The Big West Conference is scheduled to open its third week of league play in basketball Friday and the question of the moment should be:
Why?
As in why is a conference located smack dab in the jaws of the country’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak insisting on playing when the pandemic is raging at its highest point now?
Ten of the 11 schools (Hawaii is the outlier) that make up the California-based conference are located in eight counties that are currently classified at the highest of four “risk levels” by health and government authorities there.
That means the virus is considered “widespread,” the positivity rate is more than 8%, intensive care unit bed availability is near zero and stay-at-home orders are in place. This as folks wait hours for COVID-19 testing.
“Everyone should keep in mind that community transmission rates are so high that you run the risk of an exposure whenever you leave your home,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the Los Angeles Times. “Assume that this deadly invisible virus is everywhere, looking for a willing host.”
That’s a sobering welcome to California for the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, who are scheduled to make their first Big West appearances Friday and Saturday at UC Riverside after the original openers against Cal Poly were canceled due to cases in San Luis Obispo.
The Rainbow Wahine, meanwhile, won’t be playing their scheduled home games against the Highlanders due to a COVID-19 case in Manoa. Their Cal Poly series was also canceled.
A month ago the Big West Board of Directors, the campus leaders of the schools that comprise the conference membership, circulated a statement that expressed “significant concern” about the virus’ spread in California. And, things have only gotten worse.
You might think that the wobbling early weeks of the Big West season, in which 60% of the first 30 men’s conference games were canceled due to COVID-19 related or county-mandated pauses, would have signalled a screeching halt or at least a conference-wide timeout. But it hasn’t.
The holdover fall sports, women’s volleyball, soccer and cross country, were given their notice of cancellation last month. And it is anybody’s guess when men’s volleyball and some of the others might restart.
But basketball lurches on because, well, in large part, because the bottom line dictates that it must.
Since the Big West doesn’t hold competition in football, men’s basketball is by far the revenue driver for most of the members. Only UH rakes in significant bucks from volleyball.
With no fans in the stands and a negligible conference TV deal, direct NCAA basketball tournament money, which has averaged about $1.75 million over the four most recent accounting period filings, has become a significant financial lifeline. One that took a 60% hit last year when the NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the pandemic.
So, the Big West plays on to earn its place at the feeding trough.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
