A dose of reality over the return of sports amid the COVID-19 pandemic
If professional and collegiate sports can make a successful return to play amid the COVID-19 pandemic later this summer and fall, sports fans could have a viewing experience that will simply be too good to be true.
Sports such as the PGA Tour and NASCAR have already returned. MLS is set to begin its 2020 season in early July. The NBA, WNBA, NHL, and MLB will return in late July. College football and the NFL are set to resume in late August and early September.
The last two legs of horse racing’s Triple Crown—the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes—will take place in September and October after the Belmont Stakes was held in June. And tennis’ final two majors—the U.S. Open and French Open—will happen later this summer and fall too.
From August through November, sports fans will have playoffs and championships to watch at the exact same time in the NBA, MLB, NHL, WNBA, MLS, and NASCAR, as well as in golf, tennis, and horse racing. Not to mention, the NFL and college football will be in the thickets of their respective regular seasons.
Outside of having the NFL playoffs, the College Football Playoff, and March Madness, this will be a sports fan’s dream after being without any to watch for the last several months due to the coronavirus outbreak.
But there remains an enormous, yet simple caveat to this dream scenario: If. This will only happen if sports can return. Saying that when, not if, sports will return is a false pretense, because there’s frankly no guaranteed certainty that sports will come back as planned.
If there’s anything we’ve learned over the last several months, it’s that making sure-fire guarantees in the face of a deadly virus is unwise, short-sighted, and ignorant.
COVID-19 cases continue to surge across the country as states move forward with reopening amid the pandemic, many of which have failed to enforce public health guidelines—like the wearing of face masks and social distancing measures.
As the country continues to fail at flattening the curve and wave the white flag in its fight against the virus, the feasibility and practicality of professional and college sports returning seems more daunting by the day.
The worst of these spikes just so happen to be taking place in states that will be crucial to sports returning.
Florida will be where the NBA, WNBA, and MLS relocate to next month. It will also play host to MLB games starting in July, as well as college football and NFL games in August and September.
There’s also Texas and Arizona, which will host MLB, college football, and NFL games this summer and fall. Alabama, Arkansas, and South Carolina will play host to college football as well. Not to mention, the PGA Tour has already made stops this month in both Texas and South Carolina.
Over the past week, reports of concerns over the COVID-19 situation in Florida have emerged among players and executives in both the NBA and WNBA. The NBA is slated to finish its season in a bubble at Walt Disney World in Orlando next month, while the WNBA will have its season at IMG Academy in Bradenton.
Additionally, there have been 16 NBA players to test positive for the virus after the first round of COVID-19 testing took place this week ahead of the planned restart in July. That’s just one aspect of a 100-plus-page COVID-19 health and safety document put together by the league.
Several MLB teams, including the Phillies, have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks among players and staff members at their respective training facilities. It’s resulted in all 30 clubs shutting down their complexes for the foreseeable future so that they can be thoroughly disinfected. Like the NBA, MLB has also developed a 100-plus-page coronavirus health and safety package.
The PGA Tour had its first golfer test positive for the virus at the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head Island last week, and an outbreak at the Travelers Championship outside of Hartford, Connecticut this week has led to as many as seven golfers withdrawing from the event. It’s also forced the Tour to strengthen its COVID-19 health and safety protocols.
The NFL and college football may have a few more months until their seasons commence, but coronavirus outbreaks have already occurred among teams such as the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys, as well as in programs such as Clemson, LSU, Texas, and Alabama who have brought players back to campus for offseason workouts.
The point of all of this is that, from a health and safety standpoint, the return of sports makes absolutely zero sense. With sports attempting to return amid the COVID-19 pandemic, positive tests were to be expected.
But what happens if or when there is an outbreak? It’s a lot easier said than done to move forward with a season if there’s a major outbreak, especially if the star players begin to get sick and many exhibit no symptoms—the most dangerous aspect of the virus and its spread.
As the heavyweight champion Mike Tyson famously said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
If a league needs to put together over 100 pages of health guidelines to keep players, coaches, and officials, and others safe from contracting the virus, it’s another sign that bringing sports back right now is far too complicated and risky.
There’s only one reason why sports is attempting a comeback amid the COVID-19 pandemic: money. That’s the only motivating factor for why they’ll keep moving forward despite people eventually contracting the virus. And anyone who tries to say that the return of sports is to help heal the nation isn’t telling the whole truth.
These professional and collegiate sports teams, leagues, organizations, and conferences were solely concerned with health and safety at one point during the outbreak. Now, it’s secondary at best.
So while I will happily watch sports as they return to our televisions, and I do believe that sports coming back will be a great thing for the country, we can’t play make-believe and act like the threat of the virus isn’t there.
We have to cheer and celebrate sports returning with the caveat that players, coaches, officials, and others are literally having their lives being put at risk for the sake of dollars and cents. These athletes and coaches aren’t entertainers; they’re human beings who have families and health concerns just like us.
I truly won’t believe sports are coming back until they actually do because of how flawed this whole setup is. There are so many hoops to jump through just for things to go well, and there’s so much more that could go wrong.
Be happy that sports are coming back, but there’s no need to put lipstick on a pig.
