Welcome to your first Biology 101 Petri dish experiment. The startup of the MLB, NBA, and the NHL seasons has provided a classic laboratory test with elite athletes as the test subjects! These three have provided us with examples of how to reopen, and how not to reopen professional sports. The NCAA will be making its scientific presentation soon too. Individual athletes’ behaviors in each sport are proving to be the the great variable in this risky experiment.
To date, the most successful reopening, by a landslide, is the NHL. The NHL first decided to select two hub cities where they would play all of their games. The hub city concept is galvanized further by selecting the two Canadian cities (gasp, not US cities) of Edmonton, Alberta; and Toronto, Ontario. Keeping the hubs in Canada accomplished two keys: 1. The locations are in low outbreak locations, and 2. The locations are in the heart of the true hockey world (excepting Detroit, Michigan – nicknamed Hockeytown). A look at their athletes in general seals the deal on the NHL’s success in reopening without issue. It is hard to dispute that the NHL has the least selfish population of athletes of the big four pro leagues. Their humility apparently is accompanied with a personal responsibility to follow simple protocols in quarantine.
The NBA went with a similar strategy, though their bubble is in a single city – Orlando, Florida. With their season underway like the NHL, few cases of COVID-19 have been identified during their bubble season. However, signs that there would be risky behaviors in the bubble were indicated before the season was paused. See Rudy Gobert’s childishness in March when he mocked the disease’s virulence by licking his hands and touching many shared surfaces in a press conference after a match. Only days later did he find out that he tested positive for COVID-19. I know a fourth grader that acts more mature than Gobert. Not a good look for the NBA.
The NBA season is rolling and the bubble is working well. The NBA even set up a call line so that an athlete, if observing another athlete not taking appropriate precautions to limit COVID-19 spread, could anonymously call to request action from the league toward that player. The reaction from the athletes was embraced by some, but a small group reject the policing efforts. The call line is nicknamed ‘the snitch line’. The stigma associated with this ‘snitch line’ indicates that the ‘snitch line’ response team isn’t taking many calls right now.
Major League Baseball got it wrong and it already shows. While they opted for a shorter season, there is no MLB bubble location, nor any significant precautions preventing the spread of the disease. For baseball it came down to… wear a mask, distance if you can, and just don’t spread the disease. (The old – ‘just don’t think about a pink elephant’. What did you just think about? A pink elephant.) The St. Louis Cardinals have been sidelined for four games already, and we don’t know yet why there was an outbreak on their team. We do know why the Miami Marlins had an outbreak. This one was a blatant example of immaturity, and like the NBA’s disdain of the ‘snitch line’, indicative of a greater problem in its league. The Marlins were diagnosed with COVID-19 to the tune of 17+ in one fell swoop. Why? It was later admitted that the team went on a bender together. Talk about irresponsible.
No surprise to some – MLB in season partying has been a problem for years. In a recent replay of an interview of former coach and player Ozzie Guillen, the coach said, paraphrased, “I want players that will go hard during a hangover.”. How about instead, I want players that won’t drink so hard the night before games that they have hangovers. We may win a few more games than the other teams… This is an overt statement that partying like this has been rampant for years; clearly the baseball product on the field is diluted and lethargic on the day after a party night. Can I get a discount on my game ticket if I come to a game and the guys blow a .1 or greater on the breathalyzer 18 hours before game day?
If ‘professionals’ eschew the rules against partying, can we expect the college kids to follow distancing guidelines 24/7 to curb the spread of COVID-19? I doubt it. When I was 18 in my first year at Michigan State University, I could choose from plenty of parties to attend (and I did!). Had there been a pandemic while I was in school, I can tell you that many of the college kids would have attended these parties anyway. Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly further summed up an added problem. While the pros are going in to a bubble for their seasons, the fall college sport athletes are coming out of their bubbles. Fall college sport athletes have been on mostly barren campuses this summer during pre-season practices. As the regular students return to school, the college summer athletics bubble will burst. Parties and the bursting bubble will surely cause outbreaks among the athletes at schools across the country.
Hey NCAA – you are up next. The NCAA’s general guidance to date has been, hey conferences and divisions, you figure it out (except for our cash cow – football of course). We are going to find out if the NCAA’s various DI programs are able to figure it out without going broke. So the various Power 5 teams have convoluted schedules on the table with the hopes of limiting the disease (everything from pod scheduling, to pool play type schedules are on the table). Each conference’s various fall football and olympic sport schedules will provide differing results in the efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, the NCAA’s Petri Dish experiments this fall will expose far more about athlete behaviors and the NCAA’s grasp for cash than it ever will about the virulence of this once in a lifetime (hopefully) pandemic.
Paul MacDonald - Sports Broadcaster 