The Sports Impact of COVID-19

[Red Comet]

3 minutes ago, AustinFromBoston said:

Yeah, I knew the NHL would try to follow suit with a plan once the NBA announced their plan to return. 

 

I do find it odd that they announced a playoff structure, before they've even determined a location for said games. 

As for the playoffs themselves, seems a bit bloated. Why are we having near .500 teams compete for the cup? 

The normal format would have been fine. I guess they're just trying not to piss off fans of teams that were "on the bubble" for a playoff spot, before the season stopped.   

 

 

Maybe they just wanted to have their playoffs like its the 70s and 80s for the lulz

[JLJ]

2 hours ago, AustinFromBoston said:

Yeah, I knew the NHL would try to follow suit with a plan once the NBA announced their plan to return. 

 

I do find it odd that they announced a playoff structure, before they've even determined a location for said games. 

As for the playoffs themselves, seems a bit bloated. Why are we having near .500 teams compete for the cup? 

The normal format would have been fine. I guess they're just trying not to piss off fans of teams that were "on the bubble" for a playoff spot, before the season stopped.   

 

I think it’s more of a play in situation. They included every team except for the bottom 7 to make it fair I guess. Ultimately it seems like the “playoffs” officially start when the field is down to 16. Those 8 eliminated teams go into the draft lottery with those bottom 7.

 

That seems pretty straight forward. The draft stuff seems entirely too complicated. A case of having too much time on your hands to do something gone wrong.

[The_Admiral]

15 hours ago, AustinFromBoston said:

Why are we having near .500 teams compete for the cup? 

 

So that Blackhawks fans will watch this stupid thing.

 

We'll see how it goes. It's like the old days of a 16-team playoff for a 21-team league. '91 North Stars ahoy!

[Digby]

Looks like NWSL will be the first American league back. Mini-tournament, single-site in Utah, group stage then knockout stage, doesn't preclude something resembling a normal season later on. But word is a bunch of the stars aren't on board.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/sports/soccer/nwsl-season-utah.html

[bosrs1]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

Looks like NWSL will be the first American league back. Mini-tournament, single-site in Utah, group stage then knockout stage, doesn't preclude something resembling a normal season later on. But word is a bunch of the stars aren't on board.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/sports/soccer/nwsl-season-utah.html

 

After the MLBPA's response to the owners, which I totally understand and support, I'm starting to wonder if MLB won't end up playing a pseudo season with scabs in some form. 

[BBTV]

I don't know what the NHL standings look like, but would this be possible and more fair?

 

Look at the teams that are currently OUT of the playoffs.  See if they have fewer GP than the current WC teams.  If so, and if making up those games could mathematically get them IN the playoffs, then they deserve the chance to have the same number of games played.

 

• A quick look at the East standings shows that CAR and CBJ are the wild cards, both with 81 points, but CBJ has 70 GP while CAR only has 68.
• NYI is currently OUT, but has 80 points, with 68GP.
• So, NYI is mathematically still in it if they had the same GP as CBJ - and CAR also deserves to have the same GP since they could theoretically get passed by NYI if the games were even.
• So... NYI and CAR play, giving both teams 69 games.
  • If CAR wins, they move up to 83 points, and cannot be passed by NYI, so they're done.  The're IN.
  • Now, CBJ is at risk (even though they already have 70 games played), and NYI only has 69 GP, so they play each other in a play-in.

 

Theoretically, more teams could be involved, and it could get complicated, but it's more fair than making a team that's solidly in the playoffs have to put their place on the line in a play-in, and therefore have to win one additional series than the top-4 teams.

 

 

[Red Comet]

29 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

After the MLBPA's response to the owners, which I totally understand and support, I'm starting to wonder if MLB won't end up playing a pseudo season with scabs in some form. 

 

If it gets the Royals another World Series, I don't care. Seriously, this might be the big break a lot of these guys are hungering for. If they don't want to play, find people who will. 

[MJWalker45]

1 hour ago, Red Comet said:

 

If it gets the Royals another World Series, I don't care. Seriously, this might be the big break a lot of these guys are hungering for. If they don't want to play, find people who will. 

I think MLB/owners are happy to sit out the whole year if it means they have to pay the minimum on contracts. Looking at the numbers they asked for, they only make sense if you're playing a 60 game season. I'd think they're trying for at least 90 games, which is more than half a season. Even if you play 30-45 days with no fans or gate receipts the cuts they're asking for don't make sense. And we still don't know what MiLB is doing.

[bosrs1]

30 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I think MLB/owners are happy to sit out the whole year if it means they have to pay the minimum on contracts. Looking at the numbers they asked for, they only make sense if you're playing a 60 game season. I'd think they're trying for at least 90 games, which is more than half a season. Even if you play 30-45 days with no fans or gate receipts the cuts they're asking for don't make sense. And we still don't know what MiLB is doing.

 

Not officially. But MiLB insiders have been pretty unanimous that the season is lost. And that the 40 team cut is coming in the 20-21 off season. MiLB as we knew it is dead, not just for the year, but for good. 

[Red Comet]

45 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I think MLB/owners are happy to sit out the whole year if it means they have to pay the minimum on contracts. Looking at the numbers they asked for, they only make sense if you're playing a 60 game season. I'd think they're trying for at least 90 games, which is more than half a season. Even if you play 30-45 days with no fans or gate receipts the cuts they're asking for don't make sense. And we still don't know what MiLB is doing.

 

Yeah, there isn't a single group of people that would look good with no season. The owners would be billionaire misers who beg for a taxpayer-funded palace and then cry poor when it comes time to pay players and the players look bad because there's a 15% unemployment rate and not wanting to go to work when you're paid millions a year in a sport that a lot of people have to pay Little Leagues to get their kid to play makes you look like a whiny coward. Really, with professional baseball players tending towards being fit and young, the only legit reasons I can see for not wanting to play are if they are asthmatic or have Type 1 Diabetes. 

[MJWalker45]

36 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

 

Yeah, there isn't a single group of people that would look good with no season. The owners would be billionaire misers who beg for a taxpayer-funded palace and then cry poor when it comes time to pay players and the players look bad because there's a 15% unemployment rate and not wanting to go to work when you're paid millions a year in a sport that a lot of people have to pay Little Leagues to get their kid to play makes you look like a whiny coward. Really, with professional baseball players tending towards being fit and young, the only legit reasons I can see for not wanting to play are if they are asthmatic or have Type 1 Diabetes. 

I think people still underestimate what this and other diseases can do to a generally healthy individual. Age is not a factor, access to possible infection is the primary factor.

40 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Not officially. But MiLB insiders have been pretty unanimous that the season is lost. And that the 40 team cut is coming in the 20-21 off season. MiLB as we knew it is dead, not just for the year, but for good. 

Unfortunately this will probably help MLB's argument. San Antonio will most likely be demoted to AA status, since the last two mayors have not even attempted to try to get a AAA park built, that's not the worse thing that could happen for the owners of the Missions. 

[Red Comet]

14 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I think people still underestimate what this and other diseases can do to a generally healthy individual. Age is not a factor, access to possible infection is the primary factor.

 

In Texas, 3/4 of all reported COVID fatalities have been over the age of 65 (79% in the US).

 

While the disease could certainly mess up someone that is young and healthy, generally speaking, the risk of dying from COVID is minimal compared to senior citizens and people with pre-existing conditions such as asthma, HIV or Type 2 Diabetes. The players should mask up, but the stats indicate the risk is lower. If anything, the typical owner of an MLB team is at a far greater risk of critical complications/death from COVID than the players are.

[bosrs1]

Talk about polar opposites. A’s announced today they’re furloughing their scouts and will not pay their minor leaguers after Sunday. Padres and Marlins have announced their staff and minor leaguers will continue to be paid through what would have been the traditional end of the MiLB season at the end of August. 

[Red Comet]

21 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

Talk about polar opposites. A’s announced today they’re furloughing their scouts and will not pay their minor leaguers after Sunday. Padres and Marlins have announced their staff and minor leaguers will continue to be paid through what would have been the traditional end of the MiLB season at the end of August. 

 

It doesn't matter if the A's are in Philadelphia, Kansas City or Oakland, they're broke (relative to the rest of MLB) wherever they go. 

[buzzcut]

2 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

 

Unfortunately this will probably help MLB's argument. San Antonio will most likely be demoted to AA status, since the last two mayors have not even attempted to try to get a AAA park built, that's not the worse thing that could happen for the owners of the Missions. 

Replaced by Sugarland?

[Walk-Off]

7 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

After the MLBPA's response to the owners, which I totally understand and support, I'm starting to wonder if MLB won't end up playing a pseudo season with scabs in some form. 

 

7 hours ago, Red Comet said:

Seriously, this might be the big break a lot of these guys are hungering for. If they don't want to play, find people who will. 

 

The only way that I can see MLB and its teams being legally able to field replacement / strike-breaking / scab players is if the MLBPA were to stage a formal strike.  In fact, I wonder if the chief reason why the current mass holdout among MLB players has not turned into a formal strike is a concern that MLB team owners could and would then retaliate by signing a bunch of strike-breaking players to contracts for this year and beyond.  Furthermore, I can see a possibility that a prolonged mass holdout by MLB players will provoke the commissioner's office and team owners to take various forms of legal action against those players and/or the MLBPA.

 

Speaking of legal action, the cynic in me wonders if major North American professional team sports leagues' collective reluctance to cancel the remainders of their regular seasons (MLS, NBA, and NHL), their whole regular seasons for this year (CFL, MLB, and NFL), and their respective postseason competitions is the product of a fear of lawsuits by television partners who would then want to recoup the money that they had paid for rights to any and all games that are wiped away from the schedule.  By contrast, the lack of any significant TV revenue flowing to summer collegiate leagues in baseball and to minor pro leagues in any sport has seemed to empower such organizations to call off games and even nix whole seasons with relative ease.

 

Finally, I think that we should keep different levels of tolerance of risk in mind when we notice certain sports restarting competition sooner than others.  For instance, the broad level of human physical distancing in golf would suggest in a vacuum that golf is better able to endure a pandemic than are most other sports.  However, professional golfers tend to come from wealthier backgrounds than do competitors in most other sports -- thus enabling golfers to have both (a) more money that can be saved during a typical economic downturn and, quite possibly, (b) more and better education pertaining to management of money than what the predominantly working-class competitors in such sports as mixed martial arts, boxing, or even stock car racing have seemed to enjoy in their lives -- with the end result being that most professional golfers might be in less (maybe even much less) of a hurry to resume competition than their peers in more danger-laden realms like MMA, boxing, or stock car racing.  Also, pro golfers may well be unusually averse to risks to health and safety when compared to most other sports figures; for example, 27 eligible competitors (21 men and six women) boycotted the golf tournaments at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro because of a fear of succumbing to a Zika virus outbreak that had been afflicting people throughout Brazil (both residents and visitors) for several months when the Games began.

[MJWalker45]

3 hours ago, buzzcut said:

Replaced by Sugarland?

Depends on where the Brewer's want their team to go, if they move immediately.

[sportsfan7]

4 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

8 hours ago, buzzcut said:

Replaced by Sugarland?

Depends on where the Brewer's want their team to go, if they move immediately.

I think the Skeeters would have to be the 'stros affiliate.

[GDAWG]

5 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

 

The only way that I can see MLB and its teams being legally able to field replacement / strike-breaking / scab players is if the MLBPA were to stage a formal strike.  In fact, I wonder if the chief reason why the current mass holdout among MLB players has not turned into a formal strike is a concern that MLB team owners could and would then retaliate by signing a bunch of strike-breaking players to contracts for this year and beyond.  Furthermore, I can see a possibility that a prolonged mass holdout by MLB players will provoke the commissioner's office and team owners to take various forms of legal action against those players and/or the MLBPA.

 

Speaking of legal action, the cynic in me wonders if major North American professional team sports leagues' collective reluctance to cancel the remainders of their regular seasons (MLS, NBA, and NHL), their whole regular seasons for this year (CFL, MLB, and NFL), and their respective postseason competitions is the product of a fear of lawsuits by television partners who would then want to recoup the money that they had paid for rights to any and all games that are wiped away from the schedule.  By contrast, the lack of any significant TV revenue flowing to summer collegiate leagues in baseball and to minor pro leagues in any sport has seemed to empower such organizations to call off games and even nix whole seasons with relative ease.

 

Finally, I think that we should keep different levels of tolerance of risk in mind when we notice certain sports restarting competition sooner than others.  For instance, the broad level of human physical distancing in golf would suggest in a vacuum that golf is better able to endure a pandemic than are most other sports.  However, professional golfers tend to come from wealthier backgrounds than do competitors in most other sports -- thus enabling golfers to have both (a) more money that can be saved during a typical economic downturn and, quite possibly, (b) more and better education pertaining to management of money than what the predominantly working-class competitors in such sports as mixed martial arts, boxing, or even stock car racing have seemed to enjoy in their lives -- with the end result being that most professional golfers might be in less (maybe even much less) of a hurry to resume competition than their peers in more danger-laden realms like MMA, boxing, or stock car racing.  Also, pro golfers may well be unusually averse to risks to health and safety when compared to most other sports figures; for example, 27 eligible competitors (21 men and six women) boycotted the golf tournaments at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro because of a fear of succumbing to a Zika virus outbreak that had been afflicting people throughout Brazil (both residents and visitors) for several months when the Games began.

 

The recent NHL news was in partnership with the NHL PA.  Any news the NBA makes will also be in collaboration with the NBA PA.  

[Digby]

There's obviously tons that we plebes are not privy to, but from the outside it seems like more than anything, these scenarios have been just another window at the state of labor ... e.g. the NBA has prioritized keeping labor peace since the last lockout, MLB has not been doing that, and can't help but think of those two facts as lenses through which we're seeing these leaks.