Big Ten and Big East reportedly considering a bubble for the basketball season

All options are on the table to make the NCAA basketball season happen.

Plans for the Division I college football season have been a bit of a mess, with players criticizing flimsy safety plans and choosing to opt-out because of COVID-19 concerns. However, with the extra time to prepare for the revenue-producing basketball season, leagues are planning to do everything they can to make sure they’ll be able to play.

The Big Ten and Big East are reportedly putting serious consideration into the possibility of a conference basketball bubble, similar to those being used by the NBA and WNBA. So far, those bubbles have been incredibly successful. The NBA has reported zero positive tests for three weeks straight, and since seven positive tests upon arrival in the bubble, no WNBA athletes have tested positive either.

The success of the bubble structure is foiled by the trainwreck that has been the MLB’s return. The MLB was the first league to restart without a bubble, and three teams already dealt with temporary shutdowns after outbreaks on the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals. The NFL has reported to training camp, and teams are creating mini-bubbles after taking note of the NBA’s and WNBA’s successes.

If there’s any hope of a college basketball season, the bubble seems like by far the best way to go. However, while it wasn’t terribly difficult to orchestrate a bubble for professional athletes, college sports would be significantly more difficult.

A college sports bubble poses unique challenges

First and foremost,  athletes would be away from their campuses and unable to take any in-person classes that might be happening. For athletes that have hands-on classes like labs, their education could be seriously limited. On top of that, college athletes likely have leases for off-campus housing and other commitments at their institutions that would make it difficult for them to leave campus for the entirety of the basketball season.

The basketball season also kicks off in the late fall and continues into the early spring. This raises questions of whether athletes would have to take finals while playing in the bubble or whether they would be allowed to return home for the holidays during winter break.

Asking athletes to spend the entire season in such isolation might result in more athletes choosing to opt-out, which no one wants to see. The bubble is absolutely the most effective option to hold a safe season, but if this is going to work, colleges and conferences have a lot of factors to take into consideration beyond just basketball.

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