Ron Cook Sports deal with more than virus
Amonth ago, who knew the biggest impediment to the start of the baseball season wouldn’t be COVID-19? That it would be the unconscionable, shortsighted greed by the players and especially the owners during a worldwide pandemic that has killed more than 118,000 Americans and left more than 40 million unemployed?
A month ago, who knew the coronavirus wouldn’t be the biggest obstacle for the resumption of the NBA season? That it would be the fear of slowing the momentum of the more important Black Lives Matter movement?
A month ago, who knew the virus wouldn’t be the biggest challenge for the NFL … OK, so the virus is the NFL’s biggest challenge. Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh made that clear last
week when he described the league’s health and safety protocols as “humanly impossible” to follow.
A month ago, who knew the NHL would have the best plan for the re-start of its season? That it would open training camps July 10 and have its playoff format carefully constructed with daily testing for the virus?
“Everything we’ve been doing has been a joint effort [with the players], working together, to make sure that we’re adhering to the protocols which will be very strict,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told ESPN Monday night. “I think everybody can feel good, based on the combination of the play-in round and the way we’re going to run the playoffs, that this will be a full competition which will bring out the best in our teams and our players. The Stanley Cup champion will be deserving of that crown.”
Really, a month ago, who knew that the oft-criticized Bettman would look like the genius of sports’ four prominent commissioners?
Working closely with the players?
What a concept! Baseball’s Rob Manfred could learn plenty from Bettman. He has bungled negotiations with the players to start the season at every turn. One day, he guarantees there will be baseball this summer. Seemingly the next day, he says he’s not confident there will be baseball. It’s no wonder the players and certainly the fans think he’s a joke.
A commissioner’s greatest strength has to be consensus-building. It’s why Goodell has largely been successful as the NFL commissioner, his ability to take 32 strong-willed billionaire owners who are used to doing things their way and getting them to work together for the good of the game. Manfred doesn’t have that. There are reports several baseball owners don’t want to play ball this summer and others want to play the fewest games possible to save money in player payroll. So much for consensus-building there.
There still is time for the owners and players to do a deal that provides for some sort of abbreviated season. But even if that happens, there are bigger, uglier, more damaging playerowner wars ahead. Baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement is up after the 2021 season. The players don’t trust Manfred because they think he reneged on a late-March deal to pay them their pro-rated salary based on the games played this season. They don’t trust the owners who continue to cry poor even on a day such as Saturday when the owners agreed to a billion-dollar TV deal with Turner Sports.
A strike or lock-out after next season seems much more likely than not.
You say you have faith in Manfred’s ability to pull everything together?
That makes one of us. NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the league’s players have worked on and agreed to a plan that would re-start their season in late-July in a bubble in Orlando. But the death of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer last month has left a number of players with second thoughts -- among them league stars Kyrie Irving and Dwight Howard – about the Black Lives Matter movement and the fight for racial equality getting lost once the games begin. It has become a potentially divisive issue.
“Now ain’t the time to be playing basketball, y’all,” former NBA all-star Steven Jackson has said. “Playing basketball is going to do one thing: take all the attention off the task at hand right now and what we’re fighting for. Nobody’s going to be talking about getting justice for all these senseless murders by the police.”
Did I mention divisive? “I think it would be stupid to not play for two reasons,” Hall of Famer Charles Barkley said on ESPN. “Number one, if they don’t play, they’re going to be out of sight, out of mind for the rest of the year. There won’t be no cameras following [them]. Also, these guys got to realize this money is going to come back, and they’re going to lose billions of dollars that the players could use to go into their own communities and do some great stuff. So it’s not good on any front. It would be a catastrophic mistake not to play.”
I’m with Barkley. “Listen, it’s not an ideal situation,” Silver told ESPN Monday night. “We are trying to find a way to our own normalcy in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of essentially a recession and now with enormous social unrest. I’m incredibly sympathetic and empathetic to what’s happening in people’s lives … We’ll work through most of those issues over the next few weeks.” I have faith in Silver. He’s no Manfred. COVID-19 remains an issue for all the commissioners and leagues, more so for Goodell and the NFL than the others because of the roster size of the teams. NFL clubs have more assistant coaches than NBA teams have players. Some have more assistants than NHL teams have players.
The NFL hopes to be able to start its season on time with training camps in July because of its safety protocols, which include physical distancing in the cafeteria, locker room, weight room and meeting rooms.
“I’ve seen all the memos on that and, to be quite honest with you, it’s impossible what they’re asking us to do,” Harbaugh told 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore. “We’re going to do everything we can do. We’re going to space. We’re going to have masks. But you know, it’s a communication sport. We have to be able to communicate with each other in person. We have to practice. I’m pretty sure the huddle is not going to be 6-feet spaced. Are guys going to shower one at a time all day? Are guys going to lift weights one at a time all day?”
The NFL will test all of its personnel for the virus three times a week. It hopes an accurate saliva test will be available before the start of the season.
“All of our medical experts indicated that as testing becomes more prevalent, we are going to have positive tests,” Goodell told ESPN Monday night, hours after it was reported that a handful of Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans had tested positive, including Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott.
“The issue is can we obviously prevent as many of those from happening, but, in addition, treat them quickly, isolate them and prevent them from impacting other personnel. The protocols are stringent. One of the things that we are all going to have to do is adapt and change and do things that we might have thought were impossible several weeks ago. We’ll evolve as the circumstances change.”
Sounds like Goodell is a man with a plan.
Unlike, you know …