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By Pat Evans
The Mid-American Conference became the first Football Bowl Subdivision conference to cancel its entire fall sports season including football on Saturday. The fate of the rest of the college football season may be decided this week.
Commissioners of the Power 5 conferences held a meeting yesterday, and there is an expectation from leaders across college football that there will be a decision around postponing fall sports until 2021. “In the next 72 hours college football is going to come to a complete stop,” an industry source told SI.
MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said the decision was more about the health of its student-athletes than money. Still, without big pay days from games against Power 5 opponents, the athletic departments would have struggled.
MAC Football By The Numbers:
— The average MAC school spends $8.7 million on football.
— 39 Power 5 programs were slated to pay $65 million for 49 guarantee games, including 18 against the 12 MAC programs.
— $850,000 to each MAC school from ESPN.
