As has been the case so far with all things COVID-19 over the past 48 hours, if there is a whiff out there that something is going to happen, it’s eventually going to happen.
So it was with the report that Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker was going to ask the owners of the major sports in Chicago not to have fans in attendance for games at least through April. Sure enough, Pritzker just announced at a press conference that all owners agreed to the request.
That means, regardless of the timelines for suspensions of seasons laid out by MLB, the NBA, etc., there will be no home games for the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls, and Fire until May 1 at the earliest. Or, if there are games before then, there will be no fans in attendance.
Otherwise, if the seasons resume before the end of April, we’ll see these teams having to find alternative sites for their games. Of course, that presumes that other states do not issue similar edicts … which seems pretty unlikely at this point. Tentatively, I would not expect to see the MLB season kick off until May at this point.
Things are going to be very weird and different for a while, and I hope these measures work to slow the spread of COVID-19.