It has been about a month and a half since the sports world got turned on its head when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted around the world. Since then, we have not seen any sports being played with the exception of a couple of countries continuing to play soccer.
Now that the world is showing signs of beating the virus, people are asking, when will sports come back? The consensus among experts is that sports can only come back if a country has really taken care of their pandemic.
So for countries like South Korea and Germany, who have reached their peaks and have large testing systems in place, we are starting to see signs of hope for sports fans. In South Korea for example, one of their biggest sports is baseball. Their baseball league, the KBO, recently started their preseason, with the goal of starting regular season play on May 5th. While the regular season will start on May 5th, there will not be fans in attendance. South Korea’s K League soccer will also start play on May 8th. All throughout this pandemic, South Korea has been a shining example of what to do during a pandemic. They have been among the best at testing, tracing, and isolating COVID-19 patients. Due to this, they are really one of the first countries to start returning to normalcy, including sports.
If we want to look at how a bigger country is doing great, look no further than Germany. Germany’s biggest soccer league, the Bundesliga, is tentatively scheduled to resume on May 9th. How has Germany gotten to this point? Well, Germany has done a really good job at controlling the pandemic. The country instituted a national curfew early on and ramped up their testing quickly. Their great healthcare system probably helped too, as they were among the countries with the most ICU beds available. Because of this, Germans are getting to watch sports again. Much like in South Korea though, all remaining Bundesliga games this year will be played behind closed doors with no fans in attendance.
That brings us back to our country, the United States. Not many sporting organizations are running events during the pandemic, except for some pro wrestling companies and the UFC. Many sports fans have been eagerly awaiting the return of the NBA and NHL, while getting ready for the start of the MLB season.
There is some good news and bad news on those fronts. The good news is that the leagues are making plans on where/how to play the seasons.
In the MLB for example, they came up with a plan that called for all 30 teams to be stationed in Arizona and play in 10 different ballparks. However, this plan would require all players to be quarantined in hotels for over half a year just to play baseball. The players would also be required to be tested before every game. That is really the biggest barrier to sports returning here in America honestly, the lack of testing.
It is no secret that America is facing a testing problem, we are seriously under-testing and that means that there are less tests to go around for non-essential events like sports. So until the United States is able to ramp up their testing, we may not see sporting events for a while. But once we ramp up testing, we should be going back to something resembling normalcy. There will not be any fans in attendance and it will be weird at first, but we will get used to it. Just remember, stay safe and we will get through this weird period together.