COVID-19 has revealed much about sports over the past year.
Specifically, what’s not needed.
The pandemic has revealed much about our lives in general
too, from the likely permanent shift to remote work and the childcare crisis in
this country. In every aspect of our life, COVID-19 put a magnifying glass to
our faults and exposed them.
In sports, that was most clearly seen with college football,
which plowed through with a dreadful season during the fall, marked by
cancellations, controversies, and terrible ratings. Other sports have fared better, though none have escaped the pandemic unharmed.
Bowl Games
In terms of embarrassments in sports during COVID, I don’t
think anything tops college football’s bowl season. Multiple games were
canceled during the season due to COVID restrictions. Many, many teams opted
out of playing games as their regular seasons ended. Imbalances between conferences
meant that a 2-8 Mississippi State team initially made a bowl game while a 9-2
Army team did not.
Things did not get better as bowl season started, as several
games were called off due to COVID cases and/or contract tracing. The games
themselves were completely unremarkable. The playoff featured three
sleep-inducing blowouts. It was a fitting end to the worst college football season of my lifetime, and I hope it never loses its crown.
For my entire life before 2020, I staunchly defended bowl games. I’m here to say I was wrong. I’ve always viewed a true college football
playoff in the form of a 16-team tournament as a far-off utopia. Instead, it’s
now what needs to happen. The bowl system is officially meaningless and now
hurting the sport. It’s time to do better.
The National Anthem
Outside of baseball games, I’ve never really understood why
we played the National Anthem before sporting events. Baseball, to me, made
sense as America’s pastime and the sweet sounds of an ump yelling, “Play ball!”
after it ends. The other sports? Not so much. It’s the only time I ever hear
the anthem.
Since Colin Kaepernick took a knee, the National Anthem
became a lightning rod for controversies as racists rushed in to argue that
free speech somehow didn’t apply for those two minutes. For years before, I
thought the dumbest thing in sports was when the beer vendors stop selling
while the song was playing and we stood in line with our hats removed in the
weirdest ritual you could possibly imagine.
Things came to a head this year when the Dallas Mavericks
stopped playing the song before games and not a single person noticed until Fox
News ran it through the Right-Wing Outrage Machine. We don’t need to play the
National Anthem before every game. You want to trot out a big name before the
Super Bowl or the World Series, fine, have fun. But on a random Tuesday in
February, I don’t need to hear the song before watching the Islanders play the Capitals.
All Star Games
The NBA is playing its All-Star Game this weekend and the
consensus seems to be, Why?
All-Star Games made sense in a bygone era when not every
game was on TV and it was a rare opportunity to see all of the big names play a
big game. In baseball, the split between the American and National League gave
the added bonus of seeing pitchers go against batters they never faced in the
regular season.
None of this applies anymore. No amount of money or gimmicks
will make the players care. The ratings for these games remain stronger than
regular season games, but still far off their peaks. What’s the point? It’s a
money grab for leagues that have plenty of money already. We went a full
calendar year without an All-Star Game and I don’t think there’s a single
sports fan that missed them.
Conference Tournaments
The biggest hurdle left for Gonzaga in this college
basketball season is surviving its conference tournament. It doesn’t matter how
they play. The main goal is to avoid getting COVID and avoid getting hurt. For
about 30 teams already locked into the NCAA Tournament, it’s the same deal.
Conference tournaments used to be a big deal, and I get
that. But they aren’t anymore. In 2014, UConn lost its conference tournament
final yet won the NCAA Tournament. Does a single UConn fan care that they lost
the conference tournament? I can name every NCAA Tournament winner for the past
decade, but I can name about five conference tournament winners, if that.
Championship Week sounds great and we love watching a ton of
basketball, but it’s ultimately meaningless in the same way that bowl games
are. College basketball is hurting because the focus is squarely on the NCAA
Tournament and not the regular season. The conference tournaments only make
that worse.
Preseason NFL Games
As I was putting this column together, I literally forgot
about the NFL’s preseason not happening because it was so meaningless and
stupid to begin with. Then I remember it didn’t happen and not a single soul on
planet Earth cared. The NFL is moving to 17 regular season games and a
reduction in preseason games. Almost there, but not quite. Reduce that to zero,
let teams have more scrimmages, and we’ll be good. The NFL has plenty of money
to make up for it.
Announcers on Site
I’ll conclude with one that I would have never imagined
pre-pandemic.
Networks, most notably ESPN, had been testing out announcers
calling games from remote locations, namely studios, for several years before
the pandemic. They were very poorly received. Not because of the actual
announcing or telecast, but because ESPN was doing it solely as a cost-cutting
measure to not send announcers to games they deemed “lower” profile.
As COVID-19 forced announcers to call games remotely, I
realized how little it mattered. I very rarely can tell if an announcer is on
site or not watching games unless there is a bad technical issue.
Do I want announcer on site? Of course. But our new abnormal
will include many things that we never envisioned before, such as more people working from home. So, if there are more games called by remote announcers, I’m
not going to be as upset as I was pre-COVID.
It’s just one example of how the pandemic has completely
upended the world of sports, and will continue to do so for years to come.
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