COVID-19 outbreak among MLS clubs foreshadows risk of team sports returning
It’s officially the month of July, which means that both professional and college team sports are beginning to attempt their returns to play amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
One sport that has already made its return is soccer. The NWSL resumed play with its 2020 Challenge Cup tournament that began at the end of June in Utah.
Meanwhile, MLS restarted its 2020 season this past Wednesday with a one-off tournament at Walt Disney World in Florida. However, the event hasn’t gotten off to a smooth start.
Of the 26 MLS teams, only 24 are participating in the World Cup-like event before the 2020 regular season resumes in August. FC Dallas and Nashville SC, one of the league’s brand-new clubs, withdrew from the tournament after both teams experienced COVID-19 outbreaks among several players and staff members.
FC Dallas had 10 players and one staff member test positive for coronavirus, while Nashville SC had nine players test positive for COVID-19.
The coronavirus outbreak among both clubs once again reminds us and foreshadows the inherent risk of more professional and college team sports resuming play later this summer and fall.
The NBA, WNBA, and MLB are hoping to return in late July. The NHL is planning to restart in early August. College football and the NFL are still trying to get underway in early September.
That’s if everything goes well with mitigating and containing the virus over the next several weeks and months. However, as COVID-19 case numbers continue to spike across the country, momentum towards a postponement or cancellation of the NFL and/or college football season appears to be accelerating.
What FC Dallas and Nashville SC have experienced provides both an ominous and grim outlook on how team sports can successfully return amid a global pandemic.
It also calls into question how far is too far for a league, conference, or other athletic organization to stop play once again.
When the coronavirus outbreak began in the U.S. in March and shut down sports for the foreseeable future, only one positive COVID-19 case was enough for a respective league, conference, or organization to shut its doors.
Four months later, the tenor has changed from protecting the health and safety of players, coaches, and staff to learning to coexist and live with the virus, another sign of just how flawed the U.S.’s handling of the pandemic has been.
Despite the withdrawal of both clubs, MLS’s tournament has soldiered forward with play.
NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, and NFL players and staff, as well as college football student-athletes and PGA Tour golfers, continue to test positive for COVID-19. However, no league, conference, or organization has halted plans to resume play.
So what will it now take for sports to slow down? Will it take a major outbreak among a team? If the MLS is any indication, that’s probably not the case.
Will it take a star player, such as LeBron James, testing positive for the virus? Will it take a player to actual experience symptoms, get seriously ill, or even die due to COVID-19? Will it take public health or elected officials at the local or state level stepping in if coronavirus infections continue to spike?
The point is that the line, which was clear back in March, has now become blurred.
Let’s say a situation similar to what has occurred with the MLS takes place in the NBA.
The NBA has arguably the most effective COVID-19 testing program in place of any professional or college sports league, conference, or organization seeking to resume play amid the pandemic.
All games, practices, and housing will be within the bubble at Walt Disney World. But if the Los Angeles Lakers, a title-contending team, experiences a major COVID-19 outbreak among its players—including the aforementioned LeBron and Anthony Davis—would they be disqualified from playing? Would it be fair to punish them for experiencing a viral outbreak?
The roster that the Brooklyn Nets is sending to Florida this month is unrecognizable to the one that the franchise began the season with, as the team has experienced both significant injuries and COVID-19 transmission among its players.
The Nets are no championship contender this season, but if this were to happen to a team that can actually capture the Larry O’Brien trophy, it’s hard to envision both the remaining season and playoffs successfully taking place.
The NBA’s biggest risk—not including the fact that Walt Disney World employees will be allowed to come and go without being tested for the virus—is the high likelihood of viral transmission between players in contact while on the court within an enclosed arena. The NFL, despite taking place outdoors, faces the same social distancing hurdles.
Most similar to the NBA and MLS will be the NHL and WNBA. The NHL will establish two bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton, while the WNBA will take place within a bubble at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
Players, coaches, and staff will have games, practices, and housing all held within one spot, and COVID-19 testing will be constant, but the contact aspect of hockey and basketball makes the risk of COVID-19 transmission significant.
Along with the NFL, MLB and college football probably face the greatest likelihood of experiencing a similar situation to MLS. All three sports are not expected to take place within a single bubble where practices, games, and housing will be held, as each team will be traveling to and from various locations—risking the likelihood of bringing the virus from one state to another.
Additionally, the lack of a bubble setup lends to having less control over who players, coaches, and staff interact with and where they go when not participating in practices and games.
Not to mention, MLB’s COVID-19 testing protocol is far from adequate, as results for players are taking several days to return. The uncertainty over one’s health is only going to push more players towards not playing this season.
It’s unclear what a COVID-19 testing protocol will look like for the NFL and college football, only that players and student-athletes are currently being tested and could be as many as three times a week once the season starts.
My greatest fear now is that each league, conference, or organization that returns will equate a player missing time due to a deadly virus in COVID-19 to a player out with an injury.
It’s hard to imagine that MLS’s struggles to return will deter other sports leagues, conferences, or organizations from coming back given the millions and billions of dollars that are at stake for all parties involved. Money is the only reason a team as depleted as the Nets is participating in Orlando.
But if those with the power and responsibility to make decisions are smart and wise, they should take MLS’s hiccups very seriously as they each prepare to return to play later this summer and fall.
