Given the continuing rise in coronavirus cases in California, home to three NFL teams, Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered the closure of bars and restaurants across the state, as well as gyms and shopping malls in 30 selected counties.
“We continue to see hospitalizations increase and we continue to see an increase in the positivity rate in the state,” Newsom said. “We are returning to the ‘modifying mode’ of our original home stay request.”
In Texas, home to two NFL franchises, Gov. Greg Abbott recently ordered face masks to be worn in most counties and restrictions were placed on gatherings of more than 10 people, while warning that a continued increase of cases could result in “the need to close Texas…”
More specifically, in Houston, the mayor has discussed the possibility of a localized “backward step” of two weeks.
“We are going to need a shutdown for a period of time,” Mayor Sylvester Turner predicted if there is no change in the spread.
The NFL continues with training camp, which is scheduled to begin on July 28. (AP Photo / David J. Phillip)
Meanwhile, school districts in, among other places in the NFL, Nashville and Atlanta will have school years that will begin with remote learning.
Call it a retreat at reopening.
Or call it a concern in the future for the NFL and Major League Baseball, which can come up with plans and procedures for a 2020 season, but cannot guarantee how the virus will behave or how local governments with the power to stop it will almost react to it. .
NFL training camps are expected to start later this month and the regular season will begin on September 10. If there is one thing this pandemic has shown, it is dangerous to predict something in two weeks, let alone two months. Things come and go. The places that were once safe are now hot spots. And vice versa.
In April, in the early days of this, the Santa Clara County Executive (home of the San Francisco 49ers) said he did not expect “any sports game until at least Thanksgiving, and it would be lucky to have them ” for Thanksgiving. “
That prediction has not come true as the 49ers and all other NFL teams are currently authorized to play. However, he highlighted the challenges of trying to organize a normal season. Can a single county, or a single outbreak in a single market, invest everything?
Maybe you could deal with one. Perhaps. What if there are three? Will playing a season not be the decision of Commissioner Roger Goodell but a rather unknown County Commissioner somewhere? Or would no elected official risk the wrath of being the person who closed the NFL?
Nobody knows. No one knows with this.
The NBA and NHL have taken the bubble route in an attempt to complete their 2019-2020 seasons. Basketball is in Orlando. Hockey went to Canada (Edmonton and Toronto) where the virus is much less frequent than the United States. Those leagues can control many things. If the bubble remains, then they will succeed.
Soccer cannot do that. The idea of a safe zone for 32 massive NFL operations from training camp in late July to a February Super Bowl is impossible.
The same for MLB, which is slated to begin July 25 and especially for college football, which at its highest level is played by 130 teams in 43 states in communities ranging from Los Angeles to Laramie.
“It is clear that the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19 should improve,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, arguably the most influential person in the sport, said of the possibility of a season.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 have already reduced their hours to just nine conference games. Those decisions were made by the schools themselves, not by local officials. That could change.
No one has canceled anything yet. They all rush into a season with the best of normal intentions. However, pessimism sits on the horizon. An influential NFL agent told Yahoo Sports that he expects the season to last 6-10 games before the mosaic of decision-making becomes unsustainable. However, it is only an informed prediction.
What is clear is that, whatever the NFL’s plans may be, they can be altered by state and county politicians who are reacting to localized circumstances that don’t care about national television contracts.
That leaves the NFL to attempt what amounts to a seven-month job (training camp for the Super Bowl) dealing with not only the coming and going of a pandemic, but the whims and opinions of politicians who don’t respond to them. .
What the past two weeks have shown is that what is open today is not always what will be open tomorrow.
Seat belt.
Related
