Sports is, after all, just non-essential entertainment.
By Wednesday night, it was just a matter of time before an American-based sports league had to suspend operations for a while because of the coronavirus. While the National Basketball Association’s announcement that it was halting the season indefinitely might have come as a shock to some, the handwriting was on the wall. The NCAA announced it would be fanless for sporting events. Washington state was limiting gatherings in the Seattle area to 250 people. Santa Clara County in California was imposing restrictions, the New York City half marathon was postponed. The Ohio Governor Michael DeWine was putting restrictions on all sports events crowd sizes which would impact the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets and the beginning of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in Dayton, Ohio next week. On Wednesday, California announced that there would be no mass gatherings with more than 250 people for the rest of March. That will impact Major League Baseball’s regular season which starts the final week of March and the MLS. It was inevitable that sports events were going to be shut down.
In South Korea, the nation’s baseball league has suspended the season until a later date. The same is occurring in Japan. But in Japan, there seems to be something of a denial going on concerning the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The head of the Tokyo Games, Yoshiro Mori is insisting that the games must go on. The Tokyo event is slated to start on July 24. The International Olympic Committee is pushing ahead with the Games. But along the way, qualifying events for the Tokyo Olympics have been postponed to a later date because of the coronavirus which is spreading around the globe. The Tokyo organizers have said the Games will not be delayed a year or two. Sports is on hold.
