Published in El Pais, 11 August 2020.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about whether the world was ready to see the return of sports. European soccer leagues had resumed in empty stadiums but some were talking about letting some fans slowly back in. In North America, various professional sports leagues have resumed under a “bubble”, with teams staying in hotels and only allowed to leave to practice or play games. Major League Baseball, the top baseball league in North America has taken a different approach. Essentially, they are operating as normal but with no fans, teams are still traveling the country to different stadiums to play games.
This plan was met with worry from health officials from various governments. Toronto’s team, the sole baseball team outside of the United States was forbidden from playing in their home stadium by the Canadian government, citing health concerns of traveling back and forth from a country hit hard by the virus. While trying to find a new home they were repeatedly banned from playing at other stadiums by state health authorities for similar concerns, despite those same people allowing other teams to play there.
The result has so far not been positive. So far two separate teams have had mass outbreaks with countless games being postponed or cancelled to stop the spread, the commissioner of the league has already stated that it is unlikely each team will finish the season playing all of its games and many are worried the season will soon be cancelled at the rate the virus is spreading amongst players.
One only has to look at the National Basketball Association (NBA) or the National Hockey League (NHL) for comparisons to understand just how bad things are getting. Those two leagues opted for the aforementioned bubble method. The NHL continues to have zero positive tests since resuming play and the NBA is boasting the same result despite being located in Florida, a state with some of the highest cases in the U.S.
The success of the basketball and hockey leagues is worth taking note for sporting officials in the rest of the world. Everyone is experiencing quarantine fatigue and sports can bring back a resemblance of normalcy but doing so improperly like with baseball can cause major outbreaks and prolong everyone’s suffering. If leagues come back under a bubble format, it could be a safe way to bring back sports without causing risk to the general public, and finally give us something to watch.
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