NCAA Moves to Cancel All Fall Sports Championships

The move will not affect FBS football, which is still planning on moving forward at this point.

The NCAA is moving to cancel all fall sports championships, according to a statement given by president Mark Emmert on Thursday afternoon. 

The governing body cited the lack of participation from more than half the conferences and schools as the main reason for the decision. 

"If you don't have half of the schools playing a sport, then you can't have a legitimate championship," Emmert said in a statement Thursday afternoon. "So, sadly-tragically, that's going to be the case this fall. You know, full stop."

The ruling applies to every major sport other than FBS football, which at this point appears to be heading forward with at least four conferences (ACC, Big 12, SEC and Sun Belt) preparing to play a fall schedule at this point. 

Emmert expressed optimism for playing fall sports in the spring. 

"That doesn't mean that we shouldn't can't turn toward winter and spring and say, 'OK, how can we create a legitimate championship fall on students,'" he said. "My staff's been working hard on it, and talking to a lot of commissioners all the commissioners all 32 of them in D-1. And there are ways to do this. I'm completely confident that we can figure this out. If schools and conferences want to move forward. And have more than half of want to do it - and that's surely the indication right now - then, let's do it."

While creating a shot for fall sports to compete for a national title is a strong priority, it won't take precedent over the spring and winter sports that have already missed out on one postseason. 

"We made that formal awful but necessary choice to shut down (last spring)," Emmert said. "(We) didn't have the Frozen Four (or) Final Fours. (We) didn't have world series for softball and baseball, track championships and lacrosse, we lost all of that."

First affected by this decision on the Forty Acres will be the Texas volleyball team. The Longhorns were ranked No. 1 in the Big 12 preseason poll earlier this summer for the 10th consecutive year (and 13th time in school history).