Bethune-Cookman University cancels all sports for the 2020-21 season!

Bethune-Cookman is the first NCAA D1 school to cancel all sports for the entire year, including basketball.

“B-CU will forgo all spring athletic competition, including football and men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball and track and field,” Dr. E. LaBrent Chrite, the school’s president, said in a letter published by HBCU Gameday. “The recent spike in COVID-19 positivity rates in the state, across Volusia County [Florida] and on our campus provides clear and unambiguous evidence, in our view, that now is simply not the time to resume athletic competition.”

This is a move other schools might also face due to financial challenges and concerns about the virus.

Programs, such as Minnesota and Stanford, have eliminated sports. Ohio State recently announced that it’s facing a sizable deficit. And UC-Riverside, a school in the Big West, is currently trying to save its entire athletic department from elimination.

Bethune-Cookman, located in Daytona Beach, Florida, operates on a $15 million athletic budget, per U.S. Department of Education data.

A source said members of the athletic department have dealt directly with the impact of COVID in their families and immediate circles.

Over the last seven days, Volusia County, where Bethune-Cookman is located, has had 544 cases or 98 per 100,000, per the New York Times. Overall, cases in Florida have increased by 39% over the last 14 days.