The Mid-American Conference, one of the so-called Group of Five conferences, will make several changes to their athletic landscape due to financial hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the changes adopted by the conference are the cancellations of conference tournaments in eight sports, including softball. The MAC softball tournament is traditionally held at Firestone Stadium in Akron, Ohio, the former home of the professional Akron Racers. In lieu of a tournament champion, the league’s automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament will now go to the regular-season champion.
In addition to the changes to their postseason arrangements, the MAC has also instituted a 30-game conference schedule for both baseball and softball programs in the conference. League teams have generally played 20 games total in previous years. A conference news release on Tuesday stated that the the league’s baseball and softball teams “will move to 30-game regular season schedules,” though multiple league coaches later clarified to JWOS that the changes only affect the conference portion of the season.
The plan is set to cover the next four athletic seasons, but allows the opportunity to be reevaluated before that time if, according to various media reports, the economic situation stabilizes.
Eleven conference member schools currently sponsor a softball program, with Eastern Michigan as the lone exception.
(A previous version of this article inaccurately stated the conference’s regular season plan. The information has been corrected. We regret the error.)
