Are we really ready to bring sports back?

Published in El Pais, 11 June 2020.

One of the things I miss during this pandemic is my hockey. Under normal circumstances the playoffs would have finished and the championship would have been awarded but like every league around the world it came to a halt in March as all sports was cancelled. Even the Tokyo Olympics were pushed back a year and there are many in the organization committee who are expressing concerns that it may be impossible to host it next year as well due to COVID-19.

Throughout this time organizers from different leagues worked around the clock to find a way to resume sports. They each have their own ideas on how to resume but they all have similar themes:

1. Bubbles

Teams would play in one or a couple of cities. They would remain in their hotels (even if they lived in the same city) only being allowed to leave to practice or play games. The hope is that since the players have limited contact with the outside world, they would be unlikely to contract the virus.

• No fans

These will be televised events with few being allowed in the event. Leagues that have already resumed have experimented with crowd noises being played on speakers to emulate fans.

• Testing.

Players would go through daily testing to decrease the likelihood of an outbreak.

These sound like good ideas and many leagues in Europe are resuming with similar guidelines to the ones mentioned above but things are getting more complicated in the Americas. The US continues to see an increase in cases of COVID-19 at an alarming rate to the point that many star athletes are refusing to play (forfeiting millions in salary) and football teams in Canada are delaying going south to report to their bubble. The National Hockey League was going to have two bubble cities in the US before moving both to Canada in a surprising move as they no longer felt the country had the situation under control.

The motive behind this is understandable, professional sports under normal circumstances brings in billions and they are scrambling to recover whatever they can, but it is clear that these plans are starting to fall apart. Should any of these players fall sick and die it could be horrible publicity that could be difficult to recover from, even worse if support staff fall ill. I would love nothing more than to watch my team resume play, but the way things are deteriorating I am wondering if it is time to accept that should not happen for a long time.