Indicators say pro sports can endure
Ever since the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the U.S. sports calendar, I’ve felt tension between my desire to see games and my anxiety about whether it’s safe or ethical to play them.
But recent trends in MLB and Major League Soccer provide some hope that the underdog of a safe sports calendar in 2020 is rallying against the heavy favorite of the novel coronavirus making that impossible.
MLB and the players’ union latest weekly audit of covid-19 testing showed six new positives out of 10,548 samples (.05%). The total number of new positive tests for players and staff since the start of monitoring was 23 out of 17,949 (0.1%), with no positives for 17 of 30 teams. Include intake testing, which began June 27, and there have been 93 positive tests out of 21,701 samples.
Those are encouraging numbers for a sport that’s not in a so-called bubble. It may not stay that way once MLB teams start traveling extensively. Still, getting through summer camps without the whole thing blowing up is a start. It appears baseball will make it to Thursday’s opening day with nearly all players who reported for camp free of the virus.
The news is even better for basketball and soccer. The NBA and MLS holed up at Disney World for the resumption of their seasons. Both leagues have avoided widespread covid-19 outbreaks.
The NBA announced Monday that there were zero positive tests among 346 players in the past week. The league reported two positives out of 322 players tested the previous week. MLS, which announces test results every other day, has had three consecutive reports of zero positive tests. Soccer has stabilized after two clubs withdrew from the MLS tournament because of multiple infections.
Those developments make me cautiously optimistic that professional sports can safely pull off games without fans. I didn’t have that hope at the beginning of this month. I still doubt college football can do it for several reasons, most of all its inability to separate its unpaid players from campus communities. But the games could go on safely for pro leagues.
The NFL is giving it a shot. Rookies reported for training camp over the past two days, and all players are scheduled to arrive next week. Several star players had publicly accused the NFL of ignoring covid-19 protocol recommendations from its medical experts. That was before the NFL and the players’ union agreed to a testing protocol Monday.
Players and some other team personnel will have to test negative twice within a 72-hour period before being allowed inside team facilities. From there, they’ll be tested daily for the first two weeks of camp. That will scale back to every other day if the league’s positive test rate stays below 5%. Still to be determined: What happens after a positive test.
Testing is only one tool for controlling the spread of the virus. Team employees also must be careful away from work. It’s relatively simple for the NBA and MLS to ensure that happens. Their bubbles are semi-permeable because resort employees can come and go. But keeping team employees onsite with frequent testing, social distancing and masks so far seems to be an effective strategy.
Players, coaches and staff members will need to be disciplined at home and on the road. They’ll also need good luck. They are human. People who do their best to follow covid-19 protocols are at risk of letting their guards down at times.
“I think this is all of us in this together,” NFL Players’ Association president J.C. Tretter said on a conference call. “So [it’s] about everyone doing the right thing. Everybody in that community, everybody in that facility has to do the right thing: the coaches, the staff the players.”
The NBA and MLS have shown covid-19 can be controlled inside a bubble. MLB is providing proof that it’s possible without one, at least before teams start traveling extensively. There’s always the looming threat of an extensive outbreak scuttling seasons, but I wouldn’t have thought sports leagues could make it even this long without one.
Maybe our professional sports can co-exist with covid-19 for a while.