The world’s sports schedule cratered at warp speed Thursday, with
one of the biggest events on the U.S. calendar, the fun-filled and
colorful college basketball tournament known as March Madness,
becoming the first mega-event to be scrubbed due to fear of the
spread of the coronavirus.
Leaders at all levels of sports, including the NCAA, NBA, NHL,
Major League Baseball, tennis and soccer, decided the risk of
playing games with the threat of the virus hanging over them was
too great despite the billions of dollars – to say nothing of the
trophies, pride and once-in-a-lifetime experiences – hanging in the
balance.
By late in the afternoon of an extraordinary, headline-a-minute day
across a pandemic-rattled globe, the NCAA, which regulates March
Madness and all U.S. college sports, basically had no choice. With
conferences and individual teams calling off their basketball
seasons at breakneck pace, the NCAA followed suit. They scrapped
all college winter and spring championships, the highlight of which
is the men’s basketball tournament – a three-week extravaganza that
stands as the biggest event this side of the Super Bowl on the U.S.
sports calendar.
The cancellation leaves a massive hole in American sports – from
campuses across the country, to a growing passel of sports-betting
businesses that rely on college hoops money, to say nothing of the
hearts of players who were poised to get their first, or last, or
only chance to shine on the big stage.
All of it was to be covered by CBS and its partners; about 80
percent of the NCAA’s $1.05 billion annual budget is bankrolled by
the money the networks pay to present the 68-team tournament over
the air, on cable and online.
”This is bigger than a sport or championship,” said Kansas
University coach Bill Self, whose team would’ve been the likely
favorite to win it all.
Hours earlier, Kansas and Duke had each taken matters into their
own hands, announcing they wouldn’t be sending any of their teams
to games, no matter the stakes.
It wasn’t even the most jaw-dropping moment of the morning. That
came, fittingly, at one of the world’s most renowned sports venues
– Madison Square Garden – where at halftime of a Big East
Conference tournament game, the PA announcer came on and said the
tournament had been called.
By then, every major conference, and virtually all of the minor
ones, had done the same thing. They were prompted in part by the
NCAA’s decision a day earlier to hold all its tournament games –
which had been scheduled to start next week and close April 6 at a
71,000-seat stadium in Atlanta – in front of friends and family and
limited ”essential” personnel.
Only 24 hours later, with the stock market tanking, mixed messages
coming out of Washington and no promise of quick relief being
offered by world health experts, it became even more clear that
gatherings involving thousands of people were hard to justify. Also
clear: The NCAA would have trouble assembling an equitable bracket
for its tournament, given that most games designed to suss out the
most-deserving teams and automatic qualifiers had already been
scrubbed.
”I’m not a researcher in immunology or infectious disease, but
those who are engaged at the NCAA level provided some stark
information yesterday,” said Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the
Southeastern Conference.
The March Madness news meant it will be a world free of basketball
for the foreseeable future.
A day after the NBA put its season on temporary hiatus, a second
member of the Utah Jazz – Donovan Mitchell – tested positive for
the coronavirus. The league said its suspension would last for at
least 30 days – possibly a conservative guess, as teams undertake
the task of identifying any player or referee who has had recent
contact with the Jazz, then putting them into isolation for the
required two weeks.
”What would kill the NBA season is if more players catch it,”
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said in an interview on CNBC. He called
the hiatus a matter of ”us being vigilant, as all businesses
should be. Businesses are going to have to be incredibly vigilant,
and that’s hard.”
The NHL also suspended its season, though it did not report any
positives for COVID-19.
Major League Baseball scrapped spring training and postponed the
start of its season, currently scheduled for March 26, for at least
two weeks.
Before the start of one of the biggest golf tournaments on the
calendar, the PGA Tour announced that the last three rounds of The
Players Championship, best known for the rowdy gatherings around
the island green on the 17th hole, would be played without fans.
The same goes for the three events that follow, all of which lead
into the Masters, which was, for the time being, slated to go on as
scheduled the week of April 6.
Not so for tennis. The ATP called off men’s tournaments for the
next six weeks; the WTA said its tournament in South Carolina, set
for April 6-12, would not be held as scheduled, with decisions
about the rest of the season to come in the next week.
NASCAR announced it would race the next two weekends, in Atlanta
and Miami, without fans, and IndyCar made the same decision for its
race this weekend in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The NFL, never off the radar even in the depths of the offseason,
announced a number of changes and cancellations on its schedule of
meetings, fan fest and scouting trips – all related to coronavirus.
The U.S.-based Major League Soccer said it would shut down for a
target period of 30 days.
Earlier in the day, soccer leagues and teams scrambled to make
changes:
-Belgium’s soccer league backpedaled on an earlier decision, and
decided to close stadiums to fans.
-A Champions League game involving Real Madrid was postponed after
the Spanish team puts its players in quarantine.
-Dutch soccer authorities canceled all matches through the end of
the month, including friendlies against the United States and Spain.
-Also, a second player from Italy’s top soccer division tested
positive. All sports in that hard-hit country have been suspended
through April 3.
For once, there were no major announcements coming out of Tokyo,
where conflicting messages about the status of this summer’s
Olympics have come out of the country, and the IOC, for weeks.
Instead, the IOC went ahead with its ceremonial lighting of the
Olympic flame, an event held in front of the ruined Temple of Hera
in Ancient Olympia.
”We are strengthened … by the many authorities and sports
organizations around the world which are taking so many significant
measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus,” IOC president
Thomas Bach said.