Sports In The COVID-19 Universe—Act V, Soldiering Onward
Like an awful horror movie premise, the COVID-19 pandemic keeps coming back for sequels. Those who held out hope that the wave from this summer would prove to be the finale were bound to be disappointed. With this virus, where there’s a host, there’s always a way to extend the narrative.
The newest villain is the Omicron variant and though it’s barely reached our country’s shores, it’s already wreaking havoc in these colder months while its predecessor Delta simultaneously continues its rampage, upsetting the best laid plans of many public officials.
The professional sports world once again has been turned upside down, with numerous cancellations on top of absurd mandatory performances using unrecognizable understudies hastily called to fill in for the infected regulars. For those who purchased tickets or premium TV packages, you often haven’t received what you paid for other than, as Jerry Seinfeld used to say, rooting for laundry.
Indoor sports were always going to be more harshly affected given the nature of how infections spread, but the NFL has also been heavily hit by the coronavirus toll. We are in the midst of eight days of football in ten days thanks to postponements related to COVID-19 outbreaks within teams.
Meanwhile, the NHL, which has been besieged by postponements since the first few weeks of the season, finally succumbed to reality on Monday by canceling all games (and nixing the idea of sending its players to the upcoming Olympic Games in China) but one on Tuesday night until after the Christmas break.
Well, not exactly reality, because anyone who thinks things will be hunky dory with the virus next week is delusional. Any work stoppage would have to be of considerable length, as in multiple months, to allow for the new variant to run its course.
Of course, none of sports’ stakeholders are in the mood for that. The 2020 shutdown left hundreds of millions of dollars uncollectible, if not billions. After the shutdown came bubbles, which were practical successes despite the lack of gate receipts, even if it wasn’t ideal for the participants’ mental health. Players unions will ensure that was a one-and-done thing.
Then came the return to home stadiums and arenas without fans and, finally, with the advent of effective vaccines in the first quarter of 2021, sports have been more or less back to normal, barring those with positive COVID-19 tests.
So, what are sports leagues supposed to do in Act V, with breakthrough cases on the rise and, under the initial collectively bargained protocols, each positive case getting treated as a trigger for strict precautions? Well, the leagues now seem more amenable to a pivot, though not quite a 180, whereby in the NBA, asymptotic, fully-vaccinated and boosted players might soon see their quarantine times lessened from ten days (or two negative tests at least 24 hours apart), according to an ESPN interview with Commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday. The NFL already went further, pulling a gimmick from the Donald Trump playbook over the weekend when they announced that their solution to an overabundance of positive tests was to reduce the frequency of testing.
As Silver said, going back to the shutdown days isn’t happening, even after the money-grab from the league’s Christmas Day slate. Like many in this country, he’s ready to transition this era from pandemic to endemic, where we all have to learn how to live alongside this virus.
The NBA at least is serious about the science. They’ve been at the forefront in analyzing all sorts of data and applying the results to its policies. To wit: The large pool of NBA players that are vaccinated, which includes about 65% who are boosted on top of the 97% previously injected, gives Silver some comfort despite the onslaught of positive cases. According to Silver, there have been “only a very small number” of breakthrough infections of those boosted despite the Omicron variant present in about 90% of the positive cases.
Still, playing through this wave will result in more players quarantined, more postponements, and, in my opinion, the worst outcome of them all—more sham games like the Nets loss to Orlando on Saturday, where the Barclays Center faithful showed up to watch a skeleton crew of two rostered veterans (Blake Griffin and Patty Mills, one rookie under contract (Cam Thomas), two two-way players (Kessler Edwards and David Duke Jr.) and three replacement players who barely had time to try on their new uniforms and learn their teammates names before taking the court (Langston Galloway, James Ennis III, and Shaquille Harrison). Simply put, these games where teams have the minimum eight guys active shouldn’t be played.
For those who say that the show must go on, if the Hawks head into Madison Square Garden to play the Knicks on Christmas without star point guard Trae Young, who entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols on Sunday, is it really a show?
Likewise, the NHL is risking more distortions like how the Islanders season was ruined by a 10-game winless streak primarily due to being forced to play with a depleted roster. And in the NFL, what’s going to happen if some of the top QBs come down with a positive case during the playoffs? Even if the quarterback room isn’t the position designated to be tested that week, symptomatic players are supposed to get tested immediately. “Henne! Trubisky! Chiefs versus Bills for the AFC Championship!”
Stuff like this will continue to happen, though, since the leagues are determined to get the games in come hell or high water. Just be ready for some crazy plot twists.