Amid growing concerns over how professional sports leagues should best-mitigate the spread coronavirus, the NBA will reportedly meet with team owners and governors on Wednesday to discuss the league’s next steps — with concerns escalating among executives that more drastic steps could be coming, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Those steps could include playing games with only essential personnel present in arenas — a contingency plan the NBA required teams to prepare for in a memo last Friday.
That memo also detailed instructions for teams to be prepared for “the possibility of implementing temperature checks on players, team staff, referees and anyone else who is essential to conducting such a game in the team’s arena.”
Currently, according to Wojnarowski, there are no mandates from national, state or local officials saying that games should be played without fans. But the NBA has committed to having teams ramp up their preparations for all possible contingencies — based on emerging and rapidly evolving details from consultations with medical experts and municipalities.
Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James responded to the possibility of suiting up in an empty arena recently, saying he wouldn’t play if fans weren’t present.
“Nah, that’s impossible,” James said after the Lakers’ 113-103 victory against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday. “I ain’t playing. If I ain’t got the fans in the crowd, that’s what I play for. I play for my teammates, I play for the fans. That’s what it’s all about. If I show up to an arena, and there ain’t no fans there? I ain’t playing. So, they could do what they want to do.”
Wojnarowski also reported with ESPN colleague Brian Windhorst that the NBA is planning to limit locker room access to “players and essential team personnel,” while instructing teams to create a “6-to-8 foot distance” between players and media members during availability sessions.
As of Monday morning, the coronavirus outbreak has sickened more than 110,200 people worldwide, according to a compilation of official counts done by the New York Times, with at least 3,835 people having died — all but 716 of which happened in mainland China.
In the United States specifically, where NBA games take place, the virus has continued to spread rapidly. There were at least 545 coronavirus cases confirmed by lab tests and 22 deaths as of Monday morning, according to a New York Times database.
Research has shown the virus can be transmitted from person to person through a process called “droplet transmission” — wherein a virus is passed on due to an infected person sneezing or coughing — as well as by direct contact.
Given the potential for exposure that large sporting events full of people hold — both from fan-to-player and fan-to-fan — other leagues around the world have already taken similar steps to what the NBA is reportedly considering.
Earlier in March, in an effort to help control the virus’ spread, the Italian government announced that all sporting events in Italy will take place without fans present for at least the next month due to the virus outbreak in the country.
Since then, the country’s Olympic committee announced that all sport at all levels would be suspended until at least April 3 due to the coronavirus.
In North America, the NHL has issued a memo to its teams urging players to limit contact with fans because of the spread of the novel coronavirus and all business-related travel outside North America for league employees has been stopped.
The league has since asked teams for available dates late in April in case the coronavirus continues to spread and forces games to be postponed and — on the recommendation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control — has advised teams to close their locker rooms to media.
“They’re planning for best-case scenarios – which means basically nothing happens – and worst-case scenarios, which means you’d either have to play games in front of no fans, at a neutral site or not at all,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said during a Monday appearance on The Good Show.
The IIHF went as far as cancelling the 2020 women’s world hockey championship, which was slated to be held in Canada, amid growing concerns of how the virus was spreading.
MLB, to this point, has not discussed the possibility of cancelling games. The Toronto Blue Jays held a meeting between players and staff on Sunday underscoring the importance of basics like handwashing, but didn’t lay out any drastic changes to their day to day interactions with fans and media.
The league will reportedly hold a conference call on Monday with all 30 owners to discuss where their coronavirus response stands, with the plan currently being for the season to begin on time and with fans in the crowd, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post.
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