If all of these players, parents, coaches, and staff want to sign waivers that they're absolving the university of any responsibility and will personally cover any medical related expenses, by all means go for it.

I just think many people, including the players and parents, aren't considering the fact that the resources might not actually be there for the university to commit to cover a full season and potential playoff birth (should that exist).

The professional leagues are legitimate businesses and have much deeper pockets and resources than the college level. To put this in perspective, each MLB team has 40 players on their active roster, plus coaches and other staff. That's well over 1300 people total. I believe I saw they have done around 13,000 tests for Covid-19, or about 100 per person. They're only about a quarter of the way through the season. That's 50,000 or more tests if they make it through the whole thing, not counting playoffs.

With the size of football rosters, the Big 10 alone would use at least 50,000 tests. Where does that money come from? That's just accounting for testing, and not additional PPE, presumably additional travel costs from having to split the team up more than usual, treatment and containment plans if/when someone gets sick, etc.

Just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. It's way more complex than "college football makes a lot of money. Just find some and let them play." Most of the money people are saying to find was spent a while ago during the budgeting process, to protect the tens of thousands of paying students that are actually required to keep the university viable, or was completely lost due to not being able to have fans in the stands.

Captures what so many forget: the problem for University presidents is so much bigger than Fall sports. But much of the public understands a university as little more than a medium for their favorite college football team.
 
I don't disagree with too much of this. The cost is hefty, and while college athletic departments are "not for profit" in name only, they were FULLY committed to playing right up until the kids organized and demanded health and safety protocols that actually kept them safe.

The universities and athletic departments were fine until they realized they needed to take this virus seriously and couldn't skate by without the public pressure of actually having to do what is best for their student athletes.

MLB, NFL and every other league pays player salaries. College Football, especially at the conference and NCAA level, have made billions in profits while not having to pay the student athletes a dime of it.

The Big Ten alone dished out $55 million in revenue to each school from their rights deal. Am I really supposed to believe that 50,000 tests and added protocols for ONE YEAR, on an immensely profitable business, is not feasible?


I'm sorry, I just don't buy that.

Well, yes.

So here's something that might shock most people in here. OSU's athletic department LOST money in 2018-19. Yes, despite making over $200 million in revenue, they spent more than they earned. This is the catch-22 for the college football and basketball programs across the country and the athletes calling for pay.

While they might be making a lot of money, they're re-investing literally all of it into coaching, staff, recruiting, travel, and building world-class facilities that allow the player to evolve as a student-athlete and the sport to generate money. Sports are a marketing tool for a university, and most lose money overall on sports. OSU didn't lose much, but it's still hard to believe that an athletics program that brings in as much money as OSU would still lose money.

This further illustrates the problems even for other Big 10 schools that don't bring in the same kind of money as OSU.


On the EADA report, Ohio State recorded income of $210.5 million and expenses of $220.5 million. However, OSU said that does not include $10.4 million in revenue from Buckeye Club donations and other gifts related to debt service and capital projects.

The money spent on projects such as the Covelli-Jennings Center, the Schumaker Student Athlete Development Complex and the Woody Hayes Athletic Center renovation was held in what OSU senior associate athletic director for finance Joe Odoguardi called “plant funds.” He said OSU’s external auditors’ interpretation of the EADA report was that those funds should not be included as income for that year.

These are the athletic numbers from OSU for 18-19 from USA Today:

Ticket Sales: $59,847,907
Contributions: $29,681,048
Rights/Licensing: $93,919,737 (TV Money, apparel, etc.)
School Funds: $41,472
Other: $27,058,075
Total Revenue: $210,548,239


What football means for the bottom line

Smith said in April that Ohio State athletics expected to end the fiscal year with about $10.2 million in reserves. Those reserves, even if OSU chose to wipe them out all at once, would not cover the operational deficit of a season with drastically reduced football ticket sales — let alone no attendance at all.

Looking again at the EADA submissions, the football program made between $50.55-$59.35 million in ticket revenue over the past three seasons. Over that span, football tickets accounted for roughly 51% of all football revenue and almost 27% of the entire athletic department’s revenue.

Smith said Ohio State has gamed out scenarios, based on social distancing recommendations, limiting football attendance to 20,000-22,000 this fall. He later added that an easing of those guidelines could allow up to 40,000-50,000 fans.

Football games played without fans or with reduced crowds could still bring revenue to OSU through media broadcast rights. Football accounted for $34 million of the athletic department’s $45.6 million in media rights revenue for 2019-20.

However, take most or all of that income from both sources away and the hit to OSU’s bottom line is significant.

“I think Ohio State is better positioned than the majority of the schools, but we still obviously have some major concerns,” said Brian Turner, an associate professor of sports management at Ohio State who is beginning his second stint on the school’s athletic council.

So take away at least $55-60 mill from the athletic budget with no fans right off the top. That means just without ticket sales they're operating at a $60 million loss. I would have to guess that given the current circumstances, apparel sales take a massive hit with no fans in the stadium and the economic state of the country.

If you want the greater culprits, look no further than the coaching and support staffs:

"The $39,295,656 spent on coaches’ salaries last year might also be locked in — Smith said at this point the school is also resisting cutting coach salaries, as Michigan and others have done recently — another $38,108,511 went to administrative and support staff that could conceivably shrink after expanding in recent years."

So, $77,000,000 on coaches and support staff in athletics, a number that won't change this year according to Smith.

There's a lot of other factors in play for the 2020 fiscal year as well. This was OSU's 2020 budget:


Read through it if you'd like. It'd shed a great deal of light on why these Presidents are in such a difficult situation.

The main point being, OSU's projected revenue was $7.5 Billion and projected expense was $7 Billion. Everyone leaves wiggle room in their budget, but it still has to be spent by the end of the year. Keep in mind, this is not only reflecting the Columbus campus, but this includes the total budget for all four regional campuses as well.

I have not seen numbers for enrollment yet, but I would have to assume out-of-state and international numbers will take a big hit, which will result in a big reduction of tuition dollars.

The state of Ohio contributes money to every public university in the state. In May they had to trim their budget and part of that involved contributions to universities.


"The Ohio State University was originally slated to receive $392.3 million from the state and will now receive about $377 million"

It doesn't totally work like this, but technically speaking, the loss of money from the state and the likely drop in enrollment would probably be enough to shut down at the very least two if not all four of the regional branches.
 
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