No March Madness: NCAA cancels all winter and spring tournaments, including basketball
The college basketball season ended on Thursday, a month before the national championship games were scheduled to be played.
The NCAA canceled its men’s and women’s tournaments, issuing this statement:
“Today, NCAA President Mark Emmert and the Board of Governors canceled the Division I men’s and women’s 2020 basketball tournaments, as well as all remaining winter and spring championships.
“This decision is based on the evolving COVID-19 public health threat, our ability to ensure the events do not contribute to spread of the pandemic, and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time this academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities.”
The men’s Final Four was scheduled for Atlanta and the women’s Final Four in New Orleans. Among the eight men’s first-and second-round regional sites were St. Louis and Omaha, Nebraska.
With winter and spring sports off the calendar, there will be no championships for wrestling, ice hockey, track and field, the College World Series for baseball in Omaha and Women’s College World Series for softball in Oklahoma City.
The cancellation also includes Division II events, including regional tournaments scheduled to start Friday for men’s basketball at Northwest Missouri State, the defending national champion, and women’s basketball at the University of Central Missouri.
But the biggest showcase event in NCAA sports is March Madness, played every year since 1939.
Last year, the 67 games attracted nearly 660,000 fans with more than 72,000 fans attending the men’s championship game between Virginia and Texas Tech in Minneapolis.
It also became one of sports’ first interactive events with fans filling out brackets and picking winners.
This year’s men’s tournament was to begin in Dayton, Ohio on March 16. The favorite heading into this year’s men’s tournament was Kansas, which had received every first-place vote in the latest wire service polls.
Before the news, Jayhawks coach BIll Self said his team would continue to practice with the idea there could be a tournament.
The decision to cancel comes a day after the NCAA announced the games that were scheduled to start next week would go on, but played in mostly empty arenas. That was going to be the case in major college tournaments, like the Big 12 in Kansas City, this week. But earlier Thursday, the Big 12 joined all other major tournaments in canceling their events.
The NCAA Tournament is a lucrative business for the national office and its member schools. Revenue is distributed to conferences based on teams’ success in the event.
In 2016, the NCAA and CBS agreed to an $8.8 billion extension of rights fees through 2032. This year’s tournament was to be broadcast on CBS and Turner Sports.
Earlier Thursday, the NAIA canceled its winter sports championships, including the national men’s basketball tournament in Kansas City, and the Kansas City-based National Association of Basketball Coaches canceled their annual convention at the Final Four.
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 3:29 PM with the headline "No March Madness: NCAA cancels all winter and spring tournaments, including basketball."