Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press
The college football season fractured on Tuesday as two of the sport’s wealthiest and most powerful conferences, the Big Ten and the Pac-12, abandoned their plans to play this fall during the coronavirus pandemic, even as other top leagues stayed publicly poised to begin games next month.
The decisions extended the greatest crisis in the history of college athletics, a multibillion-dollar industry that often depends on football revenue to balance budgets and underwrite lower-profile sports. It also defied calls this week by coaches, players and President Trump to mount a season in the face of the virus’s largely unchecked rampage across the United States.