The Federal Aviation Administration's decision to ground all flights nationwide for several hours Friday threw the sports world into chaos, leaving NBA, NHL and college teams scrambling to reach their destinations in time for games this weekend.
The ground stop lasted more than four hours before the FAA announced Friday evening that airplane departures could resume.
Transportation officials cited "extraordinary circumstances" caused by communications issues at regional air traffic control centers for the stoppage. Some professional sports teams were searching for hotel rooms, college teams were left to reschedule flights, and some teams had even taken the extraordinary step of chartering buses rather than waiting for the ground stop to end.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy even encouraged NCAA football teams to reach out to the FAA so the agency could help prioritize flights for Saturday's games as more than 2,500 flights were canceled nationwide with hundreds more being delayed.
Most college football teams playing Saturday travel the day before their game, and the stoppage left many schools -- including No. 2 Utah, No. 8 Texas and No. 9 Tennessee -- at a standstill as they departed for road games. The Utes play at No. 22 Arizona, the Longhorns visit No. 24 LSU, and the Volunteers are traveling to Texas A&M in three of the bigger games of the weekend.
Texas and Tennessee returned to their campuses during the ground stoppage. Once it was lifted after more than four hours of uncertainty, the schools began making plans to fly out as soon as possible. They each landed at their respective destinations late Friday night.
No. 19 Ole Miss did not travel Friday night to Oklahoma, and the SEC announced that their game would be moved to Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
Auburn took buses to Mississippi State, and the start time for their game was moved from noon ET to 4:15 p.m.
Purdue took buses from West Lafayette, Indiana, for its game at No. 15 Iowa.
In the Big 12, the kickoff time for Kansas at West Virginia was moved to 3:30 p.m. ET. Arizona State, which deplaned and headed home to rest during Friday's ground stop, planned to fly to Orlando, Florida, on Saturday. The Sun Devils' game against the UCF Knights, originally scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. ET, was moved to 5:30 p.m. Baylor's game at No. 10 BYU was rescheduled to 7 p.m. ET.
ESPN also confirmed that Oregon State, which is scheduled to play at No. 24 Boise State on Saturday (6 p.m. ET), initially began traveling to Idaho by bus before heading back to the airport Friday evening. The Beavers boarded an airplane later Friday for their trip to Boise.
Other teams from the Group of 6 conferences that were grounded include Wyoming (at UTEP) and Colorado State, whose players were shown holding a walk-through at Northern Colorado Regional Airport as they waited to depart to play Washington State. Tulane, which was scheduled to fly to Houston for its game against Rice on Saturday, was set to board five buses to make the 350-mile drive Friday night.
Scenes from the FAA stoppage: Colorado State is holding a walk-through at Northern Colorado Regional Airport as the team waits to fly to Pullman to play at Washington State on Saturday night. https://t.co/JiKvb9FAJ5
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) November 14, 2026
Other schools affected by the stoppage included Washington, Kansas State and Minnesota.
Washington spokesperson Kurt Svoboda said the Huskies returned to campus when flights were grounded, but officials stayed in touch with their Alaska/Hawaiian Airlines partners and their flight crew remained in place. The Huskies planned to fly out late Friday.
On Friday night, Florida State was playing at Pittsburgh, Illinois was visiting fourth-ranked UCLA, and No. 14 Houston was visiting Colorado. Those teams were hoping their charter flights home afterward would be unaffected by the upheaval.
It also was unclear whether any referees, who typically fly to their assignments the day before games, would have trouble making it. The Big Ten said in a statement that all of its officials had arrived for their scheduled assignments Saturday.
Several teams took off before the stoppage began, including all of those traveling in the ACC; Missouri, which was flying to top-ranked Georgia; Duke, which was visiting fifth-ranked Miami; and No. 10 Texas Tech, which posted on social media images of its arrival for a game at Oklahoma State.
NFL teams playing Sunday typically travel the day before their games, and they were expected to fly as planned Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Nets were among five NBA teams scheduled to fly Friday for games Saturday. They had just boarded the team plane in New Orleans after playing the Pelicans earlier this week when their flight to Memphis was halted in place.
The Detroit Pistons flew earlier in the day to Miami. The Cleveland Cavaliers, Chicago Bulls and Memphis Grizzlies played Friday night and were due to fly afterward.
The Cavaliers played in Miami on Friday night and were scheduled to play the Dallas Mavericks at home Saturday. Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson said about 90 minutes before tipoff that his team was scrambling to find hotel rooms for Friday night. The team ultimately decided to stay the night and leave for Dallas at 9 a.m. Saturday.
"It's part of it. You just adapt," Atkinson said.
There are 14 scheduled games in the NHL on Saturday. The Florida Panthers were among the majority that made it to their destinations before the stoppage, but the Sharks were left waiting in San Jose to see whether they would be able to travel to Utah.
JuJu Watkins and her third-ranked USC teammates were trying to get to South Carolina for their basketball game Sunday against the top-ranked Gamecocks. The team had just boarded its flight at Los Angeles International Airport when the ground stop was issued. After a while, the decision was made to deboard passengers, and the team returned to the Galen Center.
In soccer, the Utah Royals were already in the Washington, D.C., area ahead of their National Women's Soccer League semifinal against the Washington Spirit on Saturday. But the Kansas City Current were supposed to depart Friday for their semifinal against Gotham FC on Sunday in New York, and team officials were uncertain when their flight would be allowed to leave.
The U.S. men's national team's match against Haiti on Saturday in Miami was unaffected by the ground stop. Both teams and officials already were in town for the first leg of the two-match CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal series.
ESPN's Mark Schlabach, Pete Thamel, Adam Rittenberg and Andrea Adelson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.