AAC commissioner Mike Aresco breaks down return-to-play, how sports can start on time with fans in stands - The Dallas Morning News

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The American Athletic Conference meetings concluded this week. The largest topics of discussion among the coaches, athletic directors and conference administrators was developing safe return-to-play protocols.

The NCAA’s evolving Name Image Likeness policy was also talked about, with NCAA president Mark Emmert making an appearance at the conference, which was held virtually over the last week.

AAC commissioner Mike Aresco spoke to The Dallas Morning News on Friday about a several topics relating to the league which houses SMU.

Return to play, testing

While some conferences have implemented league-wide return dates for voluntary workouts, the AAC is allowing the schools to make that decision individually, notably because of the wide geographic footprint of the league.

AAC schools can choose to have players return anytime after June 1, per NCAA guidelines. As of Friday afternoon, SMU hadn’t submitted a date to the AAC, Aresco said.

“June will be an interesting test for us as to whether we can do a good job with keeping our student-athletes healthy when they do come back,” Aresco said. “I think we’ll have good luck there. Now, you know, you never know. And we’ll figure out, if some things happen, we’ll figure out what to do.”

Aresco said there are plans in place that have been implemented with the aid of a medical advisory group.

He also said there will be minimum standards for COVID-19 testing in place.

“We’re going to have to figure out what the protocols precisely are,” Aresco said. “We’ll have minimum standards in our conference, as we engage in competition. And we’ll make sure anybody we play outside the conference has similar standards.”

As for if student-athletes would be tested in June during their initial return to campus on a voluntary basis, Aresco said that would be up to the individual schools.

“Testing is very complicated right now, and there are a lot of nuances to it,” Aresco said. “We’re going to leave that up to our schools. We’ll see what protocols they develop.”

Playing without students on campus

Depending on which administrator you ask, the concept of playing college athletics while an institution implements remote learning is either palatable or unacceptable.

Aresco believes that the AAC institutions will likely all have students back on campus in the fall in some form.

“Most of our schools, if not all of our schools are — we don’t know for sure — are likely to have some compliment of students on campus," Aresco. "If that’s the case, I don’t really see an issue in terms of playing sports.”

Nothing, Aresco said, is set in stone.

Aresco, though, does not appear opposed to possibly having college athletics being played if school is taking place remotely.

“There’s a difference between trying to control social distancing, the different protocols with 10, 20, 30, 40 thousand students on campus, as opposed to 100 athletes," Aresco said. “Obviously there’s coaches and others, but still, it’s a much smaller number.”

Potential liability

When it comes to professional sports returning to competition, it requires a formalized process agreed to by both the players union and that league’s owners.

In college athletics, there’s a far less formalized return plan. And importantly, there’s no unionization recourse for student-athletes to have a formalized say in when and how they return.

With the NCAA having been involved in litigation with ex-athletes over concussions, Aresco was asked if he’s worried college athletics is putting itself in position for a litigious nightmare should athletes get sick.

“That’s always possible," Aresco said. "But the short answer to this is, we’re concerned about health and safety. And our feeling is, if we do everything possible, everything reasonably possible to ensure the health and safety of our student-athletes ... then we’re not going to worry about the liability.

“If are there are lawsuits resulting from this — and we’re doing everything that we can do, then we’ll just deal them. If it happens, it’s that simple.”

Aresco said individual schools have asked athletes about their thoughts on returning to campus.

Could more sports be cut?

Thus far, Cincinnati cut men’s soccer, and East Carolina cut its tennis teams, along with swimming and diving. Aresco didn’t commit to no more sports being cut, but said those teams’ discontinuation wasn’t necessarily surprising.

“I think those might be situations that were fairly longstanding,” Aresco said. “And I think the coronavirus situation exacerbated things, and probably made the decision expedited, if you will. Cincinnati told me they were thinking about their soccer program for a while. ... And East Carolina has struggled. When their football program started struggling several years back, you know, they got some deficits.”

While there’s no other sports imminently on the chopping block, it appears, there’s no guarantee that AAC members won’t see other sports go.

“We always hope no one else has to do that,” Aresco said. “But we just don’t know at this point.”

Will fans be in the stands?

Aresco noted that a lot of sources of revenue will potentially be impacted by COVID-19. Donations will likely be down. Student fees might be down.

There will be a heavy interest for schools generate revenue by having as many fans get into stadiums as is possible. Money generated from tickets, parking, merchandise and concessions add up.

“If you can do it safely. If you can protect fans from each other ... then there might be a way to get some fans into the stands,” Aresco said. 'It doesn’t look like we’ll be anywhere near full capacity, barring a miracle at this point.

“But it looks like we have an opportunity possibly to have — just as restaurants are re-opening, with 25 to 50 percent capacity. It’s possible that we can do that with our stadiums. I’m not sure yet. Certainly our ADs are planning for that.”

Aresco acknowledged that “financially, yes, it’s very important” to have fans in the stands, but they wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize health and safety.

Aresco added that the topic of a delayed season wasn’t discussed this week, but he understood the possibility that COVID-19 could impact the season’s schedule.

“We’re cautiously optimistic," Aresco said, "that not only will we play our season and start on time, but that might have an opportunity to have fans in the stands in some form.”

AAC’s move to Dallas

After some uncertainty about a delay, the AAC will officially be moving from Rhode Island to North Texas in July. The new office space is located at The Summit at Las Colinas building on State Highway 114 in Irving.

Aresco will be coming to D-FW in two weeks, and while some staff might be delayed for various reasons, the construction on the office is nearing completion.

“The build out is pretty much complete. It should be done in a few weeks,” Aresco said. “We probably won’t be moving people into the office until sometime in July.”

Aresco added they’ll follow local regulations regarding office capacity upon their move-in.

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