NCAA Reduces Minimum Required Contests For Fall Sports

The NCAA will allow fall sports (other than football) to play just half of the usual minimum required contests amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The NCAA announced the change today. Its Division I Council Coordination Committee has approved a blanket waiver that will apply to men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey, men’s water polo, and women’s volleyball. Teams in those sports will be allowed to play as little as 50% of the NCAA’s typically-required minimum contests to be eligible for NCAA Championships events. In men’s water polo, for example, NCAA rules typically require at least 15 competitions against other four-year institutions. The waiver should allow water polo programs to cut back to as few as 8 regular-season matches.

The waiver comes as college athletics adjust during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Many conferences have begun to limit or eliminate non-conference competitions for fall sports, and some have suspended all sports through at least January 1. Per our previous reporting:

Summary of Division I Athletics Delays So Far

• Big Ten – no out-of-conference competition in fall sports
• Pac-12 – no out-of-conference competition in soccer, volleyball, football
• ACC – no sports until at least September 1
• SEC – no volleyball, soccer, or cross country until “early September”
• Patriot League – no fall sports (except Army & Navy)
• Ivy League – no fall sports or winter sports until January 1, 2021
• MAC – postponed start of fall sports until September 3
• CAA – no league football schedule, but teams are free to play independent schedules.
• Horizon League – no fall sports until October 1
• Atlantic-10 – fall sports pushed to spring semester, fall swim/dive schedule postponed
• America East – fall sports postponed

The reduction in minimum contests should allow teams to reduce travel in an effort to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus between campuses. But the waiver also addresses financial concerns – 27 Division I conferences had asked the NCAA to waive its minimum sport requirements, which would allow schools to cut programs to offset financial losses incurred during the pandemic.

The NCAA rejected that request in April, but said at the time it would still consider other waiver requests related to scheduling. The minimum contest waiver should allow schools to save money by scheduling less competitions and less team travel.

Football is the only fall sport not covered under the waiver. The waiver also does not apply to winter sports, including swimming & diving.

The NCAA’s press release also notes that it has suspended requirements for teams to have a record of .500 or better to be considered for at-large selections to championships fields. The release says individual sport committees will have to re-evaluate how they select at-large teams, as conference-only schedules will likely throw off some typical ranking mechanisms like RPI.