Let’s embrace the return of professional sports
We made it, sports fans. We got through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
No, not necessarily from a public health standpoint. Cases still are increasing around the country, and the number of cases are still a problem in Memphis. The curve still hasn't been flattened, while more than 140,000 American deaths and counting have been attributed to the spread of COVID-19. It's all still very troubling.
But in a year with very little to celebrate thus far, here's a chance to finally celebrate again. To finally use the sports we love as a diversion or a distraction again.
There's a chance, over the next six weeks, that your nights and weekends could be spent watching the NBA playoffs, the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Kentucky Derby, Major League Baseball, the NFL, college football, golf 's major championships and NASCAR.
For that reason alone, this week should be a happier week than any of the weeks since COVID-19 took a sledgehammer to the sports calendar back in March.
On Friday, the Grizzlies will face the Philadelphia 76ers in a scrimmage ahead of the official restart to the NBA season. Major League Baseball will begin its full regular season that day. Tiger Woods could commit to play in the World Golf Championships-fedex St. Jude Invitational that day. Or he might not.
Either way, Memphis' annual PGA Tour stop is fast approaching, and so is golf's first major of the year – the PGA Championship.
By Saturday, Memphis 901 FC will host a home game at Autozone Park with a limited number of fans in the stands, and the WNBA regular season will begin. A week after that, the NBA'S official restart will have restarted, and the Stanley Cup playoffs will begin. Major League Soccer's MLS Is Back tournament will be done with its group stage and on to the elimination rounds.
In September, at least as of right now, the Kentucky Derby, the NFL and many college football regular seasons all are scheduled to take place alongside the NBA playoffs and the Stanley Cup playoffs
It's a scenario unlike any the American sports fan has experienced. After months in the sports desert confirmed that the American Cornhole League and Korean baseball just aren't enough to sustain our fanaticism, soon there might be too many sports on for you to consume at once.
Soon, Ja Morant and the Grizzlies will be chasing after a playoff berth again. Soon, Lebron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo
and Kawhi Leonard will be back in action. Soon, there will be professional basketball and professional baseball and professional hockey and professional soccer and NASCAR and golf and UFC on every night of the week.
So focus on this moment. Not the doomsday scenarios in which college football and high school football don't happen this fall. Even if that possibility feels more real than ever because of our country's inconsistent response to COVID-19.
Focus on what we've been through already, and what we're about to enjoy.
Focus on, for instance, what Saturday's Memphis 901 FC game could mean for Memphis football. If Memphis 901 FC can safely pull off having up to 1,000 fans at Autozone Park, perhaps the Tigers can safely pull off 5,000 or 10,000 fans at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in the not-so-distant future.
Focus on the NBA and MLS bubbles down in Orlando, which appear to be working as planned.
Focus on the NFL. Because while college football and high school football seem harder to execute in this environment, particularly since their existence is tied to academic institutions that might or might not have students back on campus this fall, it's hard to imagine the NFL not attempting to hold its season as planned.
Wear a mask, practice social distancing, wash your hands and let the health experts focus on what might go wrong.
There are some who consider all this premature, of course. Who wonder why sports are returning at a time when COVID-19 is raging as strong as ever in the United States. It's perfectly reasonable.
There probably is too much of an emphasis put on sports in this nation, including by me.
But professional sports are coming back. Whether it's the right time to do so or not.
I'm going to bask in their return while I can.
Four months without sports has been four months too long.
For four months, our routines have been thrown off-kilter by this pandemic. For the next couple of months, at least, some of that routine we remember will return. Sports fans, collectively, will sit in front of a television and watch sports night after night again.
Thank goodness.