Managing the Return to Football During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Survey of the Head Team Physicians of the Football Bowl Subdivision Programs

Background: COVID-19 is a severe respiratory virus that spreads via person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets. Since being declared a pandemic in early March 2020, the World Health Organization had yet to release guidelines regarding the return of college or professional sports for the 2020-2021 season. Purpose: To survey the head orthopedic surgeons and primary care team physicians for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) football teams so as to gauge the management of common COVID-19 issues for the fall 2020 college football season. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: The head team orthopaedic surgeons and primary care physicians for all 130 FBS football teams were surveyed regarding their opinions on the management of college football during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 30 questions regarding testing, return-to-play protocol, isolating athletes, and other management issues were posed via email survey sent on June 5, 2020. Results: Of the 210 team physicians surveyed, 103 (49%) completed the questionnaire. Overall, 36.9% of respondents felt that it was unsafe for college athletes to return to playing football during fall 2020. While the majority of football programs (96.1%) were testing athletes for COVID-19 as they returned to campus, only 78.6% of programs required athletes to undergo a mandatory quarantine period before resuming involvement in athletic department activities. Of the programs that were quarantining their players upon return to campus, 20% did so for 1 week, 20% for 2 weeks, and 32.9% quarantined their athletes until they had a negative COVID-19 test. Conclusion: While US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines evolve and geographic regions experience a range of COVID-19 infections, determining a universal strategy for return to socialization and participation in sports remains a challenge. The current study highlighted areas of consensus and strong agreement, but the results also demonstrated a need for clarity and consistency in operations, leadership, and guidance for medical professionals in multiple areas as they attempt to safely mitigate risk for college football players amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Early Synecdochical Anchors of College Football: Fields and Facilities 1869–1903

The present study examines the early wooden facilities and grounds of American college football within National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and Ivy League schools from 1869 through 1903. Within, we identify what set of events and opportunities led to the development of the earliest football playing spaces. Furthermore, we recognize and explain what patterns of construction and renovation influenced the creation of permanent stadia. Critical environmental conditions that impacted the spread of knowledge about football and its playing grounds are recognized in addition to specific rules, which influenced the evolution of fields and facilities. Finally, we recognize the importance of facility enclosure and interests in producing revenues, and feature discussion on the movement of games from off- to on-campus while offering a collective picture of what these places looked like as potential synedochial social anchors for their institutions.

Who Are We Honoring? Extending the Ebony & Ivy Discussion to Include Sport Facilities

One prominent, well-debated issue in the American higher education system is whether university officials should remove the names of individuals with racist pasts from campus buildings/structures that bear their namesake. The purpose of this study was to analyze basketball and football facilities at Division I Football Bowl Subdivision institutions to explore the racialized history of the people whom these facilities are named after. Utilizing a collective case study approach, the authors identified 18 facilities that were named after athletic administrators, coaches, and philanthropists who engaged in racist activities or harbored racist views. The authors argue, using critical race theory and systemic racism theory as interpretative lenses, that naming buildings after racist persons legitimizes their legacies, rationalizes systemic racism, and continues to unjustly enrich this particular group.

Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Use in National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision Athletic Training Staffs

Heat illnesses present a risk for athletes, especially football players. The National Athletic Trainers’ Association established recommendations to prevent heat illnesses, which include measuring wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT). This study aimed to determine the prevalence of WBGT use among the 130 National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision athletic training staffs. Of 82 respondents, 59 use WBGT to assess heat stress. The majority of Football Bowl Subdivision training programs (72% of respondents) use the WBGT, but adherence to this National Athletic Trainers’ Association recommendation varies throughout the season (practice versus games) and is likely influenced by the geographical location of the university.

Applying Activity-Based Costing to Intercollegiate Athletics

Current accounting methods in intercollegiate athletics make it difficult for leaders to assess and understand the true cost of each sport team operations. Institutional and athletics leaders often make decisions concerning sport sponsorship/offerings, budget allocations, overall program operations, and review Title IX compliance based on information that may not truly capture the cost of each sport. Additionally, intercollegiate athletics reform groups and the federal government are calling for athletic departments to report more consistent, accurate, and transparent financial data. The purpose of this paper is to respond to the call for accounting reform in intercollegiate athletics via an innovative application of activity-based costing (ABC) to one NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) athletics department. ABC was applied to the athletic department budget report with results showing how previously established ABC cost drivers for intercollegiate athletics (Lawrence, Gabriel, & Tuttle, 2010) and reallocation of expenses back to specific sports allow for a greater understanding of the cost of each sport.

The determinants of season ticket holder advocacy in the NCAA football bowl subdivision

PurposeThe objective of this paper is to respond to four research questions. The first two as how likely are college football season ticket holders to recommend (1) purchasing a similar season ticket package and (2) attending a home football game, to a friend or colleague. The third question examines if there is a difference between advocacy toward purchasing season tickets as compared to advocacy toward game attendance. Finally, we identify what factors impact advocacy for college football season ticket holders.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey of 57,240 season ticket holders from 69 different National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision programs was undertaken. The data were analyzed to build a model of the drivers of advocacy in season ticket holders from a conceptual base of advocacy, trust and loyalty.FindingsThe identified drivers include both institutionally influenced factors and factors related to season ticket holder behaviors/demographics. The season ticket holder is arguably the highest level of fan for any sports organization from an affinity perspective and clearly the most important from a business perspective. This research argues that the season ticket holder should not only be the focus of ticket sales efforts but also leveraged as marketing advocates with the objective of attracting additional fans.Originality/valueThe value of this research is the large sample of data from season ticket holders of NCAA Division 1 football clubs and the resulting learning it provides to researchers and practitioners.

Revenue per Quality of College Football Recruit

There is significant debate about compensation of college athletes in revenue generating sports. In college football, the potential heterogeneity in player value has received little attention in the discussion. The relationship between player quality, team performance, and sport-specific revenue should inform any compensation scheme for college football players. In this article, we provide estimates of player monetary value in college football. This is the first study to exploit player-specific ex ante recruit ratings, team performance, and football-specific revenue and profit (revenue net of expenditures) to infer player valuations. This allows us to estimate value for players whose performance can be difficult to measure given traditional sport metrics. We use a unique data set which records individual recruits by ex ante star rating annually for every Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) school and combine that data with data on team performance, bowl appearances by type, and football-specific revenue. Using a valuation approach which links player-specific quality to team performance and subsequently to revenue, we infer the value of recruits by their ex ante recruit rating. We estimate that five-star recruits increase annual revenue by US$650,000, four-star recruits increase revenue by roughly US$350,000, and three-star recruits increase revenue by US$150,000. Two-star recruits, however, are negatively related to revenue and profit, with two-star athletes reducing annual revenue by US$13,000. Overall, our results imply that player valuations are heterogeneous and that ex ante ratings of player quality are strongly related to school-specific football revenue and profit and may be predictive measures in a compensation scheme.

NCAA Expenditure and Efficiency: Analyzing Generated and Allocated Revenue in the Football Bowl Subdivision

Using a stochastic production function approach and a dynamic panel data estimator, this study creates estimates of time-varying efficiency in the production of generated revenues for NCAA Division I football bowl subdivision athletic programs. These efficiency estimates are then compared to the use of allocated revenues—fees from students and direct payments from the university budget—by college athletic departments. While all schools that are less efficient in the production of generated revenue are shown to use allocated revenue more intensively, a major finding is power-conference schools that are less efficient in their use of expenditure inputs tend to rely more heavily on allocated revenue in the form of student fees to support the activities of the program.

Effect of subconcussive impacts on functional outcomes over a single collegiate football season

Context In collision sports, particularly American football, athletes can accumulate thousands of subconcussive impacts, or head acceleration events (HAEs), across a single season; however, the short-term consequences of these impacts are not well understood. Objective To investigate the effects of the accumulation of impacts during practices on cognitive functions over a single football season. Design Prospective observational study. Setting Athletic training room and University laboratory. Participants Twenty-three NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision players. Main outcome measures Helmet accelerometers during practices and virtual reality testing (VR; balance, reaction time, spatial memory) before and after the season. Results Preseason had the majority of ≥80 G impacts while during the season had the majority of ≥25 G to <80 G impacts and positional differences showed that linemen had the majority of both types. Virtual reality analysis revealed that scores significantly decreased after the season for spatial navigation ( p < 0.05) but not for balance or reaction time. Significant correlations ( p < 0.05) were found between cognitive measures and player demographic variables. Conclusions Even in the absence of clinical symptoms and concussion diagnosis, repetitive impacts may cause cognitive alterations. Documenting the distribution of impact quantity and intensity as a function of time and position may be considered by coaches and clinicians to reduce the accumulation of impacts in athletes exposed in contact sports.