Post- COVID sports an unknown
I’m looking for signposts out here in the COVID wilderness of athletics.
What is it going to be like with professional sports once the pandemic ends? What is it going to be like with college sports once coronavirus is finally, mercifully in our rearview mirror? What is it going to be like with high school and youth sports once our national nightmare is over?
And what will it be like for the fans, the dedicated, sometimes crazed consumer of a multibillion- dollar industry known as American sports? An industry larger than the GNP of many underdeveloped nations.
There is only one honest answer to these questions. Actually, it is a question to the questions: How the hell would I know?
We can call all sorts of medical experts who will explain what health protocols could be as we emerge from COVID and then what they could be in the future. We can call team personnel from various sports who could explain what the fan experience might be. And we could call all sorts of psychologists, sociologists and experts, both certified and arm- chaired.
Maybe we stop exchanging germ- filled money at the concession stands and use only plastic. Maybe designer masks are the sneaker craze of the future. Maybe we’ll develop a way to take temperatures and scan for explosives in a quick- one stop scanner.
Wait. I’m already way out over my skis. And anyone who purports to fully see the sports landscape post- COVID is, too. How can anyone see over that giant hill of reality, the one marked with the graves of 400,000 Americans?
If there is anybody with all the answers, why is it that some sports went into a competitive bubble and some did not? Why have some colleges played and others have not? Why have some places allowed fans and others have allowed none? Why have some states allowed certain youth sports and others have not? Why? Why?
Because we didn’t know, we don’t know and still don’t know when the vaccine will take hold. Most of us don’t even know when we’ll get the vaccine. ( And some refuse to take it).
So, I look for signposts. Significant matters, in this forest of athletic uncertainty, that may show us in what direction we could be headed.
The next one is Super Bowl Sunday, the great intersection of sports and popular culture. Super Bowl LV.
Maybe it is a good thing we use those haughty Roman numerals this winter. Maybe it can remind us that there was a pandemic that lasted 15 years in the Roman Empire and killed five million people, wiping out one- third of the population in many areas. It is a sobering reminder that as bad as things have been, they could be much worse.
About 15,000 fans will be allowed into Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 7 for Super Bowl LV. Tom Brady could be playing in his new home. Aaron Rodgers could be in it.
Coming off a concussion, Patrick Mahomes could be in it. The strong chance of a legend going against the hottest young star in football is there. The story lines — from Buffalo vs. its past to the Brady vs. Belichick scoreboard — are ripe with possibilities.
What do we say with TV sports ratings plunging almost everywhere if the ratings shoot up that day? That one of these quarterbacks are so godly they quelled our national pessimism and division and cured our fears? That combined with a new president, we’re mentally and spiritually on our way back to normalcy? That because of COVID there were fewer Super Bowl parties, Uncle Marty didn’t fall face- first drunk into the bean dip, and more individual TV sets were turned on to the game?
And what do we say if ratings for the Super Bowl are down markedly? That it is proof positive those numbers never will return to where they were? Or at least won’t return to where they were until we are as a society comfortable in our old routines of life?
Many narratives have been painted, many explanations have been forwarded for the 49 percent drop in TV ratings for the NBA Finals, 61 percent drop for the Stanley Cup Finals, 31 percent drop for the World Series, 56 percent drop for U. S. Open golf, 45 percent drop for U. S. Open tennis and 32 percent drop at the Indy 500. The College Football Playoff championship just had its lowest numbers ever.
Easy answer. It was because the election year and the resulting chaos consumed us like none other. Donald Trump became our sports. Sean Hannity and Chris Cuomo became our Mike and the Mad Dog. For heaven’s sake, 57 million people tuned in to watch the fly land on Mike Pence’s head during the vice presidential debate.
No, the answer is people are sick and tired of social justice initiatives being jammed down their throats. We’re here to watch sports. We’re not here to be lectured. If that is the overriding reason, how do you explain the 34 percent jump in the WNBA Finals, when, from BLM to Kelly Loeffler, the women have been at the forefront of all this? And how do you account for the massive 43 percent drop in the Kentucky Derby when not a single horse took a knee for the anthem or said a disparaging word about police brutality?
No, it’s because people are too wrapped up in their own turmoil. The loss of jobs, the loss of businesses, sickness or death in the family. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, scraping to pay the mortgage or adequately feeding the family, there isn’t time to get lost in a pitch count. When you’re scratching for pennies, there isn’t time to analyze nickel and dime defenses. How can you escape into sports when there is no escaping from life?
No, it’s because there is a symbiotic relationship between fans at the games and fans watching on television. All those shots of fans, going crazy in all sorts of garb in all sorts of situations, have an uplifting, mesmerizing selfidentification effect. Games played in a television studio just aren’t the same.
No, it’s because the dates of events were changed on many events and we’re are creatures of habit.
No, it’s more technical and 21st century multiplatformed than any of those explanations. It’s because of cord- cutting from traditional television.
Look. Maybe it’s some of it, maybe it’s all of it. I’m not sure all of it will ever be normal again until we feel normal again for some time. Maybe that’s a year. Maybe that’s five years.
Maybe all of it will never be normal again. And you know what? That might be a good thing. None of what happened this past year happened in a bubble ( OK, technically some of it did.) The point is there is a linear aspect, too, and if college sports doesn’t use the pandemic as a significant course change, nothing will.
Problems were accelerated by the pandemic, but college athletics already were in trouble. The spending had gotten entirely out of hand. The Taj Mahal practice facilities, the crazy contracts for coaches overseeing unpaid labor, traveling cross- country when a trip down the road would suffice, all of it fed into a maddening inflationary spiral steeped in greed and ego. Non- revenue producing sports were going to face a crisis and the pandemic saw many led quickly to the chopping block. The enormous challenges are made only more uncertain by the increased imbursement that invariably will be ceded to athletes in revenue- producing sports.
It is an arm’s race only about 50 schools can afford to enter. The rest heading for athletic calamity if they try. While Baylor women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey is still keeping her $ 2.27 million salary, she was telling the truth the other day when she said the games will continue because of the “almighty dollar.”
I’ve got to be honest. I have felt like a little dirty watching meaningless bowl games with a smattering of fans. I’ve felt like I’ve helped fuel the system by covering events with nobody there while the athletes, already stressed by not knowing, when or if they’re play, are put at a COVID risk for a schedule that may or not be followed on the road to the Final Four.
The members Power Five cartel, those football gangstas, have commandeered billions. So people are stuck. Without a men’s basketball tournament, the NCAA cannot afford to continue to exist and the football- playing schools not in the Power Five face financial exhaustion.
The recasting of the NCAA model, as pressed by the Knight Commission, is a must. There is an opportunity for at least one of the nation’s players to come out of the pandemic for the better. Will they?
How the hell would I know?