The NBA on Thursday joined professional hockey, soccer, golf and auto racing in taking significant steps toward relaunching the $75 billion U.S. sports industry that has been on hold for the last three months because of the new coronavirus shutdown.
The league’s board of governors voted 29-1 to resume the season July 31, with 22 teams, including the Rockets, playing games without fans in attendance at a central site in Orlando, Fla.
The NBA Finals would end no later than Oct. 12 — which, in most years, would be during the thick of Major League Baseball’s playoff run toward the World Series.
These, however, are not normal times.
While the NBA and NHL are on the path toward return, and while auto racing and PGA Tour golf will return competitive sports to Texas within the next week with events in Fort Worth, Major League Baseball players and owners remain at loggerheads on if, where and when the 2020 season will commence.
The return of sports, already complicated by health issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, also is coinciding with the fractious national conversation about social justice, racial inequity and law enforcement tactics and attitudes associated with the death in Minneapolis of former Houston resident George Floyd.
“Everybody always talked about how sports was at the intersection with business and culture, but it’s now intertwined with politics and health and law and so much more,” said David Carter, founder of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California.
“Sports is a proxy for just about everything that is right and potentially everything that isn’t going so well in this country. There are a lot of countervailing forces at work.”
From a purely sports-focused perspective, the NBA’s return-to-play plan is clear-cut and focused: Teams will assemble at the Walt Disney Resort in Florida as a single site for all games, practices and housing.
Each of the 22 teams from the 30-team league that will assemble in Florida will play eight games to determine 16 playoff teams. The playoffs will include three best-of-seven series in the Eastern and Western conferences leading up to the NBA Finals.
“While the COVID-19 pandemic presents formidable challenges, we are hopeful of finishing the season in a safe and responsible manner based on strict protocols now being finalized with public health officials and medical experts,” said NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
“We also recognize that as we prepare to resume play, our society is reeling from recent tragedies of racial violence and injustice, and we will continue to work closely with our teams and players to use our collective resources and influence to address these issues in very real and concrete ways.”
The NBA said its restart plan hinges on a final agreement with the National Basketball Players Association, which is expected to give its approval, and with the Walt Disney Company over use of its Orlando resort.
The league also said it is working with infectious disease specialists, public health experts and government officials to “prevent and mitigate the risk related to COVID-19, including a regular testing protocol and stringent safety practices.”
When the NBA suspended play in mid-March, the Rockets were 40-24. With the regular season now limited to eight additional games, they have clinched a spot in the eight-team Western Conference playoffs.
The NBA announcement comes on the heels of return-to-play plans announced by Major League Soccer, which also will take its 26 teams, including the Dynamo, to Orlando, and the National Women’s Soccer League, which will stage a month-long tournament beginning June 27 for its nine teams, including the Dash, in suburban Salt Lake City.
The open-wheel IndyCar racing circuit will stage a 300-mile race Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, and the pro golf tour will resume next week at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth. The NHL hopes to resume play in August at two sites to be determined.
Baseball owners and players, meanwhile, have yet to settle anything. Owners rejected the MLB Players Association’s proposed 114-game season and are contemplating a season that could be as short as 50 games. The sides also are at odds regarding pay for players.
While no pro leagues have suggested they will play games with spectators on hand, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that pro sports can operate in the state using 50 percent of seating capacity.
As leagues prepare to return, mixed in with concerns about logistics and health concerns are very real questions about how the public will react to the return of sports after a long spring without the NBA and NHL playoffs, spring staples such as the Masters, Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, or baseball’s Opening Day.
“Sports often has been a harbinger of normalcy and comfort and watching a game with the kids and paying 18 bucks for an overpriced foam finger,” USC’s Carter said. “It’s also been about nationalism, such as George W. Bush throwing the first pitch at Yankee Stadium after 9/11.”
Athlete activism has steadily increased, rising to a new level in the wake of Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. And even though games will be played without fans, reduced to the equivalent of reality TV in silent arenas and stadiums, Carter said the backdrop of the current unrest, not to mention ongoing health concerns, will remain.
“Even when fans are able to return to ballgames, I think it will have a different feel for a long time, whether it’s about public health or the view of athletes for fans. It will be different for a while,” he said.
“Many fans just want to watch a game. They don’t want to be fatigued by a 24/7 conversation about public health or anything else when they’re trying to get away from these subjects for an hour or two.”
The bottom line, Carter said, is that fan interest and television viewership will dictate whether pro sports return with the same emotional and financial impact as before the COVID-19 shutdown and the protests and calls for reform associated with Floyd’s death.
“As long as we tune in,” Carter said, “things will get back to normal.”
david.barron@chron.com
twitter.com/dfbarron
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