ALTERING EVENTS GIVES IOC COVER
OTHER ORGANI ZATIONS ARE HANDLING COVID-19 WI TH TOUGH DECISIONS
In times of a global health crisis in which public safety should be the top priority, you want a degree of selflessness from the key actors, and recognition that profits should not be the deciding factor.
You want, basically, the opposite of the International Olympic Committee.
This is the group that views everything through the lens of its corporate partners, that kept pushing for bigger and splashier events right up until the point where it realized that no sane country wanted to go broke hosting them anymore, and that has conducted an elaborate gymnast routine as it sanctions Russia over doping offences while not totally upsetting one of its most spendthrift benefactors.
If you are waiting for the IOC to make the right decision, in other words, you might want to make yourself comfortable. It’ll be awhile.
And yet, there is reason for optimism. As the sports world wonders if one of the biggest events on its calendar could be cancelled over coronavirus fears, the actions of leagues and organizations around the globe so far suggest a willingness to make tough decisions.
Games have been postponed, events have been rescheduled, leagues have been put on hiatus, and matches have taken place in front of empty stadiums. None of these things are happening without a financial consequence, and while it seems at times that there is not a sports organization in the world that does not think of money beyond all else, so far they are acting with an abundance of caution. It’s like a bunch of little IOCS, putting their own self-interest aside, for once. And if the measures taken in parts of Asia and Italy help to limit the spread of coronavirus, it could end up bailing out the IOC from having to take the decision that it does not want to take: significantly disrupting Tokyo 2020.
I should note here that not all of the cancellations and postponements are the by-product of altruistic suits. Italy’s Serie A, the top flight of soccer in that country, has scrubbed 10 games from its schedule over the past two weekends, but rather than a proactive public-safety measure, the matches were rescheduled because the Italian government had temporarily banned large gatherings in coronavirus hot spots. Even that did not go smoothly. Five matches this past weekend were supposed to be played in front of empty stadiums, including a Juventus- Inter Milan game that is one of the tentpole events of Italian soccer. League executives decided at the last minute to move the lot of them, after Serie A failed to get special permission to go ahead with the Juventus-inter match on Sunday.
Inter boss Steven Zhang promptly made it clear on social media that his club would have preferred to go ahead with the game in front of empty stands, accusing Serie A executive Paolo Dal Pino of messing about with the calendar instead of prioritizing public safety. “You are probably the biggest and darkest clown I have ever seen,” Zhang said on Instagram. In totally not surprising news, he is now reportedly facing disciplinary action.
Still, it could have been worse: Juventus hosts Inter’s neighbours, AC Milan, in a domestic cup match in Turin on Wednesday and they have said Milanese fans are prohibited from attending. (Milan is in one the provinces hardest-hit by the virus.)
Elsewhere, baseball and soccer games in China and Korea have either been cancelled or played in front of empty houses, marathons have been run without the bulk of the runners, and a growing list of events has been affected. With the NCAA men’s basketball tournament coming soon and playoffs in the NHL and NBA staring in the middle of next month, authorities here are already discussing contingency plans.
What is striking about the decisions taken so far is that there is no consensus that an event like a soccer game would exacerbate the spread of the virus. Medical experts have noted that big, open-air stadiums, where fans have their own seats, aren’t as bad as, say, a crowded elevator or jammed subway car, in terms of transmission of an illness. But still, the cancellations pile up.
The International Biathlon Union scrapped an event in the Czech Republic this coming weekend, saying it expected more than 100,000 attendees, which might be the most surprising thing about any of this. That many people to watch biathlon? The IIHF got in on the action by cancelling six hockey tournaments this month in Europe, even though none was in a region particularly affected by coronavirus at this point. It’s hard to imagine something like the men’s under-18 Division II Group B championship attracting much of a crowd to begin with — certainly not Czech biathlon numbers — and yet the delete button was pushed. Caution won out.
Will that continue to be the trend? Tokyo 2020, obviously, has time on its side. Six weeks from now the picture should be clearer and that would still be three months ahead of the opening ceremonies in Japan.
North America’s big leagues, while insulated so far, do not have that luxury. The business end of their schedules is fast approaching. The tough decisions, if they come, will come quickly.