What a fall without football would do to the American sports psyche
SportsPulse: From high school Friday night lights to Monday Night Football football is an engrained part of American culture and our fall sports calendars. What would a fall without it do to the American sports psyche?
Nobody wants to imagine a fall without football.
But the complications of safely conducting a season — professional or collegiate — as the COVID-19 pandemic continues may prove too difficult, leaving the NFL and NCAA with difficult decisions to make in the coming weeks and months.
Over the last week, USA TODAY Sports ran a series examining what would happen if those tough choices prevented football from being played: the risk involved, the economic impact, whether a spring season would change anything, the effect on the nation’s psyche and why European countries brought back their major sports more successfully than the United States.
STORIES
► ‘There’s just no way’ to play amid the coronavirus pandemic without ‘high risk’
► Playing college football in the spring might sound easy but plenty of hurdles and questions exist
► High school coaches want to play. Epidemiologists say it’s unsafe.
► Opinion: As football looks more and more unlikely, Europe shows us what could have been
► Fall without football would require sports betting industry to get creative
► Fall without football would cost billions to colleges, NFL, TV networks, local economies
► NFL doing everything it can so COVID-19 doesn’t cause a shutdown
► How November election could be impacted by a fall without football
► State-by-state look at plans for high school play amid coronavirus
► Consider the emotional toll of a fall without football: ‘It’s like a sucker punch’
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