How College Bowling Could (and why they should) Postpone the 2020-21 Season

The Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences recently announced they will limit their upcoming schedules to within their own conferences. That is a big decision, especially when football is involved. That means marquee games like Ohio State versus Oregon, Michigan versus Washington and Wisconsin versus Notre Dame are cancelled.

The Ivy League and Division III’s Centennial Conference took an additional step. These conferences — first Centennial, then the Ivy — cancelled all fall sports indefinitely. They “will not entertain any sports being played until after January 1st”, according to CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein. It is possible fall sports, including football, could be moved to the spring, but that bridge will be crossed at a later date.

That is a monumental decision. The Ivies are no Power Five conference like the Big Ten, but they have football teams. They send dangerous sleepers to March Madness. But more importantly, they are the smart schools.

Many of the top lawyers, businessmen and now sports executives in the country graduated from Ivy League schools. Reputations only go so far, but the Ivy League was the first conference to cancel their postseason basketball tournaments back in March, which was somehow only four months ago. They decided now, in mid-July, that merely attempting to play sports this fall is too dangerous.

But let’s not pretend the Ivies are taking the ethical high ground here. They made this decision in part to protect students and faculty, but it stands to reason a large part of their motivation for this decision is to protect their own asses. Universities could face significant legal repercussions from students and faculty.

Some universities are trying to circumvent facing potential liability. College football players at many schools, including Ohio State, Indiana and Southern Methodist among others, were forced to sign waivers before returning to campus for summer workouts. The significance of the waivers vary, but “those types of provisions are limited in their usefulness” said southern California lawyer Kent Schmidt. “They are not really that effective in limiting the liability of the school”, he continued. Ohio State’s own Athletic Director, Gene Smith, said he is “not sure [the waiver] would stand up in a court of law”.

It was not safe for students to live on campus in early-March when the pandemic emerged in the United States. It is not any safer now, as the US rapidly approaches three and a half million confirmed cases and states across the country shatter records for new cases seemingly every day.

Universities cannot create a bubble environment like professional sports leagues. Their attempts to absolve liability are likely futile, thus by allowing students to return to campus, universities could subject themselves to potentially millions of dollars in legal responsibility and willingly exacerbate the spread COVID-19, a disease that has killed over half a million people worldwide.

Regardless of the motivation for the Centennial Conference and Ivy League’s decision, it is the correct one. Their decision may seem brazen or premature, but I think it is closer to a tipping point than an outlier (bonus points to me for back-to-back Gladwell references). This could be the spark that lights the fuse, and it got me thinking:

Should college bowling postpone their season as well? Is it even possible?

These are the questions that weigh heavily on my mind. I am strongly considering opting out of the season should it begin this fall, and surely I am not alone in that sentiment. The idea of postponing the college bowling season is not to be taken lightly. This is not merely a thought experiment, but a legitimate plan that could potentially save lives.

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College bowling on the men’s side (and partially on the women’s) is not run by the NCAA. The United States Bowling Congress (USBC) is the head governing body of college bowling. It is akin to how Notre Dame is not affiliated with any conference for football (although they joined the ACC in all other sports).

There are a litany of benefits to remaining autonomous, which is why Notre Dame has refrained from formally tying the knot with any football conference. They do not adhere to any conference rules or regulations. They, for the most part, dictate the entirety of their schedule each year. Most importantly to Notre Dame, they are able to sign their own television-rights contracts. Their current deal with NBC was signed in 2013 and pays the university $15 million annually through 2025.

Obviously, college bowling’s independence from the NCAA does not open the door for such lucrative financial opportunities. It does enable a certain level of autonomy over decision-making and scheduling — the season lasts from mid-September through mid-April, longer than most, if not all college sports. They can define “amateurism” how they see fit, which is how college bowlers can sign sponsorship contracts.

College bowling’s autonomy from the NCAA came to a head last March. The NCAA cancelled March Madness and all spring sports on March 12, but USBC technically could have continued with the Intercollegiate Singles and Team Sectionals competition set for March 13-15. Granted, most schools would have barred their teams from attending those events (many already did), but it was theoretically possible. In the end, USBC made the correct decision to postpone and (later cancel) the tournament, and to their credit actually made their decision nearly three hours ahead of the NCAA.

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The 2020-21 season is set to continue largely as planned. My school plans to begin tournament competition in mid-September. Steps are being taken to increase health and safety for student-athletes, coaches and tournament hosts. Those precautions, from what I’ve been told from my coaches, could include mask requirements, travel and roster limits, as well as social distancing impositions (such as one team per pair). It has yet to be determined whether these precautions will be addressed on a state-by-state basis or an across-the-board mandate by USBC.

The safest route altogether is to postpone the season until the spring semester.

Here’s how I see it: if schools have already determined the conditions are such that it is unsafe to play college football — a sport where millions of dollars in attendance and television revenue, plus the futures of non-football athletics (hello and screw you, Stanford), are at stake — what is the rationale for bowling to compete without such financial incentives?

Hell, throw out the money. Human lives are at stake. It is not even safe to reopen campuses for regular students to return, yet schools dare to ask student-athletes to not only return to campus, but travel the country solely in the name of competition?

Should college bowling continue with a fall season, I echo the words of the University of Arizona’s Malik Hausman:

So why me and my team on campus then? https://t.co/qbY5y0GSbt

— Malik Hausman (@LeekHausman) June 30, 2020

The next logical step is to determine if it would be feasible for bowling to follow the Centennial Conference and the Ivy League in postponing competition until the spring semester. So, I did what any curious and determined person with internet access does: research.

For those unfamiliar with the college bowling season, here’s how it typically works. Teams compete in roughly ten regular season tournaments per season. Most tournaments are two-day events that take place over one weekend, but some tournaments only take a single day. Some teams bowl more than ten events and some bowl a few less, but only ten events count towards CollegeBowling.com’s rankings system. That is college bowling’s version of college football’s old BCS system. It is a mathematical formula that ranks teams based on tournament placement, while weighing the size and strength of events.

While the postseason occurs in March and April, the bulk of the college bowling season actually takes place in the fall semester for most schools. January and February feature the two biggest regular season events of the year, but most teams reduce competition in the spring semester to mentally and physically prepare for the postseason.

So, ten events. That’s a nice, round number. Add in two more for the postseason — one for sectionals and one for nationals — and you have the total number of weeks necessary for a complete college bowling season: twelve.

Good news: there are roughly sixteen weeks in a typical spring semester. My school is set to begin the semester on the week of January 11, with final exams taking place the week of May 3. That’s sixteen weeks on the nose, but of course, schedules vary university to university. For example, #12 ranked SCAD-Savannah uses a trimester system; they also begin their second semester on January 11, but their third semester does not end until the week of May 24. 

In any case, a twelve-week season can fit inside the timeframe from early January through mid-late April rather nicely. The schedule will naturally be more compact and I assumed this could be a potential problem, so I dug deeper.

I went through the 2019-20 schedules of each of the top-16 teams in CollegeBowling.com’s end of season rankings. I wanted to determine the number of weekends each team competed during the fall semester only. The season kicked off on the weekend of September 21-22, which is fairly consistent year-to-year. The end of the fall portion of the season for most schools was the weekend of December 7-8. That’s twelve weeks of potential competition weekends for most schools. Again, keep in mind that schedules vary by team.

One point of clarification: I counted teams that competed in two, one-day tournaments as one event. These events took place in the same location on the same weekend, so they effectively act as a single weekend of competition.

Here is what I found:

• The average number of weekends of competition per school was 5.56.
• The highest number of weekends of competition was eight. Wright State competed on eight of eleven weekends. (They also spent the last two weekends of the semester volunteering at local tournaments, so shout out to everyone associated with that program.)
• The lowest number of weekends of competition was three (Martin Methodist).
• Two schools competed on six consecutive weekends (McKendree and St. John’s).
• One school competed on five consecutive weekends (William Paterson).
• The number one team in the nation for the first half (through Week 12) was McKendree, who competed on seven of eleven possible weekends, including the aforementioned six straight.

From this information, we can draw a few conclusions.

Teams can handle a larger workload.

The fall semester’s number one team, McKendree, competed on six consecutive weekends, finishing first, first, third, third, second and first during that stretch. They also won their seventh and final event of the semester. If a team can not only manage such a rigorous schedule, but dominate, then increasing the travel burden is not a significant factor.

There is potential for expansion.

The 2019 fall semester began for most universities in mid-August, but the bowling season did not start until at least September 21. That means there are a minimum of four additional weeks that could be used for competition, if necessary. This is how we can get from 5.56 average weekends of competition up closer to ten.

This is notable because many teams begin competition right away in the spring semester. The Kegel/ISBPA Midwest Collegiate Classic is the second-largest regular season event of the season and takes place on what is the second weekend of the spring semester for most schools. (The event was held on January 18-19 in 2020.)

If we combine these practices — a more dense schedule and an early-semester start date of competition — a full season of college bowling can absolutely fit within a single semester.

That does not mean that postponing the season is a perfect solution by any means. There are definite obstacles to overcome. I tried to view the potential concerns of postponing the season from USBC’s perspective in order to ease any worries. As far as I can tell, the potential impediments range from manageable to non-issues.

Concern One: The intricacies of moving the bulk of the season from the fall to the spring are immense.

A mere bowler like myself cannot possibly comprehend the logistical nightmare that rescheduling roughly 60-70% of the season. However, are we sure that it is more cumbersome than adapting the current schedule to fit health and safety distancing requirements? To adhere to social distancing measures, host venues may have to reserve more lanes (potential one team per pair limits), eliminate the shared paddock room, potentially adding a second host center. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, USBC still has not decided how to address the variance of states’ responses to COVID-19. States like Florida have much fewer restrictions than states like New York and California. USBC will have to decide whether to create a nationwide policy or let events decide for themselves, and that is by no means an easy decision. Additionally, I have not even begun to analyze the enormous liability concerns and the potential for massive lawsuits — which might be the single biggest concern (outside of human lives) and nobody is really discussing it as far as I have seen.

Are we sure that everything I just outlined is easier than simply pushing the start of the season until January, when tournaments could potentially operate at near-full capacity? The answer may very well be “yes”, but I think it is a fair question to ask.

Concern Two: While it is mathematically possible to fit a full, 12-week competition schedule within a roughly sixteen-week semester, the increased travel workload is likely too much for student-athletes to handle.

Again, I have two counterpoints. First off, baseball and softball are two spring sports that play essentially every weekend from February 1 through the end of April and even have some weekday games mixed in. That’s roughly twelve consecutive weeks, not to mention the intense practice schedule of January. If those student-athletes can handle that workload every year, bowlers can manage it for one.

Secondly, if schools feel that this extra burden truly is too much to bear, then they can just take a few tournaments off the schedule. In fact, some teams already do this. Webber International, the #5 ranked team this past season, only bowled nine events.

Other sports are making similar sacrifices, as Big Ten and Pac-12 football teams will only play nine or ten (conference-only) games this year, instead of the usual twelve. 

This would not be like the planned 60-game season for Major League Baseball — a seven or eight tournament regular season will unequivocally not put the legitimacy of the season into question.

Concern Three: If the season is postponed until the spring, then the season is at a greater risk of being cancelled completely.

I am not sure how many people would have this concern, but I included it for the die-hard contrarians out there. The way I see it, the worst-case scenario would be implementing these safety measures to all the tournaments of a spring-only season. (I mean, technically, the worst-case scenario is indeed having the entire season cancelled altogether, but that is not something anyone can account for at this point in time.)

Plus, think of all the new and improved safety measures that will be developed and improved upon from now until January. There might even be a vaccine! By postponing the season, USBC would prevent subjecting the entire college bowling industry to an increased chance of contracting and spreading COVID-19 for at least four months. USBC would remove all liability concerns that universities (and potentially themselves) could face by continuing with a fall semester start of the season.

Concern Four: The first four-plus weekends of the fall semester are used like a training camp. Teams integrate new players, build up players’ physical games, create new arsenals and figure out travel rosters and rotations. It would be difficult to accomplish all of that if the season begins on the first or second weekend of the spring semester.

I have two responses. The first is that every team in every sport is making sacrifices. The NFL has already cut two preseason games and, honestly, teams will be lucky to even play one. When every team is playing under the same conditions, there is an even playing field. Teams that are best able to manage a reduced “pre-season” will have a competitive advantage, yes, but that is always the case, even during a full one.

Secondly, bowling is an individual sport at its core. Players can practice on their own and easily work with coaches by exchanging videos. That significantly reduces the adjusting period when arriving on campus, especially compared to true team sports like football and basketball.

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Protecting human lives should be the ultimate goal in any scenario, but let’s be honest: money has been the strongest motivating factor throughout the entirety of civilized human history. We know our government is not losing an ounce of sleep over the 138,000 American lives that COVID-19 has taken since February, yet they cannot seem to stop talking about reopening the economy and now schools.

USBC was not proactive in cancelling ISC/ITC sectionals in March — then again, nobody was — but they have a chance right now to make amends. To set a precedent. To be trailblazers in a sport historically playing catch-up. To preserve and potentially evolve the future of the sport. Most of all, USBC has an opportunity to put the lives of their bowlers above all else.