As America reacts to the first day of the government shutdown, intercollegiate athletics are not immune. On Tuesday morning, the Naval Academy Athletics announced that the Department of Defense has suspended all intercollegiate athletic competitions at the Service Academies as the result of the government shutdown. It was confirmed later that Navy, Army and Air Force will all be canceling their sporting events for the duration of the shutdown. 

This becomes even more notable because Army was slated to play Air Force in football this Saturday, with game originally scheduled to be televised nationally on CBS.

The Army-Boston College game on Saturday afternoon is also canceled for the same reason. 

“[If the games are cancelled], the conferences involved would owe the networks some programming,” Jeff Fellenzer, Faculty Associate of USC’s Annenberg Institute of Sports Media Studies said, before the cancellations were announced. As the result, the conferences may have to compensate the network through giving out broadcasting rights free of charge for the other sports, such as basketball.

Navy's soccer game against Howard Tuesday night is also canceled, and it is still uncertain whether the game will be rescheduled.

Due to the failure to agree upon a new budget in the Congress over Obamacare, the U.S. government has no funds to operate from starting on October 1, resulting in the indefinite shutdown of all federal, government-related services.

Service Academies, including Navy, Army and Air Force, are thus impacted by the government shutdown. The Annapolis Capital reported that travel restrictions have been handed down to both Air Force’s support staffs as well as the upper-class cadets, who are deemed military personnel and thus subject to the restrictions. 

Now, the athletics departments in all three academies can only stand by until Congress figures out a solution for the government budget. The impact from the shutdown can be minimized as long as the stand-by period does not extend too long.

“My sense is that if this gets resolved soon, nothing will change,” Fellenzer continued. “Since the service academies aren’t in high-profile conferences, I think the financial implications probably would be minimal,” he speculated.

However, all that can be done right now is speculated. The length of the stand-by is unknown, as it the depth of the impact it will have on the academies' athletic programs.

Reach Staff Reporter Taiu Kunimoto here or follow him here.