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Paul Finebaum doesn’t anticipate college football being played without fans

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

Dr. Anthony Fauci believes that sports can return to action as early as the summer if no fans are in attendance. His comment gave college football fans hope that the 2020 season would start on time, even if it meant that stadiums were empty.

SEC Network radio host Paul Finebaum doesn’t believe that philosophy can be applied to college football, however. On a recent episode of Get Up, Finebaum explained why he doesn’t think that’s an option for the sport — primarily because of the risk for the players involved if students aren’t allowed on campus and fans are prohibited from stadiums.

“I think it would be the end of college football as we know it,” Finebaum said. “I don’t think it will happen, but if it does, it would further shatter this myth of intercollegiate athletics being amateur. That would be a pure professional sellout and, from what I hear, I do not believe college presidents and commissioners would go for this.

“I think it would cheapen the sport, it would simply devalue everything college presidents stand up for at orientation and graduation. I don’t think it would ever recover from that.”

Recently, conference commissioners spoke with Vice President Mike Pence about the ongoing situation with the COVID-19 pandemic. That group made one thing clear to the VP — if students can’t return to campus then college athletics will not resume.

With that mindset, it seems unlikely that college football will return unless fans can also fill stadiums on Saturday afternoons.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB