It’s safe to assume that we won’t endure another year in sports like 2020, and for that, we can all be thankful.
Seasons were disrupted as various league officials had to develop pandemic-era protocols, ad-lib schedules, and playoffs on the fly. When league offices weren’t dealing with coronavirus case spikes, they were trying to douse the latest social justice fire.
It was, and remains, a fluid situation for all sports leagues, but by necessity, it has led to some good innovations. Those include:
Twice as nice: A condensed 60-game schedule coupled with virus-related postponements forced Major League Baseball to dip into its past and bring back regular doubleheaders, mercifully shortened to seven-inning games. This idea has legs. I’m not ready to blow up the traditional 162-game season, as some free thinkers suggest. But the return of traditional twin bills (one ticket for two games) is a good value for fans, creates more opportunities for players as rosters are supplemented, and fosters greater urgency with the shortened games.
Designated success: MLB traditionalists weren’t happy that the National League was strong-armed into using the designated hitter this season, but it was inevitable and good for the game. It’s a prelude to 2022, when the DH will become universal under a new collective bargaining agreement.
Matinee idols: The spring sports void gave way to a summer deluge. Remote workers faced the constant temptation of NHL and NBA playoffs airing throughout afternoons and evenings, much like March Madness, only on a daily basis. For fans who had been deprived of live sports, it was like sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner after three months in the wilderness.
Going inside the game: With little opportunity for fans to attend games, TV producers have made a more concerted effort to put microphones on players and do in-game interviews. This is long overdue and hopefully a trend that will continue even when fans return to stadiums.
Addition by subtraction: One thing that wasn’t missed when summer arrived was NFL exhibition games. You know, those laborious affairs in which NFL stars stand on the sidelines in baseball caps, leaving prime-time viewers to watch free agents from Bucknell and Fordham fighting for roster spots. The only beneficiaries of those games have been NFL owners, who use them to extort a few more dollars from season ticket holders. Here’s hoping we’ve seen the last of fake football in August.
Those ideas worked out. Others didn’t go so well, often because of bad decision-making by league officials. For example:
Fumble! How pathetic do the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences look? They canceled their fall sports seasons on Aug. 11, but their Power Five brethren — the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, and Southeastern conferences — pushed on with modified schedules. Here’s the irony: Some believe that Big Ten administrators thought canceling football would sour voters on President Trump in battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Perhaps that’s just a conspiracy theory, but with the Big Ten expected to reverse course and play football this season, Trump, who intervened on the issue, will be able to claim credit.
Choose your friends carefully: The Black Lives Matter logo is displayed prominently in the NBA bubble and at MLB stadiums, even as BLM activists engage in nightly violence and intimidation across the country. Meanwhile, the NFL’s feckless leadership is reduced to groveling to its players’ whims. Fans interested in tracking their fantasy football picks will instead be inundated with social justice messaging in pregame ceremonies, on field signage, and on uniforms. This isn’t wearing well with fans, whose views on sports have deteriorated sharply over the past year, according to Gallup.
Loss leaders: Universities large and small have been chopping nonrevenue sports in recent months, citing the coronavirus and projected losses. Stanford, for example, cut 11 sports, which wouldn’t even amount to a rounding error in the school’s $26.5 billion endowment. The pandemic seems less a cause for budget-cutting than a convenient excuse.
Flagrant foul: We’re 11 months removed from the fracturing of the NBA’s relationship with the Chinese government, and it appears the league has learned nothing. NBA commissioner Adam Silver, supposedly a savvy problem-solver, looks pretty craven as he talks about finding “mutual respect” with a government that herds Uighurs onto trains bound for concentration camps.
Shake it up: The pandemic has robbed us of simple civilities across society, including sports. Air high-fives have replaced handshakes and hugs. We’ll know that some sense of normalcy has returned when PGA Tour players resume the habit of removing their hats and shaking hands as they walk off the 18th green.
Martin Kaufmann has covered sports for more than two decades, including 16 years as senior editor at Golfweek.
