Tag: COVID-19

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Siguenza on Sports

Stable of coincidence

It’s quite fitting that in the era of social distancing, the winner of the Belmont Stakes made a practice of it in the middle of this weekend’s race. Tiz the Law had about a four lengths margin of victory in what turned out to be the first of the Triple Crown races due to COVID-19.

NBC Sports on YouTube

There were several other connections to the pandemic evident in the race. You may notice a Smithfield logo on the pants of the jockey in the video capture from NBC. Smithfield Foods signed a deal to sponsor Tiz the Law with the horse’s owner, Sackatoga Stable (press release, June 17, 2020). A couple of months ago, the pork producer made international headlines when its South Dakota plant suffered a massive outbreak of coronavirus cases (BBC News, April 17, 2020).

The other connection, meanwhile, is that Tiz the Law is the first New York state-bred horse in nearly 140 years to win the Belmont, held on the outskirts of New York City (The Daily Gazette, June 20, 2020). As Mike Tirico of NBC Sports mentions at the end of the race, it gave the Empire State something to cheer about at a time when the people needed it. New York continues to top the list of coronavirus cases in the U.S., as well as deaths (New York Times, June 21, 2020).

There are too many conspiracy theories out there in general and I don’t want to throw in another one by suggesting that there was any manipulation to make the winning horse a feel-good story. As far as we know right now, the stars simply aligned perfectly on Saturday and that shall remain the story until proven otherwise. ‘Tis the law.

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Siguenza on Sports

Football or no football?

We are at roughly the halfway point between when COVID-19 was first declared a pandemic, leading to the cancellation or postponement of major sporting events, and the expected kickoff of the football season. From the beginning, I have questioned the feasibility of holding games before a vaccine is ready. And it turns out, I’m not the only one.

CNN on Twitter

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man who has been at the forefront of the U.S. response to the coronavirus, expressed doubts about football taking place this year unless personnel is frequently tested and kept away from the general public. His comments were met with pushback from the NFL, whose chief medical officer stated the league intended to forge ahead with the season as planned (CNN, 2020). Twitter users also have plenty to say, as you might expect. Some have dismissed Fauci’s claims, some are demonstrating schadenfreude over players potentially not seeing action this year. I won’t share specific comments, except for one individual who has a pretty good attitude about the possibility of no football.

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Siguenza on Sports

Take me out of the ballgame

Is a Major League Baseball season going to happen? Should it at this point? We have reached the sixteenth of June, less than a month from what would be the halfway point of the season, and players and owners are at a standstill over compensation, writes the Associated Press.

AP Sports on Twitter

Sound familiar? Then you lived through the summer of 1994 when the season abruptly ended without a World Series for roughly the same reasons. What I remember from the last time was how angry the fans had become over the spat between employer and employee. I’ve seen a lot of the same threats of walking away from the game should the Major League season not happen.

But you have to remember: these are different times. There was no major health crisis to deal with in 1994 (no, OJ Simpson’s high-speed chase across the freeways of Los Angeles was not a major health crisis). The AP report mentions that tests on several MLB players for coronavirus came back positive. With that in mind, do we want to put more players at risk for our enjoyment? And do we want a season that goes into December? The idea of playing baseball in the middle of the holidays just feels wrong.

I’m not in the position to make this sort of decision, but no matter what anyone else says, it doesn’t seem worth it to even have a 2020 MLB season. The league should cut its losses and work toward possibly coming back in 2021.

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Siguenza on Sports

If it’s in the game…

We’re going to switch gears here a little bit to talk about the collision between virtual and actual sport, and how the former can help the latter get back on track in the absence of fans. The Associated Press writes that crowd noise for soccer matches in England and Spain will come courtesy of Electronic Arts, maker of the popular sports video game franchise based on FIFA as well as the Madden NFL series.

AP Sports on Twitter

Per the report, the media partners for sports organizations began approaching EA Sports about the use of ambient sound from their games to resemble some sense of normalcy in the pace and energy of play. So networks are gaining access to a library of more than 800 cuts which are customized according to the home venue.

A separate AP story ponders what the game atmosphere in North American sports will look like during the pandemic. Perhaps EA will bring its archive to NFL broadcasts in the fall. One thing is certain: the way we consume sport is changing out of necessity.

AP Sports on Twitter
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Siguenza on Sports

As the Ball Dribbles

Lost in all the news of late were announcements by the NBA and Major League Soccer to return to action later this summer at Walt Disney World in Florida, music to the ears of fans desperate to see live competition after the coronavirus suspended most leagues for three months now. But tonight, the NBA’s grand reopening has taken an unexpected turn.

Shams Charnia on Twitter

This comes on the heels of an earlier report stating that players expressed unhappiness with not being consulted before the decision to restart was made. According to Yahoo Sports, players were already hesitant about the plan to self-isolate with the pandemic still in effect. Then came the death of George Floyd. With protests calling for racial harmony intensifying, sources tell Yahoo, some players feel it’s not a good look for a mostly-black group of athletes to risk their health just so fans can be entertained and the NBA can stop its financial bleeding from not holding games.

Chris Haynes on Twitter

Legitimate concerns, to be sure. Also quite predictably, there is a lot of mixed reaction on Twitter to these reports. Just another episode of the soap opera that is 2020. Be sure to tune in next week.

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Siguenza on Sports

A Premier payout to broadcasters

It’s no secret at this point that the absence of live sports has been catastrophic for the people who organize them. Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told CNN last week that clubs would collectively lose $4 billion if no season were to be held. It has also hurt the media corporations who have paid good money to carry games, only to be reduced to digging deep into the archives for substitute content.

Today in the Wall Street Journal, a report that the current members of the English Premier League were expected to pay back $367 million to the organization’s broadcast partners. The estimate is divided among the twenty clubs that make up the EPL and proportional to the number of appearances on television. One of the more popular teams, Manchester United, announced its total bill to be around £20 million, equivalent in US currency to $24.5 million.

Wall Street Journal Sports on Twitter

An incomplete season would result in a return of £750 million (SportBible, 2020), which converted to American dollars is just shy of $1 billion, thus giving the EPL a billion reasons why it can’t declare Liverpool the champion when it has a clear lead over the field.

Miguel on Twitter
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Siguenza on Sports

Too soon to resume sports?

A youth baseball game in Denver. (Brian Siguenza)

Part of the overall push to start normal activities in American culture has of course been to bring back organized sport, and we’re starting to see signs of competition picking up again. NASCAR held a race at Darlington this week, and Major League Baseball eyes a July opening. Then there are youth sports, which some states will allow to happen as early as the end of the month.

KPRC 2 Houston on Twitter
Iowa High School Athletic Association on Twitter

Pat Toomey, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, weighed in on the matter with a discussion he hosted today with sporting officials, athletes, and a doctor.

Senator Pat Toomey on YouTube

But is it a good idea to be starting up youth sports so quickly when we’ve seen so many summer events like Wimbledon, the British Open, and the Olympics either moved or outright canceled due to coronavirus? Not to mention the analysis by scientists that the virus hasn’t left and could exacerbate again come fall. How will youth games be conducted: do the athletes get tested as vigorously as major leaguers are expected to? Will there be spectators in attendance? In Texas, as KPRC reports, the proclamation suggests that it will be left up to the teams to decide. Finally, is it really fair to the kids that they end up being guinea pigs in this experiment to debunk science?

Perhaps that last question is not for me to answer. One thing is for certain, a lot more variables are at play here than just people wanting sports again. Dismissing this crisis makes it that much harder to fight it.

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Siguenza on Sports

Tom Brady’s cringe-worthy pitch

Timing is everything.

Perhaps no one should understand this better than Tom Brady. The quarterback, drafted in the lower rounds out of Michigan, was certainly in the right place at New England when the man he backed up, Drew Bledsoe, suffered an injury early in the 2001 season.

Almost 20 years and six NFL championships later, Tom Brady has subjected himself to some rather bad timing. We’re not talking about his move to Tampa Bay during a pandemic that may alter the season, but the launch of his immune supplement during the said pandemic. Called Protect, HuffPost reports the product boasts ingredients like vitamin C and zinc, which according to Brady will work to keep the immune system “healthy.”

Tom Brady on Twitter

Needless to say, some people in the medical community were not amused.

Seth Trueger on Twitter
Mean Mary Jean DNP, RN on Twitter

While generally, I am not a fan of the “stick to sports” rhetoric that is heaped upon athletes on social media and the only mention of COVID-19 appears in the disclaimer that shipping may be delayed, I have to admit that the introduction of this product when there is so much conflicting information about the virus and whether there’s an acceptable treatment probably wasn’t the best idea. For someone who has had a lot of success in his career, Tom Brady did about as well here as his final pass as a Patriot.