Here’s some good news for football fans. Sources close to the situation tell Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk that there is an “extremely small” chance that there will be no NFL season in 2020.
The league expects to release the 2020 schedule on May 9 as planned, and it will look like the usual 17-week, 16-game itinerary. It will be structured to allow for contingencies, but even if those contingencies are necessary, the NFL thinks it can play a full slate of 256 games and that the season can unfold just as it otherwise would in home stadiums that are open to fans from the jump.
While that position will surely attract plenty of skepticism, it’s expected that testing for COVID-19 will be simple and efficient by the time August rolls around. In addition, testing is expected to be widely available to the general public by then, which will allow the league to justify testing all of its players and other personnel on a daily basis.
Some reports have indicated that the league could impose a social distancing requirement for fans within stadiums, but Florio says that will not happen. After all, while those requirements could perhaps be enforced in the seating area, it would be impossible to enforce them in bathroom and concession queues and when entering/exiting. So if stadiums are open, they will be fully open, and it will be incumbent upon the fans themselves to stay away if they are susceptible to the virus. The league will likely protect itself by requiring some sort of “assumption of the risk” acknowledgment for fans who purchase tickets.
None of this means that training camp will open on time or that the season will get underway in September. But a delayed start to the season, which we discussed last week, would still allow for a full schedule to be played. And as long as the information the scientific community has gathered on the behavior of the virus is not proven “dramatically incorrect,” NFL fans can remain hopeful. Indeed, Florio says that real progress in testing is being made outside of the public eye, which is obviously great news for fans and non-fans alike.
Florio also says the NFL remains serious about moving some games to Saturdays in the event the college football season is cancelled, though the first iteration of the NFL schedule is not expected to include Saturday contests.
NFL thinks they are above everything. I bet no games happen.
Games will almost definitely happen! The only way they don’t is if state/federal governments shut it down.
I do think they might have to play with empty stadiums. In all honesty the world economy can’t just stay shut down for much longer.
Empty stadiums for at least the first half of the season sounds about right. There is a lack of good information on the long-term health consequences of being infected, once, twice, thrice with this COVID-19. There’s a full four different strains in the wild already, with more evolving every month.
You would lose that bet
The NFL is a lot like the English Premier League- it’s massively popular, makes as much money as the GDP of a small country like Madagascar and both are run by greedy, greedy men. The leagues both stand to lose a ton of money- they’ll do everything they can to play all of their games and I’ll be watching nearly every one!
FUACHI YER A BUUUUUUM
What are they going to do next flu season? Since we have more flu deaths we may just have to permanently cancel sports and shut down the economy
Have you seen how many die in car crashes each year? Maybe we should all just walk from now on!
Has anyone outside of a mental institution, ever actually admitted to being a source for Florio?
“it will be incumbent upon the fans themselves to stay away if they are susceptible to the virus”
Brilliant. A lesson that governors in particular need to learn.
It’s rather an idiotic statement considering that everyone is susceptible to a virus, radiation or a bolt of lightning if they don’t have any common sense. It also presumes that nobody is asymptomatic.