Will COVID-19 be the needle that finally bursts the sports bubble?

There's nothing morally wrong with it. It's just impractical. The risks of restarting may be tail risks, but they completely outweigh the rewards. Suppose, just for a second, a real tail risk. You restart and some superduperstar, LeBron or Mike Trout, gets the virus and gets real sick. It has resulted in permanent health damage for even young people. It may be a remote risk, but there it is. You're going to risk that for a relatively small slice of extra revenue? If I'm an owner, I wouldn't.

 

For the same reasons I have to believe the NBA, WNBA and MLS are having serious buyer's remorse about playing out their seasons in Florida. Bubble or not.

 

The death risk to folks under 65 was arguably greater with H1N1 than it is with COVID.

Guess who probably got H1N1?

LeBron, teammates being treated for swine flu

I don't know what "impractical" means. Floral shops are impractical. They're open.

 

Seriously - if you can find any players to do this thing, then ditch the leagues for a year, whatever. But so long as players want to do it, and get paid a lot of money to do it? The only thing that stops the events themselves - not the fans, but the events - is local governments and the media.

 

If the players want to play, then play! Don’t have locker rooms. But time to play ball.

 

What are they gonna do, dress in the parking lot? I'll try and explain my thinking, again, slowly. What's the rush? Why not accept 2020 is just affected by circumstances beyond its control and try again next season? Why is this so horrible?

 

Because the money lost to an abandoned season is substantial.

At this point baseball seems like a waste of effort, and the finances are different there anyway. For the NBA, at least, both sides have a massive incentive to finish the year.

 

On the other hand, NBA owners and players have banked more than half their revenues already. That would seem to be less incentive, if the league wasn't a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney.

 

Except the loss in revenue -- coupled with the hit from China in the preseason -- means the salary cap plunges and the owners have a window to blow up the CBA.

If it was simply an issue of walking away from this season's money, they might do it. The ramifications are much worse.

 

It’s not. But I don’t know why we wouldn’t be right back here again next year. And who I am to say they can’t play? without fans?

 

Blowing up the CBA is worse for the owners than the players. Who's profiting most from the status quo?

 

Well, we don't know. But if we're still where we are now next June, sports is the least of our problems.