ROGER GOODELL, ADAM SILVER, ROB MANFRED, GARY BETTMAN, DON GARBER AND…THE REST OF US FOOLS
The coronavirus disease first presented and was reported — offering a cluster of severe pneumonia cases — on New Year’s Eve 2019 in the city of Wuhan, China.
New evidence suggests that the earliest cases of COVID-19 were detected in November.
Community transmission of COVID-19 was first detected in the United States in February 2020.
By mid-March all 50 states, the District of Columbia, New York City and four U.S. territories had reported cases of COVID-19.
At last glance there were 2.55M confirmed cases in the U.S.with 1.06M recovered and 127,647 deaths.
In the past week according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, 40 MLB players and team staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus.
The NHL has detected a handful of positive COVID-19 tests since welcoming players back to practice facilities. Eleven have tested positive for the virus after examinations were completed on 200+ since June 8.
The NBA and the players’ union announced that, out of 302 players tested by their teams on June 23, 16 were positive.
Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz were the first two NBA players confirmed to have contracted the virus. Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets and Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics — among others — have tested positive and since been cleared of the virus.
Christian Wood.
Knicks owner James Dolan.
Jason Collins.
Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing.
Malcolm Brogdon.
Jabari Parker.
Sydney Wiese, LA Sparks.
Buddy Hield.
Stefanie Dolson, Chicago Sky.
Nikola Jokic.
David Edwards, former Texas A&M college basketball player — deceased.
Trey Thompkins, Real Madrid basketball.
Ezequiel Garay, La Liga — Valencia/Argentina
Los Angeles Rams center Brian Allen.
Broncos linebacker Von Miller.
New Orleans Saints Head Coach Sean Payton.
Tony Boselli.
Tom Dempsey.
Dexter Manley.
Pat Dye.
Art Howe.
Jim Edmonds.
Georges Laraque.
Doris Burke.
Patrick McEnroe.
Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Tom Hanks & Rita Wilson, Masoumeh Ebtekar, Idris Elba, Rachel Matthews, Olga Kurylenko, Daniel Dae Kim, Andy Cohen, Placido Domingo, Rand Paul, Harvey Weinstein, John Bessler, Manu Dibango (d), Terrence McNally (d), Slim Thug, Prince Charles, Debi Mazar, Jackson Browne, Boris Johnson, John Prine (d), Prince Albert, Michel Barnier, Kristofer Hivju, “Migz” Fernández Zubiri, Francis Suarez, Begona Gomez, Irene Montero, Franck Riester, Fabio Wajngarten, Nadine Dorries, Peter Dutton, Mikel Arteta, Callum Hudson-Odoi.
[Novak Djokovic (and wife)…6/22!!!]
All tested positive; some didn’t make it.
The pandemic knows no bounds and early reopenings have spurred virus spikes in Florida, North & South Carolina, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Kentucky, New Mexico, Mississippi, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Arizona, Oklahoma and Puerto Rico.
Professional sports commissioners in the United States, the college brass and head honchos spanning the globe have a lot on their respective plates.
And though the dynamics of the coronavirus remain the same, approaches in response can be vastly different.
Take MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s travails as an example.
Manfred built his career as a labor lawyer and a deal-maker. But at a time when baseball needed a consensus — staring straight in the eye of a pandemic, record unemployment and a national reckoning on racism — he could not deliver.
He could not broker a deal.
He finally threw in the towel Monday night (06/22/2020) and dictated the parameters of the season after the Players Association voted down MLB’s latest proposal.
The sides ironed out their lingering issues Tuesday night and spring training will resume on July 1.
But baseball under Manfred’s watch split at the seams as the owners and players bickered for more than three ugly months.
Lousy optics, especially as other leagues were coming together.
Ultimately it fell to the commissioner to mandate play per the terms of a temporary agreement reached when the pandemic struck in March.
A last resort and in many ways a failure.
Clearly in any negotiation it takes two to tango and Tony Clark and the MLBPA did not distinguish themselves either, rejecting compromise at every turn.
In fact, MLB deputy commissioner and chief legal officer Dan Halem and MLBPA senior director of collective bargaining Bruce Meyer joined the fray sending each other insulting letters they knew would be leaked to the media.
All the while the owners were in hiding as no one stepped forward to break the stalemate. They were too busy furloughing employees or cutting their pay.
With stronger leadership and a heightened sense of urgency, baseball could have had players in camp two or three weeks ago preparing for Opening Day on July 4.
This would have afforded the game a four-week head start on the NBA, NHL and other sports, an attractive prospect in terms of separation and the much sought after spotlight.
Trevor Bauer, a Cincinnati Reds pitcher and a rather polarizing fellow himself, hit it on the nose tweeting, “It’s absolute death for this industry to keep acting as it has been. Both sides. We’re driving the bus straight off a cliff. How is this good for anyone involved? COVID-19 already presented a lose, lose, lose situation and we’ve somehow found a way to make it worse.”
Suffice to say, Commissioner Manfred has certainly looked better.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver remains confident in the league’s restart despite Florida’s COVID-19 spike. The state had more than 4,000 new cases on Saturday June 20 which set a one-day record and has nearly 94,000 cases in total per NBC South Florida.
This heightens cause for concern given the NBA’s uniquely crafted plan to finish out its season within a bubble-like setup at the Walt Disney World campus in Lake Buena Vista, FL.
While recognizing the seriousness of the coronavirus spike, Silver has expressed a resolve to forge ahead underscoring his confidence in the NBA’s bubble concept.
Suspended since March 11, the NBA is scheduled to return to official regular season action on July 30. Teams will arrive in Florida weeks prior to train. Playoffs will commence on August 17 and run through early-to-mid October.
The league has sent out a 113-page rulebook to teams specifying testing, where players may and may not go, consequences for leaving the bubble setup, guidance with respect to socializing with others and so on.
NHL commish Gary Bettman maintains that this summer’s unconventional tournament “won’t be too gimmicky,” as the league tries to achieve the delicate balance between safety concerns; the creation of a good television product; and maintaining the integrity of the Stanley Cup, referred to by Bettman as, “the most storied trophy in all of sports.”
With the 2019-’20 regular season officially declared over, a 24-team “return-to-play” playoff format has been designed to crown the 2020 Stanley Cup champion, bringing “the season to its rightful conclusion.”
Training camps are tentatively slated to open on July 10.
The top 24 teams based on points percentage — clubs had not all played the same number of games when the season was halted on March 12 — will be seeded 1–12 in each conference.
Seven teams will not resume play and will automatically enter the draft lottery.
As is the drill, Eastern Conference teams and Western Conference teams will compete within their respective groupings.
Before this, there will be a “Qualifying Round” to determine the playoff field.
The top four seeds in each conference will receive byes from the “Qualifying Round” and will play a round-robin for seeding purposes for the usual first round of the playoffs (16 teams).
If these games go to OT, they will be played under the regular-season overtime rules. If there is a tie in points at the conclusion of the round-robin, percentage points from the regular season will act as the tiebreaker.
In the “Qualifying Round,” teams seeded 5–12 will face off in best-of-five matchups featuring the usual playoff overtime rule allowing play until someone scores. Winners of these series will advance to meet the top four teams in a still-to-be-determined setting.
Once the field is whittled to 16 it will be Stanley Cup playoff time as we’ve known it, with each round a best-of-seven affair.
The NHL’s list of potential hub cities to host this reimagined 24-team postseason tournament had been pared from ten to five as of June 25. Chicago, Edmonton, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Toronto are all in the running; Vancouver, also a front-runner, withdrew its name from consideration.
Two of the five remaining sites will be selected by the league and announced in the coming days. The chosen two will host all conference action — one city the Eastern Conference and the other city the Western Conference.
Intricate and well-laid plans all at the mercy of COVID-19.
Remarked Bettman, “Obviously, for any sport, if you have a major outbreak, it’s going to change everything; but we’re being told that an isolated case or a couple of isolated cases shouldn’t interfere with the plans, and we should be able to move forward.”
The MLS and Commissioner Don Garber find themselves in the same boat as the Silver and the NBA.
Anxiety among MLS players and club officials is on the rise as the number of cases in Florida surges in advance of the league’s upcoming return-to-play tournament in Orlando.
MLS teams were scheduled to move into the league’s “bubble” at the Swan and Dolphin Resort on June 24 with the San Jose Earthquakes leading the charge. Orlando City was to join the next day and other clubs will trickle in over a period of 10 days or so before the start of the July 8 MLS Is Back tournament.
All teams must move into the bubble at least one full week prior to their first match in Orlando.
“We are pleased to team up with Disney to relaunch the 2020 MLS season and get back to playing soccer,” Garber said in a statement. “The opportunity to have all 26 clubs in a controlled environment enables us to help protect the health of our players, coaches and staff as we return to play.”
The 54-game tournament will feature matches nearly every day, primarily in the evening. The structure will be similar to that of the World Cup with a group stage in which each side plays at least three matches, followed by knockout rounds.
The final is set for August 11.
And wherefore art thou Roger Goodell?
How in God’s name can football — the NFL one of the greatest money-making businesses known to man — be played?
Not only will football be played according to NFL Commissioner Goodell but the league plans to open training camps as planned and on time next month (July 28) and is seemingly determined to move forward with fan attendance, the only circuit to entertain such a bizarre notion.
What???
Goodell told reporters on a conference call Thursday June 25 that the plan is to “get ready for games at our stadiums and to engage our fans both in stadiums and through our media partners,” according to an account of the call by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
Measures such as the use of seat covers and extensive testing are among the precautions being considered.
In the meantime on the same day, the annual Hall of Fame game and enshrinement ceremony were cancelled.
Goodell added that the league office is discussing options with the NFLPA but appears adamant that neither alternative solutions nor a break from the status quo will deter the NFL.
This in the face of the astronomical spikes of coronavirus cases (with Texas and Florida among others becoming rising epicenters of the disease) and the U.S posting its single-day record of cases the day before.
While the NBA and the NHL have proffered plans which eliminate fan attendance and MLB’s 2020 season will either eliminate or dramatically reduce fan attendance, the NFL soldiers on, impervious.
Dr. Anthony Fauci takes a dim view.
“Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall,” he told CNN. “If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year.”
What on earth is Goodell thinking beyond the obvious…money???
Two better questions may be, “can it ever really happen?”
“And should it?”
