Coronavirus (Sports-Related and General)

[zambonir]

The NHL is announcing their plans in an hour. I'm all for it to to be honest. I think the hokier the better. I'm with julio. It's entertainment. The "record books' don't matter. Whatever the NBA and NHL come up with will actually be more fitting than their usual seasons, which is to say, the long regular seasons are already pretty much seeding tournaments that don't actuallly eliminate that many teams. And they've already played enough games that the seedings are fair. The two teams that voted against the NHL's plan actually don't like the fact that some extra teams are being accomodated (in part because it is though they will benefit from not having a bye, that they will be sharper than the higher-seeded teams who will only be playing exhibition games).

Sports is a reality show except for the part where the competition is legit (if still shaped by structural forces in each league). By July I will welcome something to watch. In the end it's no different from any labor-shortened season.

The injury risk is going to be serious, though no more so than the COVID-19 risk. But that's part of what they get paid for. If any league wants to cancel their season on moral grounds, more power to them, but nobody does. I see Philsmania's scenarios as being pretty likely, but in the fall - baseball won't get to finish. The NFL will get interrupted. And if things shut down in October it is probably not going to be safe to resume before May (i.e. the month we are in now, when it's still not safe to resume sports). Unless the vaccine is out of course.

Right now there's a lot of talk of playing football with fans. What could go wrong?

[zambonir]

https://sports.yahoo.com/damian-lillard-doesnt-plan-to-participate-in-resumed-nba-season-if-blazers-dont-have-true-opportunity-to-make-playoffs-144736029.html

See, the NHL is probably looking smart here compared to the NBA. With 14 games to play the Blazers still had a shot at making the playoffs. If there are only going to be four games (70 being the number that triggers the TV money) those are basically going to be exhibitions and there's no more reason for guys to play in them as when it's actually the last week of a normal season (if you're eliminated or your seed is locked). I believe the NHL, by contrast, is planning to have a play-in round while just leaving the truly eliminated teams out entirely.

The Sixers will also be missing a chance to rise from the 6th seed to the 4th seed but given there won't be home court/fans, and they like the Celtics as their opponent, doesn't really matter.

[bkox]

Sources: MLB proposes pay cuts for highest-paid http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29224973/sources-mlb-proposal-includes-pay-cuts-highest-paid-players
via @ESPN App http://espn.com/app

Major League Baseball has proposed cutting the salaries of the highest-paid players in baseball while giving the lowest-paid players full prorated shares in its first economic proposal to the MLB Players Association, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN

[zambonir]

So the NHL plan is out. The top 8 teams with byes will actually play a seeding tournament (so the games mean something) while the bottom 16 will have a play-in a series to determine the other 8.

NHL adopts 24-team playoff if season resumes

Who knows if it will really happen. But the Stanley Cup existed long before there was an NHL for various challenge cups and tournaments. This isn't even that odd by comparison except for letting extra teams have a crack at it.

Of course, it was not awarded at all in 1919.

[Lawman]

It's an interesting proposal. I'm not a hockey fan, and not going to become one. But, I did enjoy reading the proposed plan.

[andyb]

Major League Baseball has proposed cutting the salaries of the highest-paid players in baseball while giving the lowest-paid players full prorated shares in its first economic proposal to the MLB Players Association, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN

Probably a shrewd "split the solidarity of the union move". If 80% of players get their full pro-rated salary and the richest 20% of players get a smaller amount, then the owners might win this. There is also a logic in the players agreeing to the first X amount of everyone's salary and a smaller share of the higher amounts. The stars can take the hit better than the utility players. Of course I still don't trust MLB's overall financial data and think they are trying to make the players take a bigger hit on this than they should.

[schillingfan]

If they can lie and get away with it, they will. Transparency is everything.

[Lawman]

The sides are really, really far apart. And, I have to think that any negative feelings created by this negotiation will carry over to future CBA negotiations.

[zambonir]

Wow. Click through to read more easily, but in a nutshell:

A $25 million player (Harper or Arrieta, say) would have made $12.7 million under the March agreement and is now being offered $6.2 million.

A $10 million player was entitled to $5.06 million prorated and would now get $2.95 million.

If you make major-league minimum, congratulations! Your $563.5K would have been $285 and would now be $262.

I don't think this is going to work the way the owners would like it to work. In theory it puts pressure on the very richest players to make a sacrifice for their more modestly-paid brethren (including a bunch of players who wouldn't have even made a major league salary this year). In practice I think the players will overwhelmingly recognize this as an attempt to crush the union going forward.

I might even go so far as to say the owners don't really want to play this year. And maybe with good reason. But this way they get their lockout over with early, when there's a built-in excuse, and by the time 2021 comes around no one will have the appetite for a labor dispute or cancelled games.

Jeff Passan on Twitter

[allentown]

Does this even fly among the owners. It gives a lot more $ relief to the big spending teams than to the owners who are always crying poor. Basically, the Commissioner/owners are trying to renegotiate what they agreed to when this season was originally postponed. Same post-season money machine; a second unpaid ST, and work for fewer $ per game than agreed just months ago. What an offer!!!

[andyb]

Besides the owners having a history of beating the players in these organizations, there is also lots of history of the large revenue team owners defeating the smaller revenue owners. Baseball shares a relatively small amount of revenue compared to most other sports since more of the TV revenue is local and not national. With the de facto limits on payroll with the luxury tax, the large market owners are generally making huge profits because it is hard to lose money when you have a big local TV deal and need to share only about a third of it.

[zambonir]

It's a de facto salary cap that would give a Tampa or Oakland the same payroll as the Yankees or the Phillies (to some extent) except they didn't get the chance to sign any star players at those prices!

I don't think it's wrong of the owners to renegotiate; the March agreement said they would only play with fans, so if that was the deal, just cancel the season. But they did leave the door open to considering alternatives, and I don't think the conversations (or emails) suggesting the salary part was not subject to change were legally binding. It's fine if both sides have to take a haircut but the structure of MLB revenue streams and team ownership (and corporations in general) makes transparency impossible. And this new offer doesn't seem any different from the previous one - they're not calling it revenue-sharing (or lack of revenue-sharing) but they are still basically saying the players should have to lose as much as the owners do. Even if the owners could document all their losses I don't think it should be an equal burden.

[zambonir]

Deep, But Playable: Indecent Proposal - Baseball Prospectus

[Lawman]

OMG, this is hilarious:

https://twitter.com/Phillies/status/1265432943637549058

[Philsmania]

We had zero registered deaths in Ireland yesterday. First time since March. There will be more deaths to come but there is a positive feeling that the sacrifices we have made have worked and we can get back to something like normal soon.
The plan is reopen in phases between May and August, we have been in Phase 1 for a week now and things have mostly gone smoothly.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I think Ireland avoided a worse infection and fatality rate compared to their European neighbors because the Irish government bit the bullet early and imposed the shutdown before it had the opportunity to really spread.

[el-pietro]

We almost certainly avoided worse outcomes but I don't think its entirely accurate to say we avoided bad infection/fatality rates relative to our neighbours.

If you exclude nations with less than 1M population the deaths per million list looks like this:
1. Belgium 808
2. Spain 660
3. UK 552
4. Italy 547
5. France 438
6. Sweden 418
7. Netherlands 343
8. Ireland 331
9. USA 307
10. Switzerland 222

While we have significantly better results than some of the worst impacted countries I don't think we have especially great results either. There are plenty of neighbouring countries that have massively outperformed us, Portugal (133), Germany (102), Denmark (98), Austria (72), Finland (56) for example. We reacted faster than many countries and yet later than we should have, allowing Rugby fans to travel from Italy for a game that was cancelled, and allowing thousands to return from the Cheltenham Horse Racing festival and from ski trips in Northern Italy without any quarantine being imposed among other issues.

I have some hope that we are past the worst of it and we may finish down this list as other countries see their final fatality rate continue to increase. I also think there is a possibility that we are tracking deaths more diligently than some other countries, though that is not based on much more than a few headlines and some hope, we also are testing at a very high rate relative to other countries. I have paid far less attention to the details in order to maintain my mental health as I found myself getting overwhelmed in early April.

[zambonir]

I'm kind of amazed the MLBPA hasn't figured out how to hire back Don Fehr

Are NHL players on board with return-to-play plans?

ESPN: Is there a way to come to an agreement on a CBA extension that could lift the debt load for players, considering how much they're going to potentially give back to owners due to the revenue losses?

Fehr: I've been in this business representing professional athletes and team sports in North America for 43 years [as of] August. There's no way in the world I'm going to give you an answer to that question.

ESPN: We've been saying for weeks that the NHL and NHLPA's relationship has been collaborative. Is that still true and how would you describe your relationship right now?

Fehr: Where did that word come from? Is that something Gary is spitting out?

[Lawman]

We almost certainly avoided worse outcomes but I don't think its entirely accurate to say we avoided bad infection/fatality rates relative to our neighbours.

If you exclude nations with less than 1M population the deaths per million list looks like this:
1. Belgium 808
2. Spain 660
3. UK 552
4. Italy 547
5. France 438
6. Sweden 418
7. Netherlands 343
8. Ireland 331
9. USA 307
10. Switzerland 222

While we have significantly better results than some of the worst impacted countries I don't think we have especially great results either. There are plenty of neighbouring countries that have massively outperformed us, Portugal (133), Germany (102), Denmark (98), Austria (72), Finland (56) for example. We reacted faster than many countries and yet later than we should have, allowing Rugby fans to travel from Italy for a game that was cancelled, and allowing thousands to return from the Cheltenham Horse Racing festival and from ski trips in Northern Italy without any quarantine being imposed among other issues.

I have some hope that we are past the worst of it and we may finish down this list as other countries see their final fatality rate continue to increase. I also think there is a possibility that we are tracking deaths more diligently than some other countries, though that is not based on much more than a few headlines and some hope, we also are testing at a very high rate relative to other countries. I have paid far less attention to the details in order to maintain my mental health as I found myself getting overwhelmed in early April.

I'd like to see those numbers adjusted to discount the deaths among the nursing home/assisted living population.

Also, as a point to your last sentence, I decided that since I'm working from home I needed to reduce my screen time. In the thick of CV things I found myself constantly checking twitter and getting anxiety from all the bad news. So, I put away my smartphone and went back to a basic flip phone. BEST thing I ever did. I don't think I'm going to go back to a smartphone anytime soon.

[Purduke]

I'd like to see those numbers adjusted to discount the deaths among the nursing home/assisted living population.

Also, as a point to your last sentence, I decided that since I'm working from home I needed to reduce my screen time. In the thick of CV things I found myself constantly checking twitter and getting anxiety from all the bad news. So, I put away my smartphone and went back to a basic flip phone. BEST thing I ever did. I don't think I'm going to go back to a smartphone anytime soon.

In CT, as of maybe 6 days ago -- when we had 4,559 fatalities, state disclosed that 70% (actual number, not estimate) had occurred with patients in nursing homes and rehab facilities. I knew it was high but was surprised it was that high. Takes me back to the discussion on this forum about focused shut downs vs everybody.

Not a fan of the governor here (has never seen a dollar he didn't want to spend), but one thing he forced was transparency in the rehab\homes regarding the outbreak so now weekly the state posts the # beds, cases, deaths (verified) and deaths (probable) for each licensed facility. About two-thirds of the facilities are over 30% infected; about a third 60%+. Again, pretty startling to me. There may be some wealth correlation (city wise) but not obvious. Also, for multi-home operators you can also see (perhaps) a lower hit rate than the state operated homes but not absolute. We have two homes in town, one with 80 beds and only 2 cases reported. The other is at approx. 30% of beds. Both are 5-star Medicaid facilities, so go figure.

Anyway, here's hoping you get out of that place as soon as possible. Good luck.

[Lawman]

Anyway, here's hoping you get out of that place as soon as possible. Good luck.

I'm not in a nursing home. Yet. That may depend on how much my kids love me.