The NCAA has called off all of its national championship events this fall – a move that does not affect the highest level of college football – because not enough schools will be competing in sports such as soccer and women’s volleyball during the first semester of the 2020-21 school year.
NCAA president Mark Emmert made the announcement Thursday in a video posted on Twitter, but it had been clear this was coming as more and more conferences canceled fall sports seasons because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Sadly, tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall. Full stop,” Emmert said. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t and can’t turn toward winter and spring and say, ‘How can we create a legitimate championship for those students?’ There are ways to do this. I am completely confident we can figure this out. If schools and conferences want to move forward let’s do it.”
Emmert said the NCAA would prioritize staging championships in winter and spring sports because those – including the NCAA basketball tournaments- were canceled when COVID-19 first spiked across the United States in March.
Moving fall sports to the spring still must go through the Division I Council, which is made up of representatives of all 32 conferences, and be approved by the DI Board of Directors.