The Big Ten and the Pac-12 athletic conferences officially announced on Tuesday the postponement of their fall sports seasons due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Big Ten acted first, issuing a statement saying that all regular season and conference championships and tournaments for the 2020-2021 season will be postponed. In addition to football, sports that will be postponed include men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey, soccer and women’s volleyball.

The decisions by two of the Power Five conferences will have an outsized effect on any college football season that takes place. Several other conferences were said to be weighing decisions about their own seasons, and the moves announced Tuesday are certain to be influential.

Both conferences expressed hope they could resume competition in the spring.

The statement from the Big Ten said that decisions regarding winter and spring sports will “continue to be evaluated.” It added that the decision was based on multiple factors and relied on medical advice and the counsel of the Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee.

“The mental and physical health and welfare of our student athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward,” Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said. “As time progressed and after hours of discussion with our [task force] and [committee], it became abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.”

“Unlike professional sports, college sports cannot operate in a bubble,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said. “Our athletic programs are a part of broader campuses in communities where in many cases the prevalence of COVID-19 is significant. We will continue to monitor the situation and when conditions change we will be ready to explore all options to play the impacted sports in the new calendar year.”

News of the Big Ten canceling its season first surfaced Monday, with reports that the 14 members of the conference voted 12-2 to cancel the season. However, a spokesman pushed back, saying no vote on the matter had been taken.

Following the early reports, President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday that “student athletes have been working too hard for their season to be cancelled.”

“Play College Football!” the president added.

Both conferences acknowledged the disappointment that will result from the move, with Scott saying that “student-athletes, fans, staff and all those who love college sports would like to have seen the season played this calendar year as originally planned.”

“Everyone associated with the Big Ten Conference and its member institutions is committed to getting everyone back to competition as soon as it is safe to do so,” Warren added.