7:12 p.m. ET, June 23, 2020
SEC commissioner says he is preparing to "play the season as scheduled" in the fall
Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), said that while he is expecting sports to resume in the fall, the data and the virus will guide what the season will look like.
"We're on a journey and my focus is preparing to play the season as scheduled, but the reality is the circumstances around the virus will guide us in that decision-making," he told CNN on Tuesday.
The SEC is a college athletic conference whose member schools are located in South Central and Southeastern part of the country.
Sankey said he has been talking to medical experts every day about how to keep athletes safe – especially as many schools have allowed students to return to campus for voluntary workouts.
Sankey said he expects student-athletes in the SEC to test positive for the virus, but "we want to be aggressive to stop the spread" and take precautions now that will allow for competition to resume, he said.
On fans in the stands: Sankey said while he is expecting college football to play as scheduled, he does not expect stadiums to allow fans at full capacity.
"We're seeing opportunities for fans to be at events" in a small numbers, he said. He also said there will likely be other safety measures, like masks.
"I would think the game itself would look much like we're accustomed to, but you're going to have fewer people around the sidelines. The presence of masks, I would expect to be some place around our competitions," Sankey said.
"That doesn't mean in but if we've got people measuring first downs, you're going to see that type of reality we're seeing in our lives every day," he added.
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