Sports aren’t coming back any time soon. Get used to it | Opinion
By Brad Wilson | For lehighvalleylive.com
Sports are over.
There’s no chance of our sports scene looking familiar any time soon.
I’m not here to spread hope or cheer or encourage wishful thinking. Those of you looking for some light reading to distract yourself from the COVID-19 crisis, please go somewhere else.
Because I am sick of reading the blindly optimistic chatter of sports officials, from scholastic to Olympic, going on about how they “hope things will be back to normal” soon and we can go on like none of this ever happened.
Are they nuts?
Have they even looked at the pandemic’s projections? Have they read the Imperial College of London report that discusses 18 months – 18 months! – of serious disruptions to our way of life? Have they even looked at almost every medical professional’s comments on the pandemic? None are cheery.
In this piece, three of our most illustrious experts in public health lay out what appears to be a best-case scenario. It’s still pretty grim.
Even Dr. Pangloss, Voltaire’s cheery optimist in “Candide” who believed that "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds," would need an anti-depressant, or at least a stiff drink and a nap, after taking all that in.
The Penn Relays, the Kentucky Derby, almost all amateur sports, gone. NBA, MLS, NHL, in limbo; in the winter sports’ cases, really actually over, but not willing to admit it. Most international soccer, see ya, its second-best event (the European Championship) postponed until 2021. Baseball, outta here. NCAA? See you in September.
Maybe.
The NFL’s “free agency” period seems to exist like a fly caught in amber, somehow living in an air-free bottle, almost too fragile to venture into the real world. Reading the hyperventilation of fans babbling about cornerbacks and salary caps and deferred money, it all almost seems as if it comes from another time.
Because it does.
It figures, somehow, that the sole American sport still functioning every day is horse racing, widely panned as a “dying” sport catering to degenerate gamblers and low-lifes (count us in!). Of course, there are suddenly a lot more degenerate gamblers than there used to be – whole radio stations dedicated to sports gambling (one wonders what they discuss now) – perhaps another sign of end times.
Maybe racing is just ahead of the curve in its near-death experiences for sports.
The silliness of “two-week suspensions” and the like in sports are slowly becoming apparent. There’s more chance of Martians landing on College Hill than the PIAA finishing its basketball season. Why keep pretending?
There’s more chance of an iceberg coming down the Delaware than there is of a spring scholastic sports scene resembling anything like we are used to. Why keep pretending?
There’s more chance of Vice President Mike Pence dancing the Hokey Pokey naked on the free bridge than there is having the Olympics this summer. Why keep pretending?
I know that the sports world lives on optimism and a can-do mentality in any situation, which is usually admirable, and lives for upsets. After all, Buster Douglas did knock out Mike Tyson and Chaminade did beat Virginia.
But an upset of the kind needed to restore the sports world anytime soon would be a miracle now, and to paraphrase Sydney Greenstreet in “Casablanca”: The COVID-19 has outlawed miracles.
Even if, by some stretch of logic we can’t make, but will play along with, by June, baseball and MLS try and start up again, who’s going to go to the games? Who’s going to risk being the next wave of infected people, along the lines of the scenarios laid out above? Even the luxury-box crowd won’t show up. Families certainly will not.
Maybe the fall will be different. But maybe not. When schools reopen, if they do, how many terrified parents will send their children if there’s any kind of doubt? How about the staff?
And given the upcoming economic depression, who will be able to afford tickets or sports travel? Youth sports tournaments in distant cities will be out of reach, even assuming people want to take the risk. How about that bloated cable bill, fattened by outrageous charges for sports broadcasts – when the landlord or taxman is pounding on the door, what goes in that situation? Season tickets or food for a month? Private sports coach or health insurance?
Most Americans have never been in such a situation. They may well be soon.
About here is where we’d normally turn from the dark passage ahead, and say, well, things are bad but getting better; the current situation can’t last forever; and let’s be positive!
Well, we’re not, and we can’t be.
Sports are over. Get used to it.
By Brad Wilson | For lehighvalleylive.com
Sports are over.
There’s no chance of our sports scene looking familiar any time soon.
I’m not here to spread hope or cheer or encourage wishful thinking. Those of you looking for some light reading to distract yourself from the COVID-19 crisis, please go somewhere else.
Because I am sick of reading the blindly optimistic chatter of sports officials, from scholastic to Olympic, going on about how they “hope things will be back to normal” soon and we can go on like none of this ever happened.
Are they nuts?
Have they even looked at the pandemic’s projections? Have they read the Imperial College of London report that discusses 18 months – 18 months! – of serious disruptions to our way of life? Have they even looked at almost every medical professional’s comments on the pandemic? None are cheery.
In this piece, three of our most illustrious experts in public health lay out what appears to be a best-case scenario. It’s still pretty grim.
Even Dr. Pangloss, Voltaire’s cheery optimist in “Candide” who believed that "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds," would need an anti-depressant, or at least a stiff drink and a nap, after taking all that in.
The Penn Relays, the Kentucky Derby, almost all amateur sports, gone. NBA, MLS, NHL, in limbo; in the winter sports’ cases, really actually over, but not willing to admit it. Most international soccer, see ya, its second-best event (the European Championship) postponed until 2021. Baseball, outta here. NCAA? See you in September.
Maybe.
The NFL’s “free agency” period seems to exist like a fly caught in amber, somehow living in an air-free bottle, almost too fragile to venture into the real world. Reading the hyperventilation of fans babbling about cornerbacks and salary caps and deferred money, it all almost seems as if it comes from another time.
Because it does.
It figures, somehow, that the sole American sport still functioning every day is horse racing, widely panned as a “dying” sport catering to degenerate gamblers and low-lifes (count us in!). Of course, there are suddenly a lot more degenerate gamblers than there used to be – whole radio stations dedicated to sports gambling (one wonders what they discuss now) – perhaps another sign of end times.
Maybe racing is just ahead of the curve in its near-death experiences for sports.
The silliness of “two-week suspensions” and the like in sports are slowly becoming apparent. There’s more chance of Martians landing on College Hill than the PIAA finishing its basketball season. Why keep pretending?
There’s more chance of an iceberg coming down the Delaware than there is of a spring scholastic sports scene resembling anything like we are used to. Why keep pretending?
There’s more chance of Vice President Mike Pence dancing the Hokey Pokey naked on the free bridge than there is having the Olympics this summer. Why keep pretending?
I know that the sports world lives on optimism and a can-do mentality in any situation, which is usually admirable, and lives for upsets. After all, Buster Douglas did knock out Mike Tyson and Chaminade did beat Virginia.
But an upset of the kind needed to restore the sports world anytime soon would be a miracle now, and to paraphrase Sydney Greenstreet in “Casablanca”: The COVID-19 has outlawed miracles.
Even if, by some stretch of logic we can’t make, but will play along with, by June, baseball and MLS try and start up again, who’s going to go to the games? Who’s going to risk being the next wave of infected people, along the lines of the scenarios laid out above? Even the luxury-box crowd won’t show up. Families certainly will not.
Maybe the fall will be different. But maybe not. When schools reopen, if they do, how many terrified parents will send their children if there’s any kind of doubt? How about the staff?
And given the upcoming economic depression, who will be able to afford tickets or sports travel? Youth sports tournaments in distant cities will be out of reach, even assuming people want to take the risk. How about that bloated cable bill, fattened by outrageous charges for sports broadcasts – when the landlord or taxman is pounding on the door, what goes in that situation? Season tickets or food for a month? Private sports coach or health insurance?
Most Americans have never been in such a situation. They may well be soon.
About here is where we’d normally turn from the dark passage ahead, and say, well, things are bad but getting better; the current situation can’t last forever; and let’s be positive!
Well, we’re not, and we can’t be.
Sports are over. Get used to it.
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