Day….ahh I’m not sure any more of life without sports. I along with other sports fans are starting to get pretty dang stir crazy hoping something happens. Well sports fans I have news that will make you rejoice! However it comes at a price.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been at the center of the pandemic providing updates and advice on how and what Americans need to do to help flatten the curve and keep everyone safe. Dr. Fauci has been doing dozens of media interviews lately and was recently asked about the possibility of sports starting again soon and if leagues can even start playing again. Dr. Fauci says the only way sports can return this summer is if there are no fans in attendance and players are kept in quarantine during the season.
“Nobody comes to the stadium. Put the players in big hotels, wherever you want to play, keep them very well surveilled. Have them test every single week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family, and just let them play the season out.”
So sports can happen this summer, but just with none of us in attendance. This is going to require sacrifice from both players and fans. To the players, having to stay isolated for the entire season and to play in empty arenas is not exactly the most appealing idea in the world. Obviously players feed off the energy from crowds and yes it will be weird. But if any season is going to happen whether it’s the NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, WNBA you name it, there is going to have to be some level of compromise. We already hear MLB propose something similar to this where they would want to start the season in May and have all games played in Arizona. All these other leagues would probably have to follow suit in they want their seasons to happen. Being in isolation and having to be tested weekly sucks, but players are itching to get back to playing. Just to have some semblance of normalcy in this chaotic timeline.
The second sacrifice is going to have to come from us the fans. Not being able to see our teams play live and in person sucks. Going to the ballpark in the summer or to attend an NBA playoff game are just a few of the things sports fans were really looking forward to. But if we take a step back for a second, this isn’t as bad as it may seem. First off, how many of us actually attend live professional sporting events? Odds are not much if at all. Tickets are expensive and that’s not even including food, drinks. merchandise and all other stuff fans buy at games. It’s already expensive to begin with and even now during this pandemic, money is tight. Even if fans were allowed to go to games, attendance would be low because of costs and fans not feeling safe now in large crowds. Plus, personally speaking, I watch the majority if not all of my sports from the comfort of my home. We all do this anyways so is it going to be really any different to watch games without fans? Maybe a little, but we would still be getting live sports which is the thing we all want.
Look, at the end of the day, we all want our sports back. Players, coaches, owners, fans we all want to watch and play again. But we are going to be dealing with the pandemic for many more months to come. The world is going to have to work and operate around the coronavirus until a vaccine is made. So if that means adjusting what it means to watch and play sports, then I’m all in. We need sports badly right now. If that means making some hard but needed choices, then we have to do it. The sooner we get back to live sports, the sooner we get back our sense of normalcy and the sooner we can get back to life as normal.
