NOT OFFICIAL - first proposal
The Big Ten Conference is beginning to put together a plan for both basketball and football going forward. After postponing their football season but still allowing student athletes to remain on campus and workout with their teams, football is now being discussed as a winter sport.
The current working plan, which has not been put up for a vote with the university presidents or finalized by medical personnel, is for Big Ten schools to play eight league games beginning at, or near, the beginning of the New Year.
By starting around Jan. 1, the thought is that the league would be able to play eight league games over the course of January and February with a potential Big Ten Championship Game taking place in early March.
By finishing around March 1, it would leave six months for athletes to recover in time for the next football season, which is being approached as medically acceptable recovery time between two seasons.
As of now, according to a league wide call, a spring season is seen as untenable even in a shortened form because of the fall of 2021, and the desire of the league to keep that season fully intact.
Within this plan, the Big Ten would use domed stadiums in St. Louis, Minnesota, Indianapolis and Detroit, as well as possibly one other site, to host the games.
Multiple games would be hosted per day at each site, so that the travel would be limited. This applies to not only players, but to television crews who would be at those sites to potentially broadcast NFL games the next day.
The Big Ten told the conference's coaches that they feel competition is possible due to advances in testing, notably SalivaDirect, which would allow day of testing for all athletes involved in the competition.
Along with football, men’s basketball is also beginning to discuss options, but the first priority is figuring out how to handle the football season, and the games that come with it.
Options for men’s basketball include playing in late-November, though that is not likely to happen, at least of now.
A concurrent January start with football is seen as more likely. This would again be possible due to the rapid testing. No specifics on games and where they would be hosted have been discussed in a formal manner for men’s basketball, but that is set to be discussed coming up.
As long as football happens in the winter, basketball is going to be set to play as well. Big Ten basketball head coaches, who all were a part of a two plus hour phone call Thursday indicated that ultimately the NCAA and what parameters they set for the NCAA Tournament will make the call, and the league will have to follow their lead.