Jamie Rhodes/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
ATLANTA — Faced with the United States’ surging coronavirus caseload and mounting public fears, college sports executives have discussed in recent days whether to reduce the number of venues at which games are played during the N.C.A.A. men’s and women’s basketball tournaments that begin in less than two weeks.
A narrowed list of playing sites is one option N.C.A.A. executives are studying as the association prepares for the tournaments, which are among the marquee events in American sports and are scheduled in dozens of cities in the coming weeks. Executives and medical experts are also considering other possibilities, including holding games without spectators and proceeding normally but with enhanced efforts to promote public health, such as hand sanitizer stations.