I think you are all forgetting that colleges are businesses; in fact, that is a complaint of most of the "academics" that you are blaming for being political. Any college that reopens has to take at least some precautions to minimize virus spread, and those precautions are expensive. If a college can make a business calculation that it can keep its campus closed and still get students to pay to take classes, then that's what it's going to do; it's far, far cheaper than opening up (and that would be true in normal times, also). If enough colleges think that they could make money doing online-only education permanently, they will do so - and college sports will disappear.