Published in El Pais, 2 June 2020.
COVID has changed everything. Gatherings are forbidden, many are working from home and the global economy is in shambles. One of the most impacted by this is the world of sports. The summer Olympics this year was postponed a full year and many professional sports leagues have been postponed their season or outright cancelled them.
With the virus dying down in some regions of the world we are starting to see sports returning. However, not like anything we have seen in a while. Bundasliga has returned to empty stands with crowd noise being played on speakers and the Japanese baseball league is showing pictures of people in the stand. With other teams working on returning the only thing that appears to be certain is that fans will not be allowed to attend.
The main question though is should sports return and what are the risks associated with it? Leagues in North America such as the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League are finishing their seasons in Hub cities without fans to reduce travel and players would be confined to their hotel, only to leave for practice and games. While this of course is safer than having the players live their lives normally, it is not without risk.
There are two things that need to be looked at here, the contact and the culture. When looking at the contact the problem is fairly obvious. Sports like hockey, basketball and football (American and regular) involve very close contact with heavy exchange of bodily fluids, should just one person get sick it would not take long for everyone else to get sick. Looking at the culture provides an even bigger problem. It is not uncommon for players to play hurt, especially when important games are on the line. The general public is being told at the moment that if you think you have symptoms to err on the side of caution and to self isolate, are star players going to sit an important game out simply because they have a tickle in their throat? We could be having many infected players playing simply because they decide to hide their symptoms causing a major outbreak.
These leagues have many more qualified professionals on their payroll to ensure everything is done safely. There will always be critics to find flaws in any plan and many say sports should take a back seat to the current situation. Only time will tell if resuming sports is a good idea or not.
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