COVID 19’s Effect on Sports

Collegiate Athletes Affected

Colleges all across the nation are closed. With the closing of colleges comes the end of collegiate sports. The NCAA has released its statement condemning the rest of the winter and spring seasons to come to a complete stop with no chance of return.

That’s right, no march madness and no college world series. Although our NC State men’s basketball team had little chance to win any titles this year, you never know. They could have bounced back and made a run. The women’s basketball team on the other hand, had just won the ACC championship and was looking very strong going into the NCAA tournament.

This all is very detrimental to fans but what does it look like for the players? Well each of the athletes are given back one year of eligibility and if they have an athletic scholarship will be given another year on scholarship.

Over 25,000 incoming NCAA student-athletes received the COVID-19 Automatic Waiver today.

Best of luck to these and all incoming NCAA student-athletes as they take the next step in their athletic and academic careers!

➡️ Learn more: https://t.co/akKZq7RNgj pic.twitter.com/1C1NhEw1NB
— Eligibility Center (@ncaaec) May 1, 2020

This is all well and good especially for all the young athletes who have an athletic scholarship. But what about the players who do not have a scholarship. If they actually want to use their extra year of eligibility, they will have to pay thousands of dollars to return to school for another semester. On top of that, many of the players planned out their schedules so that may graduate on time and thus this extra year would be filled with pointless extra classes.

Therefore, there are still a large amount of seniors who could not afford to pay for another semester or who went ahead with their graduation that got their last year of being a college athlete ripped away from them. Though, this also applies to non-seniors who can not afford to pay to go to school for an extra year.

Professional Sports Also Affected

Our Carolina Hurricanes were also forced to shut down their season early, finishing with a record of 38-25-5. This might not be the complete end of the season however. There has been a lot of talk about returning to the season when the fear of COVID-19 has died down.

However, we are in May and the quarantine is showing no signs stopping. Meanwhile, there are debates on what to do about the NHL draft. If the 2019-2020 is able to conclude this summer, holding the draft during a shortened off season would put a lot of stress on teams.

Therefore, they are currently developing plans to move the draft to June. In an ESPN article by Greg Wyshynski, he states, “The league has targeted June 5 for the draft, which was originally scheduled for June 26-27 in Montreal. Teams would take part in a virtual draft, selecting players from remote locations.”.

With this said plan, it is said that they will use points percentages to determine the “non-playoff” teams in the draft lottery. This obviously is still yet to be determined though, due to the fact that the season may not even return this year.

Though all in all, I look forward to seeing how the Canes come back from this quarantine. Hopes of a playoff run are still in tact for Carolina. However, they will need to come back from the quarantine very strong if they hope to make it.

One positive that can be taken from this season suspension is that by the time the season returns, Dougie Hamilton will likely be able to play once again after being on the injury reserve. This will hopefully give us a boost when re-entering the season.

Financial Troubles

I think it is pretty obvious that the virus has had a terrible effect on the economy. The sports industry is clearly suffering from it as well. According to ESPN this virus will cost the sports industry at least 12 billion dollars.

In an LA Times article, Helene Elliott reports that the Carolina Hurricanes are going to be one of the most affected NHL teams due to Tom Dundon’s recent purchase of majority interest and the operating rights to the PNC Arena in 2018. Although, I do not think that the Canes are under any serious threat of being sold or decommissioned.

According to a Canes and Coffee article by Matt Karash, the Canes actually might benefit from the financial setbacks being experienced by the NHL. This is due to the likelihood that the salary cap for the 2020-21 season will be drastically reduced.

The Canes, as far as salaries and their salary cap goes, are not strained by that cap. Although, many other teams in the NHL are and were relying on the increase in salary cap for next season. Thus, this lessened salary cap could hamper other teams’ ability to improve or even maintain the status quo and it could create a good buyers’ market for the Hurricanes to make an addition or two during the summer.

So all in all the financial stability of the NHL and the Hurricanes relies on what they decide to do. Were they to decide to completely cancel rather than delay the season, it would potentially have a crippling effect of the finances of the league.

What about the NCAA?

Well due to the fact that the NCAA is undoubtedly canceled for the rest of the school year, they are facing much more issues. An article from The Herald-Dispatch by Grant Traylor, says that the budget for the amount of money to be distributed to the members of the NCAA will be cut from 600 million dollars to 225 million dollars.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament alone usually generates about $867.5 million annually from television and marketing rights, according to the institution’s website. Also, Omaha is said to be losing upward towards 70 million dollars.

This economic crisis could potentially effect many things at NC State and all other colleges. The future is, to say the least, very unclear at the moment. We could see things such as staff cuts or less scholarships.

I will say however, that the culmination and amount of work being put in for the NHL and NCAA makes me feel positive about the future. I realize that many things that have happened, seem terrible and unfair and the future appears bleak for college and professional sports. However, I do believe that both will bounce back and be completely fine and before we know it we will be back to watching our Canes and Wolf Pack just like usual.