Sports without Spectators

[Farm Boy]

Going on at least a streak since the 30s there.

 

[Leifmk]

So there is no professional soccer play this spring? Huh.

Well at least in Norway the season seems to span about 3/4 of the year (or possibly a little less than that), excluding the winter months. I guess it's not that much fun to run around after a ball when there's a lot of snow everywhere, and full-size indoor stadiums are in short supply.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Well at least in Norway the season seems to span about 3/4 of the year (or possibly a little less than that), excluding the winter months. I guess it's not that much fun to run around after a ball when there's a lot of snow everywhere, and full-size indoor stadiums are in short supply.

So, do you think spectator count will drop if you virus cases?

 

[Leifmk]

So, do you think spectator count will drop if you virus cases?

Eh. It's my understanding that they've been slowly dropping for years in any case. I dunno what if any effect this virus thing will have, it's still a month or so left before public games even begin...

 

[Arwon]

This is probably inevitable wherever public gatherings are suspended or requested to be cancelled.

The Super Rugby championship (a club level league with teams in South Africa, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina) has already seen two games change fixtures, with the Japan-based Sunwolves moving home fixtures against the Brumbies and Crusaders to cities in Australia as double-headers with local teams, basically leaving them on a very extended road trip.

We've already seen a women's Olympic soccer qualifiers moved, both legs of China v South Korea are likely to be played in Sydney and China already moved their match vs Australia here. Soccer's Asian Champions League has pushed back the window for remaining group matches from late May to potentially July. I don't imagine that'll be the last change there and Perth have already flagged not travelling for it. Upcoming AFC World Cup Qualifiers need to be decided on soon.

Also rather unsurprisingly, St Kilda v Port Adelaide in the Australian Football League, scheduled as the fourth annual game in Shanghai, isn't going to be played in Shanghai any more.

Reading the thread title, my knee-jerk thought was "a thread about women's sports?" Which is sad, isn't it, because since the vast majority of spectators are heterosexual males (and stereotypical lesbian women) that would theoretically appreciate watching women athletes more than male ones, aside from perhaps hockey. Personally I'm a fan of cheerleaders as much as the players.

But I digress, probably painfully.

We had 53000 people at the womens Australian Football grand final last year in just its third season of competition. Given men's sport has had a century and a half's worth of head start with cultural penetration and financial investment, women's sport is doing pretty well tbh.

(On this note, I'm gearing up for a near capacity crowd to watch our Capitals go for their 9th championship, in game 2 of the grand final WNBL series tomorrow night. Given basketball is a niche sport here and the city only has 400k people, the capacity ~5000 we might get tomorrow, like we had last year, will be pretty bloody brilliant)

 

[amadeus]

I'm holding out hope for the Olympics at this point.

What do you mean?

 

[Camikaze]

We've already seen a women's Olympic soccer qualifiers moved, both legs of China v South Korea are likely to be played in Sydney and China already moved their match vs Australia here. Soccer's Asian Champions League has pushed back the window for remaining group matches from late May to potentially July. I don't imagine that'll be the last change there and Perth have already flagged not travelling for it. Upcoming AFC World Cup Qualifiers need to be decided on soon.

If these games end up having to be played behind closed doors, then on the plus side, at least the FFA has plenty of experience running games without spectators; just advertise it as an A-League fixture and it'll ensure no serious crowd forms.

 

[Josu]

The world cup was last year.

men's world cup was in 2018. Women's in 2019

This year should be UEFA Euro 2020. First time that there is no host country but host cities around whole Europe.

Infantino, current president of FIFA, allready has said that they do not discard celebrating the Euro without spectators

 

[Bamspeedy]

The Corona virus is here.



What's next?

• Baseball?
• Soccer?
• Tennis?
• Golf?

Unless the virus reaches Wuhan levels here rather quickly, I don't see the NCAA not allowing spectators in their biggest money making event of the year.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Unless the virus reaches Wuhan levels here rather quickly, I don't see the NCAA not allowing spectators in their biggest money making event of the year.

From today's WSJ:

Will the Virus Spread to Sports?

An industry built on live entertainment and big crowds wonders what happens if people have to stay at home

The NCAA tournament. Major League Baseball opening day. The Masters golf tournament. The NFL draft, the NBA and NHL playoffs, the Boston Marathon and Olympic qualifiers all over the U.S.

The busiest time of the American sports calendar is coming—if the coronavirus doesn’t come first.

As the global economy braces for the potentially devastating effects of a novel coronavirus that is spreading around the world, few businesses are at greater risk of being impacted than sports. This is a multibillion-dollar industry built on live entertainment, easy travel and mass gatherings, and that makes it especially vulnerable if major cities begin to embrace social distancing, as they have in countries where the virus has already disrupted everyday life. The problem is that there is no work-from-home in sports. The NBA season can’t be played on Slack.

Should games be canceled? Can they be delayed? Will they be played in empty arenas? These are the questions that leagues and governing bodies are scrambling to answer as they size up potentially the biggest disruption to the sports calendar since World War II, and they are constrained by uncertainty as they make contingency plans to keep up with this mysterious pathogen. “It will give March Madness a new meaning,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.

As corporations begin to prohibit nonessential travel for their employees, American sports leagues are monitoring the situation closely, but there have been no interruptions to schedules yet. In a World Health Organization briefing on coronavirus and sporting events last week, experts warned against canceling mass gatherings for now, while cautioning that risk management was a fluid process.

But a lesson from Asia and Europe is that one day can be normal and the next can be turned upside down. If the U.S. follows the lead of the countries that have already seen outbreaks turn into epidemics, sports leagues could soon be canceling, postponing or playing games without fans, a measure that would’ve seemed drastic last week until it quickly became reality.

In one of the most extreme approaches, Japan all but shut down its sports scene this month. Preseason baseball is being played entirely behind closed doors ahead of Opening Day on March 20. The national soccer and basketball leagues are postponed until mid-March. And the spring sumo tournament— a touchstone of the Japanese calendar— will unfold in an empty arena.

Europe, too, is playing defense. Switzerland banned all gatherings of more than 1,000 people on Friday, leaving its national hockey league to play games behind closed doors. France followed suit on Saturday, temporarily suspending all events of more than 5,000 people that were likely to draw large groups of foreign visitors. The first victim became Sunday’s Paris Half-Marathon, which was expecting more than 40,000 runners. By then Italian soccer had been in turmoil for nearly two weeks. After first ordering that a handful of games near the outbreaks in Northern Italy be played in empty stadiums, the league went one step further last weekend, bumping five matches until mid-May in what it called “an extraordinary public health emergency.” For its next home game against AC Milan, Juventus is now barring fans from certain hard-hit regions and asking others to bring proof of residency.

While none of the U.S. sports leagues have taken similar measures, spectators and investors seem to be considering the possibility. As trillions of dollars were wiped out of the stock market in its worst week since the 2008 financial crash, businesses related to sports were among the biggest losers. Live Nation Entertainment Inc.’s stock was down 14.6% last week. Madison Square Garden took a beating, too, finishing the week down 11% even after a slight uptick on Friday.

How effectively banishing fans from sporting events or wiping out schedules would contain the virus as it becomes widespread, however, is a matter of some debate.

“During a pandemic, there’s really not a lot of evidence that canceling mass gatherings is of much benefit,” said Dr. Patricia Daly, the chief of health services at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, which came after the peak of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. “If you think back to H1N1, you probably don’t recall a lot of cancellations.”

The loudest opposition from athletes themselves has come from the National College Players Association, an athletes’ rights advocacy group, which called on the NCAA to cancel auxiliary events such as meet-and-greets, and urged a serious discussion of holding the NCAA tournament in empty arenas. The first weekend of March Madness is about three weeks away, and the Final Four is scheduled for the weekend of April 4. The NCAA said Monday that it’s “keenly aware of coronavirus” and continues to monitor the situation.

Major League Baseball has more time to make decisions about the status of the season since Opening Day is March 26. As of now, spring training games are still being played across Florida and Arizona, and MLB has been in touch with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services. The sport’s collective bargaining agreement contains a provision for the mandatory establishment of a “safety and healthy advisory committee” to
help handle situations like coronavirus.

The NBA is in a trickier spot with its season in full swing and the playoffs beginning next month. The league’s schedule has become so optimized by computer algorithms in recent years that it operates a bit like a Jenga tower. Take out a few games, and it teeters. Wipe out a few weeks, and it crashes. While some around the league have whispered about the possibility of playing games in empty arenas, the NBA is still coordinating with teams and consulting with the CDC and infectious disease specialists. “The health and safety of our fans, players, teams and employees is paramount,” league spokesman Mike Bass said.

Any delays in the schedules of these leagues, or the NCAA tournament, would almost certainly turn seasons on their heads. But for now they’re in the same position as everyone in the U.S. The only thing they can do is consider their options— and wait.

—Louise Radnofsky contributed to this article.

By

Ben Cohen, Joshua Robinson

 

[Birdjaguar]

Unless the virus reaches Wuhan levels here rather quickly, I don't see the NCAA not allowing spectators in their biggest money making event of the year.

By minimizing testing, the Trump Admin is hiding just how widespread the virus is. Their goal is to pretend it's no big deal and carry on as usual. China Tried that in December and early January. We'll see how it plays in the US.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I am well aware the player's Association made a request, doesn't mean the NCAA has to follow that recommendation.

Sports talk radio show I listened to yesterday agrees that it's extremely unlikely they will ban spectators unless the situation gets considerably worse. I am not saying I agree with filling the stadiums, just that I know how much the NCAA wants that money.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I am well aware the player's Association made a request, doesn't mean the NCAA has to follow that recommendation.

Sports talk radio show I listened to yesterday agrees that it's extremely unlikely they will ban spectators unless the situation gets considerably worse. I am not saying I agree with filling the stadiums, just that I know how much the NCAA wants that money.

Yes, greed is a powerful motivator that often trumps common sense. And the overall losses will be huge when you include airline, hotel and restaurant sales that also disappear. This could happen at the regional level too.

 

[Arwon]

They might get away with holding the bulk of March Madness before things really start to bite and authorities really start to enact plans, especially with the lagging testing data over there.

 

[Hrothbern]

Authorities will lose authority when they move too fast in their public actions relative to the public opinion.

=> a many small steps process triggered by the infection spreading events in the public news.
Cheerleaders should not walk too far ahead of the music.

And we do need to have our health authorities and government maintaining authority to be effective in guiding this outbreak to a good enough low damage balanced with health care capacities and the total economy.

Between the lines info trickles here in NL to the public info space that capacities to test Covid-19 are being ramped up with a factor 100-200 in amount of testing locations and on top increased testing capacity per location. Mass production.

Scenario's incl stopping spectators are as I understand it, already written out.

 

[Birdjaguar]

IIRC the CDC did another test today. It was negative, so no worries.

 

[Traitorfish]

(On this note, I'm gearing up for a near capacity crowd to watch our Capitals go for their 9th championship, in game 2 of the grand final WNBL series tomorrow night. Given basketball is a niche sport here and the city only has 400k people, the capacity ~5000 we might get tomorrow, like we had last year, will be pretty bloody brilliant)

I can't tell whether or not I like "Canberra Capitals" as a team name. It sounds like a name of a turn of the century American baseball team, kind of dorky and literal, but also kind of charmingly unaffected. What's the accepted wisdom on that?

 

[Arwon]

I think it was probably just directly taken from the Washington Capitals when they formed the Canberra women's basketball team back in the 80s similar to how the Adelaide 36ers in the men's comp just copied 49ers and 76ers.

I guess it's kind of an obvious one for a smaller, purpose built federal capital to use, where being the capital and home to the senior civil service is like our main thing and we are for most purposes just a small, fringe regional centre. As opposed to leviathan all-purpose mega city capitals like London or a Paris, where it would be a bit gauche to use a name like that and rub everyone's face in your city's crushingly overbearing presence in national political, cultural and economic life.

On the other hand, the Delhi Daredevils recently renamed to the Delhi Capitals in the IPL so who knows, maybe they like leaning into that.

In a league where there's a team called the Melbourne Boomers (a male kangaroo is also a boomer which makes it weird), and both a Townsville Fire and a Sydney Flames, it's one of the better names!

 

[IglooDame]

Ditto what Arwon said, but I'm holding out for an Australian team called the Dropbears.

 

[Bamspeedy]

First couple rounds of Division 3 basketball tourney will have no spectators....would they had any without the coronavirus?