It was a little over a month ago that the Big Ten announced it would forgo a fall season and wait for Spring before resuming the college football league in the name of player safety, but with recent announcements stating that football would instead be returning in fall has placed mounting concerns on whether or not this is the right choice after all.
It had in some regards been expected as pressure had been mounting from all angles – despite the threats of some protests, many players were more than willing to return as a lawsuit had been drafted by many following the announcement of the postponement – similarly there had been plenty of pressure from coaches and parents too as the push to see a college sporting return had been mounting from outside of the Big Ten too – even President Donald Trump has boasted having a hand in the return as reports suggest the White House was willing to supply tests, with a tweet from Donald Trump on his personal account suggesting the same.
The return won’t come without measured responsibility however as the conference has said each team will be required to assign a chief infection officer to oversee the collection and reporting of test data for the conference – if team test positivity rates rise then they may be unable to compete or halt practice, similarly if a player is to test positive they will be unable to return to game competition for up to 21 days following a positive test.
This does come as good news for many bookies however as the mixed messages around the return of sporting events have been quite damaging in the industry – where online casinos at legalonlinecasino.org have managed to thrive during a period of time with increased traffic and surges of new players, online betting has somewhat stalled and only recently found its way back into a strong performance with sporting events across Europe returning at a regular schedule.
Previous attempts at a return haven’t always been the most successful either – the NBA was able to do so successfully with a well thought out bubble approach that had the players well protected and secure to ensure testing had been done regularly and that any risk of infection was minimised, the MLB to contrast hadn’t been so lucky as early on there were a slew of positive tests returned which led to a few cancelled games and fears that the rest of the season may be scrapped – whilst numbers had come under control, it had been speculated that a similar bubble may need to be formed to monitor player safety.
If the Big Ten is to find a successful return, it will certainly need to find a way to monitor player movements and ensure that any risks of infection are kept as low as possible – numbers within the US continue to rise with universities and colleges being at particular risk, as such the players could be amongst the most at risk of contracting the virus.