Why a return to sports from coronavirus could be farther off than we realize

Apr. 12--Dennis Perrotta, a retired state epidemiologist, went to the Spurs-Mavericks game on March 10 in San Antonio. He's had partial season tickets for about the last 10 years and makes a 200-mile round trip from his ranch in Bastrop County to the AT&T Center every few weeks.

That night the sports fan in Perrotta was having a good time: The Spurs beat the favored Mavs, a high note in a lackluster season. But the public health expert in Perrotta was starting to worry. He was inches away from other fans who were touching each other while yelling and cheering. "When I came home," Perrotta said, "I talked to my wife and said, 'I'm not really comfortable going to the games anymore.'"

The NBA postponed its season the next night. Since then, the coronavirus pandemic has shut down the sporting world. The last major athletic event held in Fort Worth was a TCU men's basketball game against Oklahoma on March 7. Globe Life Field's scheduled Opening Day, for March 31, has come and gone. The PGA has not postponed the Colonial, but the Masters, which was supposed to end on Easter Sunday, was moved to November. Texas Motor Speedway won't host its IndyCar race in June if fans can't come.

Yet as the cancellations continue and coronavirus deaths multiply, calls to resume sports have hastened. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy suggested players should return to campus May 1 because they would "have the ability to fight this virus off." Major League Baseball leaders have proposed hosting all 162 games in Arizona with the players isolated at hotels. President Donald Trump predicted on a conference call with professional sports commissioners the NFL would begin on time in September. He said in a White House briefing, "I want fans back in the arenas."

Without sports, salaries, TV contracts and ticket revenues worth billions of dollars could disappear. But bringing back sports too soon risks the health of athletes, coaches, referees, athletic trainers, security guards and concession stand workers, not to mention tens of thousands of fans -- who, as Perrotta realized in San Antonio, literally bump elbows inside America's stadiums -- and the thousands of others they come into contact with when the game ends.

The tug of war between caution and a willingness to quickly return to normal has pitted some sports leaders against each other and against public health officials. Experts insist sports -- at least in the way we've known them -- are unlikely to come back soon, even in time for football season. "My crystal ball, which is not infallible, says we're not going to be there in the fall," said Catherine Troisi, PhD, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UT Health School of Public Health in Houston.

A need for rapid testing and herd immunity

The NFL's in-house doctor is a skeptic, too. Allen Sills, who is in charge of the league's coronavirus response, is not sure the league will be ready by fall, for spectators or players. "The reality is none of us know those facts for certain right now," he told NFL.com. "We hope and pray for the best and prepare for the worst, realizing that is one potential outcome that we will be back fully in business playing games as normal in front of fans on schedule. But it's certainly not the only outcome."

Like Major League Baseball, NFL, NBA and NCAA leaders have discussed ideas to hold games without fans. Even those scenarios would require testing capabilities that are not yet available at a widespread level: rapid diagnostic tests or, better, serological tests that tell whether players have developed immunity to COVID-19. Sills told NFL.com that tests would have to be administered frequently.

Other countries have found difficulties ramping up team sports. China, despite reducing its lockdown measures, delayed plans to restart its basketball league. South Korea, which has superior testing and contact tracing compared to the United States, has started playing intrasquad baseball games with an eye toward starting the regular season without fans in May. A player told the Los Angeles Times he believed one positive test of a player could postpone games for a month.

During a conference call with reporters Friday, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith questioned how games could be safe for athletes, if they weren't deemed safe for fans. "I struggle with that concept," he said. "When I first heard that, I said, 'OK that could work.' But I figured if we don't have fans in the stands, we've determined it's not safe for them in a gathering environment. So why would it be safe for the players?"

Diana Cervantes, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at UNT Health Science Center, said she could see an event like the Colonial returning sooner because of the lack of contact in golf. It would still require social distancing between golfers, no fans and an assurance the area is cleared. Public health officials would have to work with the PGA to ensure rapid testing and the ability to track whether any players or personnel involved showed symptoms in the days afterward, she said.

For fans to attend games in massive stadiums, Troisi said we would likely need a vaccine or herd immunity (where enough of the population has developed immunity to the virus for the rest of the population to be protected). Neither is likely in the next few months.

"The other concern is that if the virus does wane during the summer there's a big possibility it will come back in the fall," she said.

'No one in athletics has control'

Plenty of high profile sports figures have expressed similar doubts about a quick return. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said via email he doesn't think sports can come back until the science is "in place giving us the ability to assure the safety of all those required to put on a game." ESPN college football broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit said he would be shocked if the NFL or the NCAA had a season this fall.

For many involved in athletics, even before decisions have been made about the fall season, the pain has already begun. College football coaches, notorious micromanagers, already missed spring practice. Their players are miles away, studying and working out on their own.

"Right now, no one in athletics has control. Nor should they," said Wren Baker, the athletic director at the University of North Texas. "But I think some people have adjusted to that better than others. The thing I've been really proud of my coaches with is their perspective. They miss competing, they worry about the fall, they know we have budget concerns if this thing continues to linger. But they've always maintained the perspective of the health of the campus community and society."

College football, unlike professional sports, faces an added obstacle: If campuses aren't open to regular students, players might not be allowed back either. Before the season can begin, said Ross Bjork, Texas A&M's athletic director, the players would likely need 45 to 60 days of practice. Baker, who used to be athletic director at Division II Northwest Missouri State, said the FBS level could modify its timeline: Other college divisions spend four weeks practicing before the season starts.

By canceling the NCAA Tournament in March, the NCAA lost nearly $1 billion, nearly $600 million of which would have been distributed among 300-plus schools. A canceled football season would be worse. TCU, for instance, made $65 million in revenue off football in 2018, accounting for two-thirds of its total athletic revenue. The loss of football could mean reductions in scholarship aid, layoffs for athletic department employees and cutting of non-revenue sports.

Baker said North Texas has spent hours every day talking about the budget. "We could be taking a haircut, which we will almost certainly be doing, or having limbs amputated. That spectrum is very broad," he said. "But if we don't play football and don't resume classes in the fall it would have some devastating consequences. There's no other way to put that."

The emotional pull of sports

Jane McManus, the director for The Center of Sports Communication at Marist College, was reporting for The Journal News in September 2001 and covered a high school soccer game the afternoon of 9/11 in suburban New York City. The community featured many parents who were first responders. They wanted things to be normal and to press on. To McManus, the presence of sports, normally a fun, comforting activity, felt awkward. "It was really the oddest thing to know what was going on," she said, "and to have people playing a soccer game as though it were a normal day in a normal world."

She said the consistency of sports has conditioned athletic personnel and fans to think of sports as a necessity when in reality they're a luxury we get to enjoy when everything else in society works. Games, she noted, involve coordination that goes beyond the stadium: trucks transporting food and equipment, employees cleaning hotels, airplanes flying athletes.

"Sports is actually what comes after we have a functioning society, not what's happening before," McManus said. "We've been so interested in setting things back to normal that we haven't thought through what needs to be there for us to be normal again."

Perrotta understands why people want sports to come back quickly. Like many fans, his connection to his favorite team evokes nostalgia and family memories. He used to go to Spurs games with his late father, who had tickets as far back as the George Gervin era in the 1970s.

Last week, he had to decide whether to reapply for partial season tickets for next season. The epidemiologist in Perrotta knows it is unlikely he will be back watching the Spurs in a few months, unless a vaccine or herd immunity is developed.

But the sports fan won out. He renewed his season tickets.

Drew Davison contributed reporting to this story.

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