Not so fast.
Major League Baseball continues to come up with plans for a 2020 season. The National Basketball Association wants to finish its 2019-2020 season. The National Hockey League wants to crown a 2020 Stanley Cup champion. Major League Soccer is eyeing a June return as is the Professional Golf Association which has a robust summer schedule planned. The National Football League is moving ahead with a 2020 season. College sports has already lost a big money maker in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The governing body of college sports would like to be back selling its full menu of products when schools open for the fall semester. But a former high school basketball playmaking guard may have thrown some cold water on all the schemes and warns that the United States may be like France which has banned all pro sports through year’s end or like the Netherlands which has halted sports until the end of August.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is of the opinion that team sports may not happen for the rest of the year because of COVID-19. “Safety, for the players and for the fans, trumps everything,” he said. “If you can’t guarantee safety, then unfortunately you’re going to have to bite the bullet and say, we may have to go without this sport for this season. If we let our desire to prematurely get back to normal, we can only get ourselves right back in the same hole we were in a few weeks ago. I would love to be able to have all sports back. But as a health official and a physician and a scientist, I have to say, right now, when you look at the country, we’re not ready for that yet.” That won’t stop sports leagues and organizations’ plans to get something on the field, on the court, at the rink, on the pitch for 2020.
