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By November 13, 2026 / 6:25 PM CST / CBS Chicago Add CBS News on Google With flights grounded nationwide due to what the FAA and White House said is a "telecommunication outage," some sports fans might be wondering how their favorite teams' upcoming games might be affected the next couple of days. For Chicago sports fans, the Bulls appear to be the only team facing a potential problem. While the Atlanta Hawks were already in town for Friday night's game against the Bulls at the United Center before the FAA grounded all flights on Friday, the Bulls have a game scheduled for Saturday night in Minnesota against the Timberwolves.
So, if the Bulls can't fly out of O'Hare and Midway in time , they might have to hop on buses to get to Minneapolis for the game, unless the NBA decides to reschedule the game instead. Meantime, the Blackhawks are hosting the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday afternoon, and the Jets made it to Chicago before any flights were grounded on Friday and practiced at the United Center on Friday. It's a bye week for the Bears, so they won't have a game to worry about for another week.
Notre Dame is hosting Boston College at 2:30 p.m. Chicago time on Saturday, and Boston College made it to South Bend before the ground stop. The Illinois Fighting Illini football team is playing UCLA on the road Friday night, and was already in Los Angeles before the FAA grounded flights.
The Illini men's basketball team is hosting Sam Houston State on Friday night, and the game tipped off as scheduled at 6 p.m. The Illini women's basketball team hosts Southeast Missouri State on Sunday, and while it's unclear when or how Southeast Missouri planned to travel, it's only a four hour drive, so they might not have to worry about a flight. The Northwestern Wildcats football team made it to Columbus on Friday before flights were grounded, ahead of their game against Ohio State on Saturday.
The Wildcats men's basketball team is hosting the DePaul Blue Demons on Friday night, so neither team had to fly for the game. The Wildcats women's basketball team is playing the West Virginia Mountaineers in Morgantown on Friday and made it to the game before the ground stop. Loyola's men's basketball team is playing at Colorado State on Saturday afternoon, but was already in Colorado after playing at Air Force on Wednesday, so their only concern will be whether the ground stop will be lifted in time for them to fly home on Saturday, or if they'll have to make other plans.
The Loyola women's team is hosting the Milwaukee Panthers on Saturday, so even if the Panthers planned to fly to the game, it's not a long bus ride. Northern Illinois' football team is hosting Nevada on Saturday, and Nevada made it to DeKalb before the ground stop. Matt Zahn contributed to this report.
In: Chicago Federal Aviation Administration O'Hare passengers choose to wait or bail amid nationwide ground stop haling all flight 02:12 O'Hare passengers choose to wait or bail amid nationwide ground stop haling all flight (02:12)
Source: CBS News
