NEWSLETTER
National testing levels remain up relative to the two week period where they flattened, but they haven’t continued climbing in the last couple days. Hopefully more testing capacity comes online in the coming weeks, as the administration yesterday said they would be working with states to increase capacity. Hopefully that actually happens; it was over a month ago that the administration claimed millions of tests would be available only a week later, but the reality was less than a tenth of that.
Another way to think about testing, as The Wife helpfully shared with me, is that you want to see about only 10% of tests coming back positive. Below that, you can feel like you’re finally testing enough people (and conversations about things like sports become much more comfortable). We aren’t there yet, but we’re finally getting closer. The last few days have been around 12-14% after weeks above 20%. Keep ramping up testing, please!
Oh, and as for leagues using testing more than other businesses and the ugly perception that could create, the top soccer league in Italy has a plan for that: donate five tests for every one test they use.
NBA and NFL Schedule Delays and Future Years
As Michael discussed yesterday, the NFL is running through some more serious contingency planning for its fall season if it is (as expected) impacted by COVID-19. Specifically, you could see the NFL season delayed by upwards of a month, and then crunched a bit from there – bye weeks axed, break after NFC/AFC championships axed, Super Bowl as late as the last day of February.
Notably, as part of the new CBA, the NFL is going to be expanding its regular season in future years to 17 games, and expanding its postseason. The current plan would not involve a significant expansion in the length of the schedule, but if for some reason the league learns this year that they really like having the regular season run well into January and a postseason that runs through the entirety of February? I suppose I just wonder if this year’s (likely) altered schedule will impact the league’s thinking about how to structure future year schedules.
Similarly, Adrian Wojnarowski told Scott Van Pelt on Sportscenter last night that the NBA is now more willing than it was previously to allow this current season to *not* resume for a while, and then take a long time to finish. Why? Because it turns out the NBA is now more OK with next season having its start pushed way back from the expected mid-October. Why? Because the league is hoping the start of next season can come with fans in attendance.
I mention that, as with the NFL, because there was already talk about the NBA possibly pushing back its usual start to the season anyway in future years – so maybe next season gets delayed until something like a December start, and then maybe the league decides it likes that anyway.
In other words, for both the NFL and the NBA, the COVID-19 pandemic may impact scheduling decisions for next year in ways the leagues already would have been thinking about. Thus, the pandemic-related changes may ultimately drive longer-term changes.
(For MLB, it’s possible a deep postseason could impact when next year’s Spring Training could begin, but the league has no broader intentions to alter its current late-March-to-late-October schedule.)
Read up at BN Bulls for the latest on the reopening of training facilities, and I’ll add only that there is no firm update on any kind of planning for a resumption of play. We’ve seen various quarantine ideas – Las Vegas, Disney World – but nothing has been ruled in or out yet. As of last week, the league was still very much insistent on trying to finish this season, and again, if that means next season is pushed way back, the NBA might like that anyway. Of course, part of the reason the NBA wanted to push back was to avoid more competition with the NFL, so if the NFL starts pushing its season back …Â
Baseball in Asia
South Korea’s pro baseball league is set to kick off its regular season in just one week, and they’re already in a position to discuss limited fan attendance:
What’s next for #KBO? KBO is discussing next phase which includes fan attendance. Currently considering a plan which willl allow 20~25% capacity and plans to gradually increase. #KBO open their reg season on 5/5 and only 10 new COVID19 cases were reported today. pic.twitter.com/2iJ9iJvgRv— Daniel Kim 대니얼 ê¹€ (@DanielKimW) April 26, 2020
As for televising games, obviously that’ll happen locally, and we might get a taste of the KBO here in the States:
ESPN Reportedly Nearing Agreement To Broadcast KBO Games https://t.co/1oupWIJ3f1 pic.twitter.com/VDUha0EIwh
— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) April 27, 2020
Meanwhile, the shutdown in Japan continues, with no target date for the season set. Players are still able to work out at facilities, but the national state of emergency precludes setting a particular launch for the season. The next checkpoint on the calendar is May 11, when the league will meet to evaluate the impact of the state of emergency on getting the virus under control in Japan. It’s possible that’s when you’d see a new schedule plan determined, but a start prior to June now looks unlikely. Pretty notable – and telling – for a league that was all set to launch earlier this month before a trio of players came down with COVID-19.
As for Taiwan, where games are ongoing, something nice:
Ryan Carpenter is a pitcher for the Rakuten Monkeys in Taiwan.
His fiancée secretly arranged to have her face put on four cardboard cutouts of "fans" so she could be in the crowd for his games.
Inside one of the only sports leagues now playing on Earth:https://t.co/opnDSjMc7u pic.twitter.com/SF2WYqbjSg— Jared Diamond (@jareddiamond) April 26, 2020
