Pick a sport. A team — maybe your team, or the team you’re covering, or the one you’ve just wagered on — submits its lineup. The star isn’t playing. Maybe it’s baseball and he sits out the next game. Or a series. He has tested positive for COVID-19 and must quarantine for 14 days.
Is the club obligated to let you know? I mean, teams generally do if it’s a hamstring pull or a groin strain. Is it a lower- or upper-body injury? Does the injury report say ‘COVID-related’? Or is it simply left blank — let’s say DNP (Did Not Play)? If you’re an enterprising reporter and the three other guys on the list have their injuries revealed, do you put two and two together?
Add in the fact that there are real issues as to whether reporters will be allowed in to press boxes in closed stadiums, let alone clubhouses or locker rooms — I’d say chances are less than 50 per cent for the former and 1,000 times less than zero for the latter — good luck ferreting out the type of information readers, viewers or listeners have taken for granted. And godspeed to the head coaches responsible for creative filibustering, as the point-people in these things.
There are many logistical, ethical and legal issues to be worked around as professional sports takes tentative steps to resuming and some of those issues are going to need to be bargained between management and players, and some are going to be trickier than others. I mean, if I’m a professional athlete I sure as hell don’t want the world finding out I’ve tested positive for COVID-19. On the other hand, if I’m a league and I’ve viewed a partnership with legalized gambling as a revenue generator even before the pandemic, is COVID part of the biomedical exchange of information asked for by gambling services? I’d want it to be if I was a gaming operator. Where is the intersection between the right to privacy and the public’s right to know in the middle of a pandemic?
(An extreme example? In August, 1940, when North America was dealing with what had become an all-too-familiar summer outbreak of polio, Lou Gehrig and a group of New York Yankees sued New York Daily News sportswriter Jimmy Powers after Powers claimed the Yankees’ poor season was caused by Gehrig having infected his teammates with polio. The paper was forced to apologize. Different times, but still.)
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When the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 start up next week, it will be fascinating to see how any COVID-related issues are handled. So far the DFL, the sport’s governing body, and teams have not released the names of players who have tested positive. Just this weekend, Dresden of Bundesliga 2 saw its entire squad placed into quarantine because of two positive tests, and will miss its first two matches of the second tier’s return — the players were “sent home.” But neither player was identified.
Recently, five La Liga players tested positive in Spain in the first round of tests ahead of a possible return. Three of the players were from the top flight; two were from the Segunda, or Second Division. La Liga says it is waiting for all the tests to be completed before making a public announcement. When the virus first hit, teams were forthcoming, and after leagues shut down it was pretty much up to players to make an announcement on Twitter or some such platform — if they wanted. Yet last week FC Koln had three “people” test positive. They were symptom-free. We still don’t know how many or if any of the “people” were players.
Controlling the narrative is, of course, easy to do behind the closed doors of training. But it gets trickier when the games start, especially when leagues such as the NBA, NFL and MLB resume playing on a daily basis and players start to wear down. Not every organization is a fiefdom like UFC, where this morning Dana White is being roasted for the manner in which he attempted to limit any reporting on issues related to the coronavirus and the obvious lack of precautions taken by ringside announcers during Saturday’s UFC 249, during which Jacare Souza’s fight was bumped after he and two cornermen tested positive.
No, this isn’t the most pressing issue facing mankind, but at a time when most sports fans and those of us in media are used to having access to information, it’s a reminder that even if there’s a successful resumption of the games we love to watch and talk about, we’re going to be going about it in a different manner. Speaking of which…
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QUIBBLES AND BITS
• Not sure how I feel about this but a Munich-based company called hack-CARE has developed an app that allows fans to cheer, jeer or clap from their couches. Seriously. According to the Daily Mail the MyApplause app has attracted the interest of Premier League clubs Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal. The app would allow fan to pay an initial download fee, choose a game and then use emoticons to send out a cheer, clap, whistle/jeer and, apparently, sing. The idea is the more fans using it, the louder it gets. I don’t know, folks. I just don’t know…
• As if that’s not bizarre enough, how about the Rams, Chargers and Raiders all playing out of the same stadium in 2020? With California Gov. Gavin Newsom making it clear that he doesn’t foresee mass gatherings in his state before November, well, what does that mean for the Rams and Chargers, who were both scheduled to play their games at brand new SoFi Stadium in L.A.? How about going instead to Vegas and the Raiders’ new Allegiant Stadium? As Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal points out, that city is about a three-hour drive from L.A. and there are only three conflicting dates. Imagine that: from not having a team to having 48 home games. If Newsom’s order holds true and the NFL goes ahead with opening in front of fans, the thinking is the 49ers could end up in Phoenix temporarily.
• Interesting discussion with our Brian Burke last week regarding the topic of legalized sports gambling, wherein Burke said his view on the matter mirrored that of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman: not a big fan of the idea a few years ago, now tempered by the realization that it’s here, it’s real and it’s growing. And if you can’t stop it? Might as well participate in it and get some revenue. But Burke believes the seamier side of gambling is “a very real threat” and that “some sport will have a scandal.” I’ve always believed that one of the benefits of higher salaries for athletes has been that it mitigates the possibility of scandals. But that was before gambling came in from the cold. Burke’s right on this.
• Loved the comments from Jari Kurri, owner and general manager of Jokerit, when asked about the Leafs’ newest signing, 26-year-old free-agent defenceman Mikko Lehtonen. “He took a big step the last couple of years (in the KHL) … It’s a tough league and he built his career wisely: step by step.” Kurri pointed to the defenceman’s wrist shot as being a stock in trade.
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THE ENDGAME
Major League Baseball is expected to put forward a proposal to the MLB Players Association on Tuesday which will outline what is thought to be an 80-100 game regular season beginning in the first week of July with a re-arranged divisional setup and expanded playoffs. Reporting by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and ESPN’s Jeff Passan suggests there are myriad financial issues surrounding player salaries that might demand a new kind of revenue-sharing partnership on a temporary basis — a partnership that faces some obstacles given lingering dissatisfaction over the manner in which baseball gelded its amateur draft, and a concern on the part of players that they are being squeezed into a corner.
But what if, at the end of the day, a player looks at the logistics of it all, looks at his family’s health situation and says: ‘Nah, it ain’t worth it?’ We had a chance to talk to former MLB general manager Jim Duquette on Writers Bloc and asked the MLB Network Radio analyst about how he would approach such an issue. Duquette’s thoughtful answer was: “You’d handle it like a negotiation and you would have to convince the player that all the right protocols are in place in the event he tested positive.” This is something I feel gets overlooked in the discussion about pro athletes coming back: These are human beings — gloriously paid human beings, no doubt — some of whom will have compromised family members, including children.
We’ve talked all through this about how societies with a high level of trust between citizens and leaders seem to have done a better job of dealing with the pandemic than those riven by a lack of unity or political polarization. My guess is the same holds true for sports, which is why there are signs of concern in Major League Baseball and, overseas, in the Premier League.
Jeff Blair hosts Writers Bloc with Stephen Brunt and Richard Deitsch from 2-5 p.m. ET on Sportsnet 590/The Fan. You can also hear the show live on the Sportsnet app, at Sprtsnt.ca/590listen or tell Google or Alexa to “play Sportsnet 590.” You can rate, review and subscribe to show’s podcast here and follow Jeff on Instagram here.