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

It will be interesting how it plays out. Would Andy Foster, who runs CSAC, decide to refuse to license the UFC the next time it wants to promote in the Staples Center, the Honda Center or someplace like that after this?

Of course, last summer, when Jon Jones failed a drug test, the UFC moved a promotion from Las Vegas to The Forum in Inglewood and Foster let them do that.

Unsanctioned MMA on Indian reservations in California was a big issue in the sport a few years ago after a video of Ilima-Lei Macfarlane (a current Bellator fighter) made her pro debut against a woman named Katie Castro, referred to as a "soccer mom" and knocked her out in 30 seconds in an unsanctioned fight on tribal lands near San Diego. (video below)

Here in Massachusetts, the state athletic commission did not sanction MMA until about 11 years ago. The sport was legal, but the promoters self-regulated. The UFC's policy was that it would not promote in any state whose athletic commission did not sanction the sport. The UFC also made a big push to get MMA legalized in New York and have the NYSAC sanction it.

I guess all of a sudden state regulation is inconvenient for the UFC so now they're willing to circumvent it.

 

I'm sure his comments were taken out of content.

 

There have to be broadcast media or else what's the point? Broadcasters, cameramen, the production people, etc.

 

Well-portrayed in the movie “The Big Short.”

 

I bet the media will be allowed, possibly allowed before the fans because we are more reasonable and would likely submit to testing. Allowing media first could be a way to bridge & transition until we get a vax.

 

But it is a well reported one. I’d much rather read this than a stenographer’s rundown of a coach’s unsubstantiated optimism. Ideally, we’d all like verifiable optimism rather than rhetorical optimism.

 

He can take it. After all, he’s a man. He’s 52.

 

But will the flu get a Show-Cause order?

 

I agree with this. Hey, I'd be comfortable going to a bar again when things open up as long as the bar is configured the way it was right before the shutdown .... limited seating, etc. I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable going to a bar where people are elbow to elbow. Not yet. The re-open is going to have to be gradual, for sure.

As far as when I'd want to go to a stadium again ... I just don't know. Would professional teams open stadiums with half the seating capacity so they only sell every other seat to leave space? Not sure I see that half-measure occuring.

 

No chance. If I were in charge, I’d tell reporters to watch games on TV and write that way. Teams would need to make players available by phone.

 

I know how eager people are to get back to "normal," but until there's a rigorous national testing mechanism in place, it can't happen.

Otherwise we just keep cycling and recycling through waves of infection and re-infection.

Even then, without a vaccine available, how many folks are going to want to congregate in close quarters with 80000 strangers?

So we might need to be thinking in terms of a couple years before live spectator sports return.

Sports in some sort of sterile television vacuum is an interesting idea in the meantime, and one we'll see experimentally I'm sure.