Sports world watching coronavirus as travel, tournaments hang in balance
Empty stadiums and arenas in Italy. International travel canceled. A call for the NCAA tournament to perhaps be played without fans. The same possibility being considered in English soccer. The Tokyo Olympics potentially in jeopardy.
As the world at large wrestles with the threat and spread of the new coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease, similar conversations and discussions are happening throughout the sports world. With its travel and large gatherings of people, it may be uniquely vulnerable to pandemics, whether in the immediate moment or in the future.
For now, everyone from the NCAA to the ACC to the International Olympics Committee is watching and waiting. This particular epidemic may be sufficiently controlled to allow sporting life to go on as normal, at least in the United States.
But no one really knows.
At the recent NHL general managers’ meetings, the discussion about coronavirus was focused more on travel, with teams scrapping scouting trips to Europe, in part because the tournaments they planned to observe were canceled. There was no discussion about the possibility of restricting team travel or playing without fans, Carolina Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell said.
“It’s all hypothetical at this time,” Waddell said. “The league is in conversation with the other pro leagues. Basketball is playing. Baseball is about to start. For now they’ll just stay in contact with the (Centers for Disease Control) on a regular basis.”
The ACC women’s basketball tournament went ahead as planned this week in Greensboro, and the ACC expects the same for the men next week. ACC commissioner John Swofford said the conference is in contact with the governor and state health officials and has implemented measures to prevent the spread of disease.
“Right now, we are moving ahead with our ACC Tournament games,” Swofford said via a league spokesperson, “and if there’s something we need to respond to, we’re ready to do so.”
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NCAA forms advisory panel
There’s more concern surrounding the NCAA tournament, which is extremely travel-intensive and will inevitably include teams from affected areas. The National College Players Association, a union-like organization that promotes the interests of college athletes, called for “a serious discussion about holding competitions without an audience present,” citing the number of corporations that have banned all non-essential travel and canceled conventions and other gatherings.
Two schools — Chicago State and Missouri-Kansas City — just canceled basketball road trips to Seattle, where there’s an outbreak of the virus. Western Michigan did the same thing earlier this season, when there were concerns about a potential outbreak at Miami (Ohio).
The NCAA this week established a coronavirus advisory board that includes doctors, a former Surgeon General and athlete representatives.
“The NCAA is committed to conducting its championships and events in a safe and responsible manner,” NCAA chief operating officer Donald Remy said in a statement. “Today we are planning to conduct our championships as planned, however, we are evaluating the COVID-19 situation daily and will make decisions accordingly.”
In Switzerland this week, IOC chairman Thomas Bach said “neither the word ‘cancellation’ nor the word ‘postponement’ was even mentioned,” as questions continue to be asked about whether the Olympics can proceed as normal.
Road races canceled worldwide
Runners have been particularly affected: Destination marathons that draw runners from all over the world have been canceled or limited to elite runners only in places like Tokyo and Paris.
There’s only one international runner entered in the March 15 Tobacco Road Marathon in Cary and that race is scheduled to proceed as planned, said Mark Dill, who handles marketing for the event. But given the confirmed case of coronavirus in Wake County, it’s something race officials continue to discuss, he said.
“Obviously, it’s all over the news and for good reason, so we have to be in a position of monitoring it,” Dill said. “We don’t expect to have any dramatic changes, but at this point, we’re aware of this situation but we’re moving along.”
So much of this is new ground, beyond the 2009 H1N1 “bird flu” outbreak, because of how quickly the coronavirus has spread internationally. And whether this spring’s epidemic goes on to wipe out the Olympics entirely or pass quietly, it has awakened a new reality in the world of sports.
What does an industry based on bringing large amounts of people together in one place, often from around the country or even around the world, do in a pandemic-ridden future?
Top officials from the USGA had expected to leave their annual meetings at Pinehurst last weekend and travel straight to Scotland to meet with their European counterparts at the R&A. That trip was canceled, and the USGA now faces hassles on several fronts, from the qualifiers it annually hosts overseas in Asia and Europe to the many championships it conducts here.
“People are now trying to think about, what is the worst-case scenario?” USGA executive director Mike Davis said. “And what do we need to be doing now?”
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This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 5:55 AM.
