The NCAA announced Thursday the cancellation of all fall sports championships excluding football because of the growing number of programs choosing to opt out of fall competition due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The Board of Governors said ‘Look, if you don’t have half of the schools playing a sport, you can’t have a legitimate championship,’” NCAA president Mark Emmert said. “So we can’t [have a championship] in any Division I, NCAA sport now.” 

While the decision impacts Georgia soccer, volleyball and cross country, Football Bowl Subdivision football can still play, as the College Football Playoff is independent of the NCAA. 

The announcement came shortly after the Southland and Southern Conference decided to postpone their fall sports seasons. Additional conferences that have already elected not to compete this fall include the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Ivy League, among others.

The SEC has yet to cancel its fall sports seasons and could still move forward with regular seasons and conference tournaments.

Emmert did not rule out the possibility for fall sports championships to be played with modifications at a later date, potentially in the spring. Yet he said the priority is to produce championships for spring and winter sports that had their tournaments canceled due to COVID-19 earlier this year.

“If we modify the model, shrink the bracket sizes, do everything in predetermined sites instead of running kids around the country … move toward bubbles or semi-bubble models in volleyball, let’s say, or soccer, [then] there’s a way to do it,” Emmert said.

Printed with permission from The Red & Black independent student media organization in Athens, Georgia; redandblack.com/sports