Some Sports Begin Resuming After COVID-19

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Ed Strong, Sports Editor

As the U.S. hits its three-month mark without team sports, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel.

A few individual sports have been able to resume action after a couple of months off, such as auto racing, horse racing and golf. As far as team sports go, a number of countries that had initially shut down more quickly due to COVID-19 have already restarted certain ones.

Baseball has been underway for over two months in Taiwan and five weeks in South Korea. Germany’s Bundesliga, one of the top soccer leagues in the world, returned in mid-May and two additional top soccer leagues (Spain’s La Liga and the English Premier League) are starting very soon.

If those options aren’t exactly what you’re looking for, however, there are more on the way.

 

Women’s Soccer

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) plans to be the first U.S. professional team sport to return to action in the wake of COVID-19.

The league won’t be resuming anything remotely similar to a typical season, however. Instead, all nine teams will play in a month-long tournament in Salt Lake City, UT, using the stadiums of the NWSL’s Utah Royals FC and Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake.

The tournament will run from June 27 to July 26 and will be available to watch online via CBS All-Access, with the opening and championship games airing on CBS.

 

Basketball

The National Basketball Association (NBA) suspended its play in mid-March with the season approximately 80% complete.

Both the NBA Players Association and the NBA owners approved a vote to send 22 teams to Orlando, FL for an abbreviated finish to the season: the 16 teams in playoff position as of when the season was suspended, and the eight teams within six games of a playoff spot.

Starting July 31, each team will play eight games to finish their seasons before the playoffs begin. All games will be held in Orlando and almost certainly without fans in attendance.

 

Baseball

Major League Baseball (MLB) is the biggest U.S. sport whose season never truly started because of COVID-19, with the league shutting down halfway through spring training before the actual season began.

At this point, it may still be a while before baseball is back, if it returns at all in 2020. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement between MLB and the MLB Players Association is set to expire after the 2021 season. Neither side wants to show any signs of weakness and talks between the sides about how to go about a shortened 2020 season have mostly broken down.

 

American Football

The National Football League held its draft virtually in April, but plans at this point are to proceed as normal with the upcoming season, scheduled to begin in early September.

Although the prospect of having fans in attendance isn’t guaranteed, there’s a better chance that the NFL is able to have fans in attendance than these other leagues. The start date is further in the future, stadiums are mostly outdoors and stadium capacities are large enough that a reduced crowd could still have upwards of 10,000 people.