What Happens To Contracts And Notre Dame If Non-League Games Are Canceled?
College athletics directors are living in a state of uncertainty with little power to do something about it.
The timeline for resuming sports is, more or less, out of their hands. The fate of their fall (and perhaps winter) seasons will be determined by decisions from government officials and university presidents. Those will be based on recommendations from health officials, the state of COVID-19 and availability of testing, among other factors.
Athletic departments can simply follow the rulings and suggestions. No one can assume college football will get the all clear to start as normal. Athletics directors are not infectious disease experts. But they are concerned enough that they have begun musing about contingencies and discussing alternative models a for football season.
It could start a month late. Or four months late. It could be shortened to conference games. Maybe, in everyone’s worst fears, it doesn’t happen at all. According to an April survey done by Stadium’s Brett McMurphy, 75 percent of Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) athletics directors who responded believe the season will be truncated or delayed.
Which means there will be games to move — or possibly cancel. One commonly discussed model is a season in which teams play only conference games and get rid of their non-league schedules.
The thing is, that is not as complication-free as it sounds.
College football is not run by one governing body. There is no decision-maker who speaks for all 130 FBS institutions or one person who sets all the schedules in a neat algorithm. Schools that signed contracts for non-conference games would be left to sort them out themselves.
How Would Notre Dame Be Affected?
The outlook isn’t as bleak as the basic surface assumption that if conferences decided to eliminate non-conference games, then Notre Dame is stuck without a schedule. But the independence puts it in a bizarre, unpredictable spot. It has games from six conferences on the schedule, potentially leaving it at the mercy of more decisions than most.
Athletic director Jack Swarbrick, though, remains confident Notre Dame could piece together a schedule even if it takes a few hits.
“We’re very comfortable that if it goes that way, we’ll be fine and we’ll be able to play a high-quality, full schedule with the same number of games other teams play,” Swarbrick said.
In discussions with other athletic directors and conference commissioners, Swarbrick has advocated for a “conference plus one” model if reductions are necessary. It would mean teams play a conference schedule and one out-of-league game, which in many cases, are more important than some conference contests.
The ACC and SEC, for example, have four yearly non-conference rivalries. Iowa and Iowa State fans care more about the Cy-Hawk trophy than a league game against Maryland or TCU. One-off neutral-site games and home-and-homes are some of the most anticipated games each year. This year’s slate of those includes Ohio State at Oregon, Michigan at Washington and Wisconsin vs. Notre Dame in Green Bay.
“There are so many great non-conference games, traditional rivalries that occur among schools,” Swarbrick said. “Great rivalries in Florida. Clemson-South Carolina. You protect those and build your schedule around conferences. We would love Wisconsin to still be able to play Notre Dame at Lambeau Field or Arkansas to still visit.”
That valuable out-of-conference game, for a lot of Notre Dame’s opponents, could be Notre Dame. For playoff contender Clemson, a Nov. 7 trip to South Bend represents a chance for a resume-building win. The Fighting Irish are expected to be one of Wisconsin’s strongest opponents too. For Navy, Stanford and USC, it’s an annual rivalry. (It’s also worth noting USC opens with Alabama).
Even for Western Michigan, the guarantee game and expected blowout at Notre Dame scheduled for Sept. 19 has value – perhaps more than finishing a series with Syracuse or starting a home-and-home with Cincinnati. Notre Dame will pay $1.175 million to host Western Michigan, a sum the Mid-American Conference school uses to fund other important areas of its athletic department.
“That’s a tremendous amount of revenue that comes into the athletic department to manage the entire department,” said Western Michigan athletic director Kathy Beauregard. “We take guarantees in football and men’s basketball to be able to function on a day-to-day basis. We need the game, want the game, hope that everything will be opened up. It’ll obviously be under their control.”
Western Michigan last played at Notre Dame in 2010. Notre Dame won 44-20, but Beauregard was motivated to get another matchup back on the schedule at some point. The Broncos’ fans loved the gameday experience. The schools are an hour and a half apart. Playing at Notre Dame means national television.
Even Western Michigan fans from out of the region traveled to South Bend for the game. Former Broncos linebacker and NFL All-Pro John Offerdahl made the trip from his South Florida home.
“It really drew a lot of national exposure and pride for the Broncos,” Beauregard said.
How Could Schedule Changes Work?
If canceling or moving games becomes necessary, the process will reveal a willingness (or lack thereof) to cooperate with each other in a situation that spares no one but has endless layers of complications. The feeling among some in the industry, though, is spats and litigation over contracts will be minimal.
“It’s a very collaborative atmosphere that’s going on right now across the country with how we open up,” Beauregard said. “There isn’t anyone in the country who isn’t willing to work with one another to try and figure out how to make this work.”
Resolutions of weather-related cancelations have ended amicably. Nebraska and Akron had a 2018 game canceled by thunderstorm, settled on a payment that was about half the agreed guarantee and rescheduled the game for 2025 at a lower guarantee price than normal. The schools looked to accommodations first and found out they were possible. Each team also scheduled a different opponent that season.
“It’s not like you’re business competitors and there’s either going to be a winner or loser when you have a disagreement,” said Mike Glazier, a lawyer with experience in college athletics. “When you’re colleagues in the same association, your goals are the same and you’ll find that combination.”
There is still potential for tripwire, though. Most game contract cancelation policies state neither party is in violation if the game is called off due to “an act of God, national emergency, natural disaster, war, terrorism, civil unrest, or court order,” as the contract between Notre Dame and Western Michigan reads.
The question for universities’ general counsel becomes if COVID-19 falls under one of those categories or a force majeure clause. With guarantee games, the answer could determine how much one party owes the other or if no money is owed at all.
In Notre Dame and Wisconsin’s home-and-home series, where there is no guarantee, damages are not part of the equation. The discussion would likely center on the possibility of rescheduling.
“I think they’ll interpret these provisions pretty liberally rather than strictly and look for a way to accommodate competition in the future,” Glazier said.
Elsewhere, the party who cancels matters. A conference commissioner or university president’s decision could make one side of a contract responsible for payments, whereas a federal or state government order is less likely to require a payment.
For postponement purposes, Notre Dame’s schedule is full for 2021, has one opening for 2022 and two openings from 2023-25.
Lack Of Unity Presents Complications
Potential for mass disruption and litigation exists if some conferences choose to play non-league games, some choose to play a full schedule while others decide not to play at all. The individual and autonomous nature of college athletics create that possibility. NCAA President Mark Emmert told ESPN the NCAA won't mandate a uniform return date to college sports, leaving the decision up to university presidents and governments.
“The whole notion of how we’ll pick a start date even on a conference basis given the complexities of different state regulations and school approach to opening and makes the schedule-building and figuring out how to evaluate what will happen incredibly complex,” Swarbrick said.
To reach point where scheduling issues are an athletic department’s primary concern would be a victory. Right now, they’re concentrated on whether or not they’ll be able to play at all and how quickly the necessary safety measures for gathering players for practice and games are available. But a year without football and the revenue it brings would spell a catastrophe for athletic programs across the country.
The push to play the football season has already started in some circles. Iowa President Bruce Harreld told his board of regents April 30 he anticipates practices starting around June 1. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said unity and the same level of openness among all 130 FBS schools is not entirely necessary for the season to start, a sentiment Penn State coach James Franklin echoed in a recent Zoom call with reporters.
“I don’t see how you’ll be able to hold up 10 or 12 schools in one conference (because of) two states that are opening up a month later,” Franklin said. “And that’s the same thing by conference. I don’t think you can penalize one conference from opening because another conference is opening way ahead.”
Ultimately, those are just preferences. The viability of them will be determined at higher levels – and by the behavior of a novel virus.
“It’s going to be up to the decisions that come from the experts that are involved whether it’s safe for us to have our athletes play, come back and practice or have a team come visit,” Beauregard said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a non-conference or a league game. It’s the athletes and people. Obviously, we’d like the best and to have packed stadiums across the country. I just don’t know if that’s where we’re going to be, and that’s going to be determined for us.”
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