As the National Rugby League (NRL)try to show they’ve surpassed the rest of the world and found a way to hold back the Covid-19 tide, others in the sports world are taking a more realistic view of life beyond lockdowns and viral speculation (pun intended).
It’s as if NRL officials are living in a bubble of ignorance, determined that they are going to show the world they’ve got a game that can withstand the fractures that their sport will impose on its participants.
They should take a look at the view that esteemed Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke has put forward.
While acknowledging the sports world did need to get back to work he said it was desperation, more than anything else, that was starting to show in some organisations responses.
“Yet, with every day, its solutions for a return sound sillier, and its false hope does more damage.
“Ignore the leagues, mute the coaches and listen to the science. There is a realistic chance the sports world will be benched until 2021,” Plaschke said.
And so say all of us.
To quote a much loved New Zealand TV advertisement that takes the piss out of Australia to the NRL officials, “You must be dreaming, mate!”
The simple facts are that it is not only the need to find a vaccine to curb coronavirus but also understanding why people have an immunity to the virus and why, as has been seen in South Korea, people are suffering re-infection. Any testing of players through antibody testing couldn’t be applied because the Federal Drug Administration hadn’t approved testing.
Plaschke quoted Californian experts who said they would be lucky to have sport until Thanksgiving. That’s in November. He pointed to the Chinese Basketball Association authorities imposing, at the very minimum, a four-month shutdown – and they are supposed to be recovering from the virus!
Similarly, he made the point of why should it be sportspeople who get back to work first? When a vaccine was found who was to say athletes should be given priority treatment?
At least American fans had cried down a suggestion that baseball should be played in a quarantine bubble in Arizona. Something that would necessitate players being separated from their families for five months. But so strong was the public reaction the idea was quickly scotched.
As various sports pondered their future where the optimism should lie was in what he called, ‘the potential excitement in sports’ new realities.
From an American perspective, he asked: “Can you imagine a Super Bowl in April, maybe the week after baseball’s opening day and the week before the Masters? Or how about a college football season that runs concurrently with college hoops, the basketball being playing during the week and the football on the weekends? What about a national championship football game on the Sunday in the middle of college basketball’s Final Four?”
Already, it appeared the 2020 baseball season was a goner, he said.
“The economic impact of the long-term shuttering of sports is tremendous and will be fought by officials from baseline to baseline, but on this field, science owns the scoreboard,” Plaschke said.”
“Sports will eventually be back, but this country is facing much more important issues right now. Cradle your glove, wear your jersey, enjoy the replays, and wait till next year,” he said.
That would appear to be the message that needs to get through to sports officials looking to push hard on returns. They should value the need for their athletes to be partners, fathers or mothers, sons or daughters first to ensure they can maintain their family connections when they are needed most rather than sacrificing them on the altar of Mammon for short-term, but unsustainable benefit.
Read Bill Plaschke's LA Times column here
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