Coronavirus (Sports-Related and General)

[xogfog]

The NCAA Tournament will be played with no fans.
The Mariners won't play and games in March in Seattle
The NBA is already playing a game with no fans in NJ,, and it is likely the NBA and NHL may play all games with no fans soon.
The Ivy League has cancelled all spring sports,

[Philsmania]

Opening Day either in Clearwater or an empty CBP, I'm guessing.

Or, if the worst case scenario is upon us, should MLB consider a condensed schedule starting later (144 games, no interleague games, for example)?

[xogfog]

I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to pump fan sounds into these empty values, it might be hard to watch the NBA just hearing squeaky shoes...

[phillychuck]

Watching games in empty arenas for March Madness especially will be very strange.

[bkeich]

The NBA is already playing a game with no fans in NJ,

Is that really Coronavirus or did just no one buy a ticket?

[xogfog]

I was tempted to make that joke myself

[bkeich]

Watching games in empty arenas for March Madness especially will be very strange.

Yes, that is going to be very, very weird.

I am seeing many colleges now going to "dont return from spring break yet". Hopefully all this calms in a few weeks, but as someone who travels a great deal for work (currently south of New Orleans at a Refinery) this is very difficult situation. The company I work for sends people to manufacturing sites and we are looking very hard and reducing travel, which frankly is 30-50% of our revenue.

As these things keep happening the idea that the economic collapse is based on media-induced will go away, by reducing or restricting travel we are also putting a halt to capital projects in Industry. That will have a LONG, LONG lasting effect on our economy.

New Orleans mayor has cancelled the St. Patrick's Day parades. As cancellation of "events" continues we will see significant financial issues. Our economy is a consumer driven economy, unlike in 1929, this could steam roll into a depression soon.

Should be great for the TV ratings though. Everyone will be at home watching every event they can... Could this actually increase viewership so much that NFL TV contracts are effected? Oddity.

[el-pietro]

Serie A in Italy suspended. Two Europa League games between Italian and Spanish teams postponed. Premier League game postponed because Arsenal played Olympiakos of Greece last week and the Olympiakos owner has tested positive.
Rugby games in the six Nations have already been canceled. Belief is that the Champions League may be suspended after this week and similar for the Premier League

[el-pietro]

Juventus defender Daniele Rugani tests positive for coronavirus

[el-pietro]

Meanwhile horse racing festival Cheltenham goes ahead this week in the UK. Thousands of Irish people have travelled. Were expecting many of them to be infected.

[xogfog]

NBA suspends the season until further notice because a Jazz player tested positive.

[BaseballCat]

Colleges in Virginia now starting to suspend campus classes and sports until April. We are not returning from spring break this Monday as just announced. Basics can be covered online, but lab/research courses are hard to replicate at distance. Discussion based courses will be difficult to set up on the fly. This is going to be fun...
Good luck all.

[Dirk41]

Gobert, infected and tone deaf

ClutchPoints on Twitter

[schillingfan]

Hopefully the disruptions will only be for a month or so. As I understand it, the point is to flatten the bell curve on the spread so that you don’t have a whole bunch of infections all at once, which would overwhelm our hospitals who would not be equipped to handle so many patients. When it comes to sports, that’s fine with me, as a high risk person. As to the economy, well, Congress needs to help businesses and employees that are hurt by a shutdown.

[Lawman]

I have really mixed feelings here, and I'm just glad I'm not the one making these decisions.

NYC just cancelled the St. Patrick's Day parade.

On one hand I want to say this is, essentially, the flu on steroids. On the other hand, there is no vaccine to create a level of herd immunity, so more people will get sick - and contaminate others - albeit not necessarily seriously so. I recognize the heightened risks here.

But, that risk has to be weighed against the severe economic impact that cancelling sporting events, trade shows, conventions, parades, and the like will entail. Billions of dollars in salaries and taxes will be lost. People will be out of work and (small) businesses will suffer.

But, to @schillingfan's above post, the long term impact should only be 1-2 months. So we're not talking, realistically, about an infinite length of time.

All this to say, I don't know what the right thing to do is.

[Philsmania]

Gobert, infected and tone deaf

ClutchPoints on Twitter

Bunghole

[phillychuck]

As I understand it, the point is to flatten the bell curve on the spread so that you don’t have a whole bunch of infections all at once, which would overwhelm our hospitals who would not be equipped to handle so many patients.

This is an interesting point. It IS important to flatten the bell curve on things like Ebola or the Bubonic Plague, because everyone who gets sick from them will need serious treatment. For this virus, what is important is to protect the vulnerable (those over 70, especially lifetime smokers, males, and those with other conditions (emphasema and diabetes, especially). Flattening the bell curve for the population age 0-65 or so will have no impact since 90+% of those will require no treatment, and the rest can mostly be treated as out-patients.

It just seems to me there must be some way to isolate the likely victims without shutting down the entire economy. People who are close to the edge, living paycheck to paycheck, will suffer immensely from this. Restaurants near colleges, service businesses, small merchandise stores (again, especially those near colleges), people who are part-time already and will lose all their hours, people who are in the kind of jobs where businesses will have to furlough them, people who manufacture things other people buy with the money they earn, etc. And we can't just print money to pay them all, as much as that would be helpful to them, it seems like this will be too large a disruption--it would make the Bush-Obama bank bailouts look minuscule in comparison.

I think this is driven by people being overly afraid of a pretty mild (in most cases) virus, by people being afraid of lawsuits, and by some degree of copy-cat-ism. I don't know if we have thought about a way to actually protect the elderly likely victims in a less draconian way. But it's certainly too late now to change course.

[LoneStarPhan]

Dallas cancelled the St. Patrick's Day parade there and probably many more around the country are cancelled as well.

SXSW in Austin was called off this year and may not recover. They had 175 employees and have already laid off about 1/3 of them. Without a festival this year, they are not sure they can survive to try to hold one next year.

The 143 year old American Chemical Society has cancelled its National meeting in Philadelphia. This seems to be happening for conferences, meetings, and trade shows all over the country. While these events may well resume in a month or at most a few months, the revenues lost from the cancelled events will not be recouped.

The airlines are also taking a hit that may be felt for years. One major airline has already suspended starting a new class for flight attendants, essential putting these new hires on non-employed status. With fewer flights, crew members will see reduced pay or even furlough for more junior employees.

Until the past few days, I thought we might be overreacting, but now I just don't know what is the best things to do. It seems to me that regardless of the extent of the illnesses we see, the economic loss will be felt for years, not months. I sure hope I am wrong on this.

[jimbomill]

This is an interesting point. It IS important to flatten the bell curve on things like Ebola or the Bubonic Plague, because everyone who gets sick from them will need serious treatment. For this virus, what is important is to protect the vulnerable (those over 70, especially lifetime smokers, males, and those with other conditions (emphasema and diabetes, especially). Flattening the bell curve for the population age 0-65 or so will have no impact since 90+% of those will require no treatment, and the rest can mostly be treated as out-patients.

It just seems to me there must be some way to isolate the likely victims without shutting down the entire economy. People who are close to the edge, living paycheck to paycheck, will suffer immensely from this. Restaurants near colleges, service businesses, small merchandise stores (again, especially those near colleges), people who are part-time already and will lose all their hours, people who are in the kind of jobs where businesses will have to furlough them, people who manufacture things other people buy with the money they earn, etc. And we can't just print money to pay them all, as much as that would be helpful to them, it seems like this will be too large a disruption--it would make the Bush-Obama bank bailouts look minuscule in comparison.

I think this is driven by people being overly afraid of a pretty mild (in most cases) virus, by people being afraid of lawsuits, and by some degree of copy-cat-ism. I don't know if we have thought about a way to actually protect the elderly likely victims in a less draconian way. But it's certainly too late now to change course.

I like that post.

[Lawman]

I'm with you. There's a balance here between keeping that 20% of the population safe and the economic hits that we're taking. I just don't know what that balance is.