Mar 24, 2020
One of the obvious casualties of the coronavirus shutdown is the loss of all sports. No NCAA tournament. No NBA. No NHL. No MLB. No nothing. Because of the immediate health risk to fans, nothing can take place. It has left a void so deep in our lives that ESPN has resorted to showing anything they can to keep fans interesting, including stone skipping, cherry pit spitting, belly flopping, and my personal favorite, "Slippery Stairs."
But it got Br. Tito and I thinking: why couldn't sports still be played, even without fans? Just 10 guys on a court, athletes in small numbers spread out on a field. Obviously, there's a health risk to the athletes, but that's small. And even more obviously, there's a financial hit that many would take. But surely there are aways around these things.
No, what we want to suggest is that the reason we have no sports now has nothing to do with the health of the athletes or lost revenue... and everything to do with the importance of the fans. (We're only partially joking.)