College Football and Climate Change

Updated September 2025:

Climate change is making summer heat waves longer and hotter, is pushing summer temperatures deeper into the fall, and is intensifying the impacts of extreme weather events.

This is bad news for college football players and fans, who have to balance the beautiful history and traditions of the fall sport with a changing climate. 

The Problem:

• Conditions at college football venues around the country are getting less and less stable, predictable, and safe for players and fans alike. 
• Extreme heat now impacts games and tailgates through the first two months of the season as hotter temperatures stretch later into the fall.  
• Summer temperatures are pushing later in the year, with even October games being played in dangerously hot conditions. 
• Extreme weather events like hurricanes and intense rain events, juiced by climate pollution, are disrupting more and more games throughout the CFB season. 
• Athletic exertion in extreme heat can be dangerous—even deadly. Players are at risk of heat exhaustion, characterized by symptoms including faintness, dizziness, fatigue, weak or rapid pulse, and low blood pressure; and heat stroke, with symptoms including high core body temperature, change in mental or emotional state, racing heart rate, rapid breathing, nausea, and headache. In extreme cases, excessive heat can lead to organ damage, heart failure, and death.
• Across the country, “extremely hot days,” (or days exceeding the 95th percentile of each location’s average annual maximum summer temperature) have been increasing dramatically, with most occurring in August and September, as teams start practices and then the season kicks off.