A highly-anticipated NCAA Board of Governors meeting ended without a resolution on Friday, as NCAA president Mark Emmert announced the organization will continue to monitor the coronavirus spread throughout the U.S. with an eye on fall sports.
"Today the Board of Governors and I agreed that we must continue to thoughtfully and aggressively monitor the health conditions around the country and the implementation of the COVID-19 guidelines we issued last week," Emmert said.
"We will continue our discussion in August," the statement concluded. The Board is slated to meet again on Aug. 4.
There was a legitimate fear across college sports that the Board could cancel fall sports, given the same group canceled all winter and spring championships in one fell swoop back on March 12.
While such a decision would not unilaterally cancel any individual seasons, in practice it would do just about that. The football season at the FBS level absolutely will continue on no matter what the Board of Governors happens to decide -- after all, it is the conferences who run the bowl season, not the NCAA -- such a decision would put the conferences in the ultimate public-relations bind, given that football would be the only active sport on campus.
Emmert's statement confirmed that the playing of fall sports is contingent upon external factors in a way that professional sports -- which are cranking up to full swing now through the next week -- are not.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.