Coronavirus (Sports-Related and General)

rpmcmurphy 2020-04-29 16:23:52 UTC #823

Evidently, part of Florida’s reopening strategy is covering up the full reporting of the numbers:

bkox 2020-04-29 16:56:40 UTC #824

Lawman 2020-04-29 17:24:54 UTC #825

Well, I think movie theaters are about to face their demise. I suspect studios may begin to go to direct to streaming with their movies and not bother with the traditional movie houses.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/c3fe3cc1-d82d-3736-b6b9-ff9cd3dc47f0/%E2%80%98trolls-world-tour%E2%80%99-breaks.html

andyb 2020-04-29 18:15:28 UTC #826

MLB must have 20 plans that they are just leaking to see what people think.

I am not sure the "3 League" plan would save any travel. If the team has to get on a plane it really does not matter how long the flights were and staying largely in current divisions would eliminate any east-west travel.

The pod plans make more sense when you group teams in one city. There is no reason that this could not rotate. Send 5 teams to ANY city where it is safe. Then play day/night DHs in the major league stadium for 10 or 20 days. In 10 days each team would play 8 games (a home/home with everyone, day off every 5 days on a rotating basis).

Every 10 days you reconfigure the pods somewhere else if possible. If the season is 100 days long you get 80 games in without much travel. Every team gets 2 10-day pods at home if their state is safe if possible.

zambonir 2020-04-29 18:56:18 UTC #827

At this point I think I'd actually prefer the tournament. I just don't think 100 baseball games with no fans and weird locations/formats will be all that fun, especially as teams start to fall out of the races, and I'm sure not planning to hang out in sports bars for the length of a game, even at 50% capacity. Still pretty skeptical they can do the amount of testing and quarantine they want, and playing a longer season means more exposure for everyone (but particularly support staff).

Let the NBA go first - they have far fewer people to manage, especially since MLB teams will need to carry pretty much its entire 40-man roster. Then do something like Passan's idea. If they can start in August instead of October, the timing would be normal, and/or you could extend the play-in rounds.

Oct. 1-20: Every team plays a four-game series against each division opponent with a day off in between. The two best teams from each division advance.

Oct. 22-Oct. 31: The six American League teams that advance congregate at one hub. The six National League teams gather at another. They play each of the other five teams twice in a round-robin format with a collective day off in the middle. The four teams with the best records in each league advance. In the meantime, the nine non-advancing teams from each league meet at a hub and play one game against the rest of the teams there. The winner of that round-robin regains entry into the playoffs. In the case of a tie, hold a winner-advances one-game play-in-to-the-playoff.

Nov. 2: The play-in winner faces the No. 4 seed from the advance round-robin in a one-game wild card. Winner advances to face the No. 1 seed.

Nov. 3-9: Five-game division series with one day off between Games 2 and 3. Winners advance to league championship series.

Nov. 11-19: Seven-game LCS with standard days off. Winners advance to World Series.

Nov. 21-29: Seven-game World Series with standard days off. Sixty days on the dot. Happy Thanksgiving.

bkox 2020-04-29 19:22:48 UTC #828

the problem with the fall is that many experts are predicting a rebound in the fall

LoneStarPhan 2020-04-29 19:44:05 UTC #829

Maybe just me, but I do not want to see NBA or NHL resuming in June or baseball going past about the first of November. I do not want to see college football in the spring either. If the normal seasons are not available, move on and plan for the following year. Again, my opinion, and I know others probably disagree.

This baseball season will stand out as not a real regular season regardless of what format they come up with, but if they can start play o/a July 1st, they can get in a decent number of games by October 4th. Then I hope they hold a post season that concludes by November 1st.

This might just be the time to eliminate two sets of rules for MLB. Play every game under the same rules now and from now on.

Lawman 2020-04-29 19:45:24 UTC #830

Agreed, but a lot of players won't be happy when MLB does away with the DH.

rpmcmurphy 2020-04-29 20:08:19 UTC #831

I know that most fans probably think that any baseball is better than none at all, but I personally cannot get excited by these pod here, pod there empty stadium plans. I think that for me the novelty would wear off pretty soon. Maybe I am too much of a traditionalist as far as sports are concerned, but part of any sport's appeal is the atmosphere. It's probably just my grumpy old man side. I still hate the DH and I abhor metal bats. At least the abomination of artificial turf and symmetrical baseball stadiums has (almost) died away. I'm not wishingfor no season, and I know that I will watch and root, but I just can't get excited about it. I'm not naysaying anyone who disagrees, and I know that this is a minority opinion, but I really feel pretty meh about it.

zambonir 2020-04-29 20:36:33 UTC #832

I can take or leave any of it but they have to try and do spring college football (as logistically challenging as it would seem to be to play two seasons 4-6 months) or there's no other college sports at all (besides football) until winter 2022.

At that point it wouldn't be a rebound, it would be an entirely new wave (for the flu as well). But agreed, nobody seems to be considering that. People seem to think it's safer to make plans for October than August and just the opposite might be true.

But I'm afraid it's all moot, because premature openings and poor discipline are going to lead to an actual, earlier rebound, as well as more economic pain. If that doesn't happen, the smart thing would probably be to cram as much into July/August/September as you can and then hunker down. Even if another peak isn't expected until November or December you'd want to be practicing mitigation for that by October 1. But where's that leave the NFL? None of these plans seem to have anything to do with normal civilian risk, they all involve a "bubble" in some way.

schillingfan 2020-04-29 22:14:52 UTC #833

I’m at 50 days of not leaving my neighborhood or going to a store.

schillingfan 2020-04-29 22:16:17 UTC #834

Drive in theatres open here this weekend. I’m a fan of that.

julio 2020-04-29 23:55:46 UTC #835

Yeah, if only so many drive-in theatres hadn’t been plowed under to make way for "development."

Generations of kids who will never know the joys of the "all-nighters" at the drive-in!

zambonir 2020-04-30 00:13:30 UTC #836

Lawman 2020-04-30 00:21:48 UTC #837

Way kewl. I didn't even know they still existed. Do they even show first run movies?

LoneStarPhan 2020-04-30 03:29:29 UTC #838

While I would prefer no DH at the ML level, I realize that going to a DH for all of MLB is inevitable so this is a good time to get it over and do it. .

zambonir 2020-04-30 04:26:32 UTC #839

I think it would pass an MLBPA vote easily, if there even has to be a vote. Most NL pitchers don't really want to hit, and it will create jobs, especially now that you can carry 26. It won't be mega $ jobs, but it will mean more playing time for all bench players, and it doesn't necessarily take work away from relief pitchers either.

LoneStarPhan 2020-04-30 06:01:57 UTC #840

Lawman 2020-04-30 13:05:34 UTC #841

Makes a great point that the two main areas that will be hurt by this shut down are retail and restaurants.

Both industries were shifting toward a future with more takeout and at-home retail orders and a lot less dining in and shopping. The shutdown has put those trends on fast-forward, resulting in a dramatic change in the way these businesses operate.

I was also speaking with a friend of mine who is a commercial real estate broker. He says that deals are dead right now, but once it opens up, the RE market will come back. He feels that the money is there, that RE values may be down but that the equity is there. But, what may not be there is the banks - they are being very cautious in regards to financing deals.

bigegypt0417 2020-04-30 13:54:11 UTC #842

What's an acceptable amount of cases? 40 so far have been identified so is that just the price of doing business?

The election happened because the republicans thought that they could keep a state supreme court position and that ended up failing. The still lost the one election they wanted and that the president was looking for as well.