It’s not a great sign that the sports world has only been shut down for a few weeks, and it already feels like months.
The wait for sports to return is going to continue for much longer — that is undeniable at this point.
And leagues across the globe will face an arguably tougher challenge in deciding when and how to bring back sports. With no available vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, leagues will run the risk of sparking a coronavirus resurgence by holding events in packed stadiums. No league or team wants to be the one to cause another Match Zero.
But on the other hand, sports are a distraction. And people often to turn to sports and entertainment as a means to temporarily escape from a troubling situation. That train of thought has led people to think of ways to bring sports back now — or as soon as possible — even as the pandemic is still in the early stages.
Let’s be honest, though: None of these ideas should ever come to fruition. They’re all awful and reckless, especially these five proposed ways to end the sports stoppage.
At least as of now, this idea seems like it will happen. The BIG3, the 3-on-3 league heading into its fourth season, is looking to hold a preseason tournament after initially holding the participants in a reality-show-style quarantine. The league plans to test all the players and officials for COVID-19, and they will only be allowed to participate if they test negative.
Via USA TODAY Sports:
The 3-on-3 basketball league partnered with media production company Endemal, which has produced the highly-rated reality show “Big Brother,” to create a quarantined reality show and a three-week preseason tournament starting the first week of May. Big3 also plans to open its fourth season of its 12-team league on June 20 in Memphis.
“We can’t control what happens with the virus. Nobody can control it,” Big3 co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz told USA TODAY Sports. “If that has to be pushed back a week or two, that’s possible. But we feel pretty good about being able to be up and running in May.”
As intriguing as it sounds to watch Seven-Time All-Star Joe Johnson in quarantine for two weeks before he plays 3-on-3, there’s just no reason for it. No matter how they frame the precautions, it’s impossible to guarantee the safety of the players, officials and staff members — all for a preseason tournament. The risk isn’t worth the reward here at all.
The consensus among the medical community is that those who are infected with COVID-19 and recover will not catch the coronavirus a second time — at least temporarily. So, Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s head of driver development, suggested that his team’s drivers intentionally get infected with the coronavirus, so they can return to competition as soon as possible.
Via The Guardian:
“We have four Formula One drivers and eight or 10 juniors,” he said. “The idea was to organise a camp where we could bridge this mentally and physically somewhat dead time and that would be the ideal time for the infection to come.
“These are all strong young men in really good health. That way they would be prepared whenever the action starts. And you can be ready for what will probably be a very tough championship once it starts.”
Obviously, this twisted, sports-themed version of herd immunity is overlooking the fact that young, athletic people are not impervious to the worst of the virus. A significant percentage of young people — between 14 and 20 percent — requires hospitalization.
Just an awful, awful idea.
The NBA was the first American sports league to suspend its season entirely, which sparked the similar reaction across U.S. sports and the NCAA. But a week after the league’s suspension, commissioner Adam Silver floated the idea of hosting a charity game with medically cleared — either COVID-19 negative or recovered — players.
Via Sports Illustrated:
“Just because people are stuck at home and they need a diversion and they need to be entertained,” Silver said. “…To the extent we were the first to shut our league down. To what extent can we be a first mover to restart our economy.”
Enough has unfolded over the subsequent two weeks to put that idea on hold. There are too many risks when it comes to travel and actually playing this game to make it anything more than an early idea.
The NFL season isn’t due to start until September, so it does have the benefit of time to figure out possible contingency plans. But at this juncture, it’s impossible to say when or even if the NFL will be played.
One idea that absolutely shouldn’t happen is this option floated by ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio:
“Theoretically, it’s possible that the NFL will build in the middle of nowhere a corona-free campus where all players, coaches, trainers, doctors, broadcasters, officials, etc. would spend the entire season sequestered from the rest of the world, with games played on a series of fields from which the games would be televised, with no one else present. (I haven’t heard that this is a possibility, but it’s one that the league definitely should be considering.)”
Unless this campus is stocked with four months worth of food, water and essentials, there’s absolutely no way the league can guarantee that it is “corona-free.” You’d also be asking for something that would require round-the-clock construction during a pandemic for a one-off entertainment project. A facility needed to host all of these teams would be massive — like, on an Olympic-village scale.
Optically, there couldn’t be a worse look for the NFL than this idea.
You’d be investing millions in a vanity project in northern Nebraska while hospitals are desperately short on supplies. There’s just no way this gets considered on a serious level.
In a similar manner to Florio’s solution to the NFL, The Independent reported on Sunday that the Premier League was looking into resuming its season in the midlands and London during June and July … with government backing.
They would hold this in World Cup-style camps and keep the players isolated from their families.
Via The Independent:
In order to complete the plan, clubs and their staffs would be confined to separate hotels away from their families, just like in an international tournament – albeit with full testing and quarantine conditions. The aim is to reduce the risk of contracting Covid-19 as even one case could derail the whole plan.
For the reasons that the NFL idea won’t happen, it would be just as reckless to go forward with this idea. Like the report said, it would only take one case of coronavirus to derail the idea. And we’ve already seen Premier League players test positive for the coronavirus.
There are ways to limit the risks of contracting the virus, but there is no realistic way to guarantee it. You’d be looking at a money-grab during a pandemic — it’s that simple.
