I wish I had anything other than grimace emojis to show you. Michigan announces limited seating at Michigan Stadium this fall "if U-M is able to have a 2020 football season":

• There will be no football season tickets. Status as a season ticket holder remains unchanged, and season ticket locations will be retained for the 2021 season.
• If U-M is able to have fans at Michigan Stadium, all home games will be sold on an individual game basis, with sales limited to current season ticket holders and students. There will be no ticket sales to the general public.
• For season ticket holders who elected to adjust their season ticket location/quantity during the June upgrade period, that new location/quantity will be retained for the 2021 season.
• Details regarding a potential individual game sale will be communicated once a decision on playing with or without fans is finalized.
• In the event that Michigan is able to have fans at any sporting event this season, all forms of ticketing will move to a mobile platform.

We've heard on background that we're looking at maybe 20k people, most of them students. Obviously this is a developing situation, as they say. If I was a betting man I'd guess the number of fans would be zero.

[After the JUMP: sucking yet more air through teeth]

The situation. Andy Staples on where we're at:

But given the current circumstances, the only way a season of any kind happens is with an acceptance of risk by school officials — including notoriously risk-averse presidents — that is much higher than it is now. It would require less focus on the number of positive tests and more focus on how many people are symptomatic. It would require less reaction to case numbers and more attention on hospital capacity. Because if students return to campuses, there will be cases. A lot of them. The data say the cohort that includes college students has a very low incidence of severe symptoms, but college students also will come in contact with older college professors and university staff members. They will come in contact with their own parents.

You can't bubble college football, and the country has fucked up its coronavirus response worse than anyone else in the world except maybe Brazil. So the way to justify playing the season is to shrug and assume everyone on a college campus is going to do keg stands off a symptomatic person and oh well.

Schools are pushing forward because the public relations need to seem financially precarious has left them with zero reserves despite skyrocketing revenues. Iowa State:

“Some people have suggested that we should simply play fall sports in the spring when the challenges of COVID-19 could be reduced,” Pollard wrote. “Unfortunately, there are no guarantee things will improve in the spring and there are numerous hurdles to overcome. The most significant challenge is committing another six months of operational costs (roughly $40 million in our case) for the fall semester with no revenues to cover those expenses.”

I wonder how much of that expense is salaries well over the 90th percentile. Here's an excellent piece from the FSU Rivals site (really):

According to the USA Today's college finances database, FSU spent $150 million on athletics in 2019. That is almost exactly double what the Seminoles spent on their athletics budget less than a decade ago in 2010.

Let that sink in for a moment.

I know we've heard so much through the years about the "arms race" in college sports that we kind of tune out the particulars, but let that one marinate. In 2010, FSU spent just over $75 million in athletics. By 2019, it was spending over $150 million.

Georgia, Texas, Michigan, Ohio State: same story everywhere. Even a place like ECU blew 700k on a consultant to try to fix the financial black hole the previous athletic director (who walked away with a seven figure golden parachute) left.

Anonymous AD says no dice. Pete Thamel has an anonymous Power 5 AD who says to pack up the lights and go home:

“Right now, I don’t see a path in the current environment to how we play,” said a Power Five athletic director. “I’m confident we’ll get back to what we all think of as normal, but it may be a year before that happens.”

Also this guy:

“Ultimately, no one is playing football in the fall,” said a high-ranking college official. “It’s just a matter of how it unfolds. As soon one of the ‘autonomy five’ or Power Five conferences makes a decision, that’s going to end it.”

At least his twitter isn't talking about an open letter. David Ojabo is still stuck in Scotland:

“You would think I’m lying, but I’m living out of my suitcase,” Ojabo said, laughing. “If they say, ‘Come on,’ I wash whatever I need and literally just zip it up. I haven’t unpacked to this day. That’s how we’ve really been waiting. It’s no joke.

“I thought I was only going to be home for two or three weeks. Then quickly weeks turned into a month, turned to two months, turned to three months. This whole time, I’m thinking, ‘Maybe I could catch a break, catch a flight.’ Nothing. I’ve done it this way for my mental state. The second I unpack and get comfortable – this is me trying to not get too attached to being home.”

The bizarre option he's been presented with: fly to Australia, self-quarantine for two weeks, and then fly to the US.

He'll get through this. This is how many college sophomores live even when they get to their dorm or apartment. I am disappointed this is going to blunt Ojabo's ability to be this offseason's Loch Ness Monster, as it were. Now I will name other Scottish things: golf, scotch, waffles(dubious), patter, something called Irn Bru(?).

Obligatory Scottish Twitter interlude:

Freaks me out that u never know what anyone’s actual up to, ur neighbour could be sitting in their gaff the now munching an onion like an apple and ur none the wiser

— Marco (@marcoc0nte) July 14, 2020

This is a man with City Slickers on DVD.

Brass tacks. Marcus Thompson II on the NBA bubble:

How long will a pound last?

There are 453.5 grams in a pound. How many, um, sessions can you get out of that? Heavy smokers pack a blunt with about two grams per. So that’s about 227 blunts.

Six of the 22 teams will be in the bubble a maximum of 40 days. Of the remaining 16, half will be going home no later than 53 days in. Four could stay for up to 67 days maximum. The teams in the NBA Finals could end up being there a maximum of 82 days.

For players who are eliminated first, a pound of weed is more than enough. But for players on teams that make the conference finals, or the NBA Finals, that’s getting down to about two blunts a day. That might be cutting it close.

Apparently bongs are much more efficient.

The irrepressible. Meanwhile, Moe Wagner on the NBA bubble:

Moe Wagner called the bubble “basketball paradise.”

Quote: “I actually really enjoy it. It kinda reminds me of the national team stuff when I was young on steroids…I sent the video of the facilities to a coach at home, and he said it’s like basketball paradise. And it is."

— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) July 14, 2020

That is "the national team stuff—when I was young—on steroids", not "the national team stuff, when I was young on steroids." Punctuation is key, transcribers of quotes.

The Wisconsin OL… uh… machine. I have had some interaction with OL coaches. Any at all is enough to make the, uh, fecal undercurrent running through this Athletic piece on Wisconsin's remarkable ability to develop OL unsurprising:

Michigan blew up the play, and Konz knew exactly what was coming next as he jogged to the sideline.

“It’s like scars,” Konz says. “You never forget these things.”

It was time for Konz to own up to his mistake and do something countless Badgers offensive linemen had been asked to undertake through the years, accepting the premise of a vulgar yet perfectly apt phrase for the moment. It was time for Konz to eat his metaphorical shit sandwich

Also

“Every day you walk into that film room, your butthole is puckered to less than a millimeter because you know you’re going to get your ass reamed from all the bad stuff you did,” Thomas says.

Also

“We were running the ball over them and doing whatever we wanted,” Deiter says. “It felt like they were like, ‘Ah, get me out of here. I don’t really want to get deuced again by these guys.’”

I suppose there might be an innocent explanation for the last one but no, there is not, this is definitely a Wisconsin offensive lineman roleplaying as an opposing DL who is being repeatedly pooped on.

There are many paragraphs about other stuff that are also interesting.

Etc.: MAC schools aren't putting out any COVID data, which is a one-sentence explanation of why it makes sense to only play conference games even if some of them are in New Jersey. SEC having issues as it stumbles towards football. Jett Howard interviewed at length. Sports writers are caught between a rock and a hard place. How Kobe Bufkin landed in Ann Arbor.