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SBJ College: Coronavirus Not Stopping Power 5 Events (For Now)


I asked, “Who is the next Gonzaga?” in this week’s SBJ and offered a range of options from Dayton to Wichita State and others.

Here's what's cooking on campus.

       

NCAA: CONFERENCES MAKE THE CALL ON TOURNAMENTS

  • The coronavirus' effect on college sports continued to be fluid today:

    • The NCAA said it will let conferences make their own choices on holding basketball tournaments. The governing body also said it is still assessing what to do with games at its own tournament sites. Sources tell me the Power Five commissioners assembled via conference call this morning to go over their plans for conference tournaments and they were reasonably on the same page about two important issues: Moving forward with events as planned and limiting media access to locker rooms.

    • NCAA Assistant Director of Championships & Alliances Matt Holmes told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that next week's wrestling championships at U.S. Bank Stadium are slated to go forward. It's the first time the event has been in an NFL venue and it's expected to set attendance records.

    • Keep an eye on the MAC Tournament in Cleveland, as well as the First Four in DaytonOhio Gov. Mike DeWine recommended there be no spectators allowed for indoor sports activities -- at the high school, college or pro level. Cleveland is scheduled to host first- and second-round games for the men's NCAA Tournament.

    • The Pac-12, Big 12, Big East and ACC in separate announcements today confirmed their tournaments will continue as planned. The Big East is taking a page from last night's statement from the NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS by announcing it too will limit access to locker rooms.

    • The Ivy League became the first conference to cancel its men's and women's tournaments scheduled for Harvard's Lavietes Pavilion. Harvard's leading scorer Bryce Aiken was far from pleased with the decision and took the conference to task on his Twitter feed.

    • Check out the latest SBJ UNPACKS podcast on the developing COVID-19 story.

 

 

SPORTS TRAVEL AGENCY DEALS WITH VIRUS FALLOUT

  • Anthony Travel manages the comings and goings for nearly 90 universities, including their sports teams, but the coronavirus threat has forced the agency to adapt to suddenly cancelled events, bring home students who have been studying abroad and rearrange foreign tours. The sports travel agency John Anthony founded in 1989 is dealing with circumstances unlike what he’s seen in 31 years. “We’re just dealing with a lot of questions and uncertainty,” Anthony said. “I don’t think anybody knows what the ultimate impact is going to be. Is it going to cycle through or is it a black swan?”
  • So far, Anthony said his firm has found the airlines to be “tremendously accommodating and flexible." Anthony: "That’s probably one reason that they have a lot of open seats right now.” He said they’re not offering refunds, but mostly they have been willing to re-book tickets or apply credits to future travel without extra fees. “They’re trying to keep their doors open and employees working like everyone else,” he said.
  • This also is the time of year when basketball teams schedule overseas trips to play exhibition games against teams from other countries. Many of those trips are either being postponed or rescheduled so that those schools don’t travel into areas with confirmed outbreaks. “Schools that are considering foreign tours are asking a lot of questions,” Anthony said. “This is typically the time of year when we’re scheduling a lot of international travel.”
  • With college campuses closing in some parts of the country, Anthony Travel is working with many of its employees to help them work remotely. Anthony has employees embedded on campus or in the athletic department at more than half of its school clients, so when a campus shuts down, Anthony Travel’s employees still have to be able to work.

 

NEBRASKA, OPENDORSE GETTING ATHLETES NIL-READY

  • Nebraska has a message to its 650 athletes: You’re being audited. More specifically, their social media is being audited. The Cornhuskers are working with Opendorse to evaluate each athlete’s social media presence and suggest ways they could improve their brand on social. Benchmarks will be established to help the athletes know how they’re performing.

  • When I reached Nebraska Senior Deputy AD Garrett Klassy today, he was most excited about the educational piece, where athletes will learn about their name/image/likeness rights and how improving their social presence could boost their marketability. “We want to be ready for NIL legislation whenever it takes effect -- tomorrow, next week or five years from now,” Klassy said. “Enhancing your brand is a valuable life skill whether you stay in sports or you go into some other line of work.”

  • Opendorse was founded by a pair of former Cornhusker football players, Blake Lawrence and Adi Kunalic, and they work closely with Nebraska athletics to develop programming like this. The company will provide the assessment for each athlete and the educational component.

  • Preparing all of the Cornhuskers’ athletes for NIL is an important piece of the social media education, which stems from their belief that many of them will have NIL money-making opportunities, including female athletes. Klassy made the point that volleyball star Lexi Sun has almost twice as many Instagram followers as the Huskers’ QB.

 

"PACKER & DURHAM" EXCITED TO BE IN GREENSBORO

  • ACC Network hits another milestone today, covering the men’s hoops tournament for the first time. The conference network brought its morning show, “Packer & Durham,” along for the ride to Greensboro Coliseum. For hosts Mark Packer and Wes Durham, leaving Packer’s basement studio in Charlotte was worth it given the history of the event in Greensboro (the city has hosted the tournament double the number of times of any other market). Packer: “Greensboro embraces the event probably more so than anywhere else. … There’s such a heritage here. The IQ of the basketball fan in this area knows good from bad. They know players, they know history, they know tradition. There is a historic aspect of what the city of Greensboro has been for this conference.”

  • Durham cited the “exclusivity and access” in Greensboro as opportunities for the show. “It gives you a chance to go a little deeper from a historical perspective than maybe you’ve been able to do because you have an event that’s 67 years old,” he said. Packer: “It’s exciting to be out of the basement, and it’s nice that ACC Network throws us a bone and we can go out and enjoy ourselves.” As for the biggest adjustment from the comfy confines in Charlotte? Packer: “No dogs.”

  • While this is the 27th time that Greensboro has hosted the men's event, its the first time back to the home of ACC HQ since 2015, and as the Greensboro News & Record's Ed Hardin wrote today, there are "no guarantees" the city remains in the ACC Tourney rotation in future years.

 

 

SPEED READS

  • USA Today's Steve Berkowitz on Monday took in the opening arguments in the Alston v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Among the judges? Sydney Thomas, who "wrote a partial dissent in the Ed O'Bannon case that took issue with the NCAA's positions in a number of areas." Berkowitz' Twitter thread is worth a click, and you can watch the entirety of the arguments here.

  • The state of Florida has taken a big step toward a law that would allow college athletes to make money off of their name, image and likeness. The state senate on Monday overwhelmingly passed a bill, and now the measure is before the state house. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a former student-athlete at Yale, already has voiced support for such a bill. The most interesting part about the Florida legislation is that it would take effect almost two years before the California bill that has already been signed into law.

 

  • CBS' Jim Nantz sat for an interview with the Univ. of Houston student newspaper after the longtime broadcaster returned to his alma mater over the weekend to call the Cougars' 64-57 win over Memphis. Nantz said of his first time in the Fertitta Center, "You could put this setting in the SEC, the AAC, the Big 12, the Pac-12. You could put it in any of those and it’d be one of the best settings in the conference."
  • The latest HBO Sports documentary, “Women of Troy,” premieres tonight and highlights the 1983 USC hoops team led by Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller. Director Alison Ellwood told SBJ’s Thomas Leary that this story felt particularly timely. “Especially with the pay equity issues in women’s sports. The WNBA now is in a pretty good negotiating position to get higher pay for the women, and that should be true across the board for all women’s sports.” 

 

HBO tonight is premiering a film focused on the 1983 USC women's basketball team and Cheryl Miller

  

 

 

------- 4 Commissioners Confirmed to Speak at World Congress of Sports -------

The NFL's Roger Goodell and WNBA's Cathy Engelbert are now confirmed to speak at the CAA World Congress of Sports, March 25-26 at the Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, CA. They join MLB's Rob Manfred and MLS' Don Garber on this year’s speaker roster. To view the agenda and to register, go to www.WorldCongressofSports.com.

 

 

 

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of sports media. Also check out SBJ Football from Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the College beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).