Front Burner - Pro sports begin to climb back

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

This weekend marked the return of a major sporting event to North America, the first since the pandemic forced leagues into lockdown in mid-March. UFC 249 brought mixed martial arts fighters back into the octagon in an empty stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. As other major leagues make plans to open back up, Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur reports on the future of sports, post COVID-19. Will it ever be the same?

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Pia Chattopadhyay, sitting in for Jamie Poisson. Declaring the winner by teeth, tail, and still the undisputed bantamweight champion of the world. The return of sports is in the books, ladies and gentlemen, after a buildup for months and months and months. This weekend, Jacksonville, Florida, hosted one of the first major sporting events since the pandemic broke out, bringing mixed martial arts fighters back into the octagon, albeit in an empty stadium.

Much to the delight of many UFC fans and one Donald J. Trump. We love it. We think it's important. Get the sports leagues back. Let's play. You do the social distancing and whatever else you have to do. But we need sports. We want our sports back. So while the U.S. president might want sports back right away, even some of the most avid fans are concerned about the human costs of returning too soon. So as major leagues around the world make plans to open back up, today we are looking at the future of sports post-COVID-19. Will it ever be the same? Here with me now is Bruce Arthur.

He's a sports columnist, but these days he's covering coronavirus for the Toronto Star. Hi Bruce, welcome back to FrontBurner. Pia, how are you? I'm good. Is it true that you are exclusively a coronavirus reporter right now? Yeah, I'm writing about everything but sports. Except for today when we're going to be talking about sports and the virus. See, you're two things coming together. Okay, so let us start with MMA, mixed martial arts. Are you at all surprised that UFC was the first major sport to stage a comeback in the United States?

Dana White from the UFC. Hi, Dana. How are you? You're worried about safety, health and safety of everybody. It's not cheap. It's expensive. It's hard. But somebody's got to take the first step and get out there. Can't just stay in houses till next December. I'm a little surprised that they ever stopped at all. They only really stopped because of governmental interference, I guess they would put it. It is the sport with the least respect for human safety, I would say, narrowly ahead of something like football or boxing. And so I'm not surprised at all. When sports try to come back, and the UFC won't be the last one, if they're doing it in the North American context, because we can leave German soccer and South Korean baseball aside for a second because those societies are so different, it's all about your tolerance for risk. And one

of the things that came out of that UFC fight, fighters had to sign a contract which said that they could have their purses withheld if they said anything negative about the safety arrangements around the fight. Now, what does that tell you about what kind of workplace this is and what kind of value they put on human beings and what kind, like who they are? Early on in this, I talked to a Yale professor, Frank Snowden, about all this, and he wrote a book on epidemics and society. He said the pandemic holds up a mirror and now you know exactly what the UFC is, for example. Wow. That is so interesting. What adds to that, Bruce, though, is that one athlete two members in ufc of the team

we just heard tested positive for covet 19 and had to be cut right before the fight again the official line from the florida state athletic commission allowing the card to go on is because the system worked i don't think that the ufc really closely um considered canceling this event dana white has taken that strong stance it says we are going to mitigate that risk as much as possible but we're not going to shut down. Well, the good thing for UFC is they are used to this, right? Like they always have someone ready for, it's fairly disposable culture, right? And so think about what they did. You need a certain number of people to carry this off, even without fans. It's not just the athletes in the cage or on the field or on the ice or on the

court if we go into other sports. It's the infrastructure that you need to televise this. Because the only reason to do this is because everyone's at home watching television. There's a big financial incentive if you do this. Like The Last Dance on ESPN is doing gigantic numbers for ESPN for a documentary. People are desperate for something to watch. And so the sports that come back will be rewarded financially. But how much risk involving the people who are inside that bubble and in close contact to a degree, how much risk are sports willing to assume?

And with the UFC, they have two more fights scheduled this week in Jacksonville, Florida, and plans to administer more than a thousand more coronavirus tests for everyone scheduled to take part. So on the one hand, it's like full steam ahead.

On the other, there's this very real acknowledgement that we are living and they are living in the midst of a pandemic. So that's that's a UFC kind of, you know, well, is it fair to say, Bruce, one to its own, very exclusive in how it's pursuing its path forward at this point? Well, I mean, I think they're just first. I mean, golf is going to try to do this. And golf isn't exactly a blood sport.

There's been a lot of player feedback. Our players are eager to return, excited to return, excited to inspire this country. But in terms of what you just said, they need like a thousand tests, and they're doing it in Jacksonville, Florida. If anyone's ever watched The Good Place, the NBC sitcom, there's a reason that they put their dumbest character in Jacksonville, Florida. I went to Leonard Skinner High School in northeast Jacksonville, which was really just a bunch of tugboats tied together. Didn't you get seasick?

No, sorry. They were tied together in a junkyard. Like, it was not an accident. But in terms of using those tests, one thing that the NBA has said, they don't want to be seen using tests, like, that are taking away tests from doctors or nurses or paramedics or anything like that right like one of the big problems in the united states and to a degree in canada is how many tests are we actually able to get to people the united states has been a more acute problem than here and so where did those tests come from the nba early on thought that they could use 400 tests a day.

That's about how many they needed to get games produced for television. But they didn't want to be put in a position where it looked like they were taking away from people who needed them. What happens when sports comes back and they need this high volume of testing? And there's no national testing program in the United States. And like health care testing is one thing. What about grocery workers? What about warehouse workers? What about ordinary citizens?

What about senior citizens in long-term care homes? This is a bigger issue than anything any of us have ever faced. And sports is going to have to realize almost the moral risk that they're willing to take on as they come back. Okay, so I want to talk to you about these four major sports. I know there are many other, but kind of the big ones in North America. So let's start with the NBA. What are their plans as of right now? The NBA has looked at, I mean, not every sport's looked at a lot of scenarios,

but the NBA is specifically looking at one where they take all the playoff teams and put them in one place, either Las Vegas or Orlando, and then play out as much of a playoffs as you can manage. A very stripped down version, obviously, because you can't play all the games.

That's also what the NHL is looking at, although theirs is a little more expanded in terms of the number of teams it looks like that they would consider so the nba you want to get the games on television i've been told the nba's four regular season games from guaranteeing their tv money for this year they're like the teams need to play 70 games so they're a little bit short that's a huge financial incentive you need to create a bubble in which you can put games on television. So you not only need the players, you need the coaching staffs, you need the medical staffs, you need the statisticians, you need the referees, you need the broadcast professionals. So you need a lot of people in this space. And it's the same for hockey, very, very similar. The commissioner of the NBA, Mr. Adam Silver. Ultimately, I think all of our teams

agreed with this, that this was bigger than basketball, frankly. We start sending a larger message to society that, well, things are not for the foreseeable future going to be the way they were in the past. We can begin to start resuming business. Now, the problem the NBA's had is, and this is something Adam Silver said the other day, it's the clearest, simplest thing in the world. You're not going to have fans in the seats until there's a vaccine or until there is testing, which is so efficient and accurate that it's like scanning your ticket. 20,000 people when a choir practice for two and a half hours in Seattle, Washington, infected almost everyone in the room. So it's going to take a long time. Can you create and maintain these bubbles? It needs huge amounts of testing and contact tracing, just like society. If someone tests positive, you need to know it right away. You need to be able to isolate them.

You need to be able to know who they came into contact with. It's the same as what we're going to deal with everywhere. And then you need to be able to keep that bubble as solid as possible. Now, players have said they don't want to be isolated from their families for a long time, and it would take a long time to do a playoffs, even if you do a tournament-style format in one location. Like, this is really logistically difficult. It is mind-boggling, frankly. With the NHL, it is already talking about heading into phase two of their plan, which would allow for small group workouts. That's like basketball.

And like basketball, there's also talk of possible hub cities. Joining us now is Chris Johnston of Hockey Night in Canada. It's fair to say that their focus is on trying to complete the regular season. And the league believes it can do that in three weeks. Having the divisions or something approximating the divisions focused in four locations, if you play three games a day, that there's a way to get it so that every team reaches 82 games. Bruce, if you look at Major League Baseball, the MLB,

it's talking about a possible July start of the 2020 season. Last time I checked, we're in mid-May, so we're talking six to eight weeks. Does that even seem likely? Or why are they putting out these dates that seem fanciful, if I can put it that way? That's a really good question, Pia. I mean, the thing is, you have to think of it as bargaining to a degree. What does MLB know about the conditions that are going to exist in mid-June or mid-July? And if any sport tries to tell you, we're coming back so that people can feel normal again, you should laugh in their face. Because what you watch on television won't feel normal. And the reason that they're coming back is the same reason that any business is pretty much coming back. How much money can they make and how much have they lost?

Baseball really wants to come back. And they want to have, same as the NBA and the NHL, really wants to come back and they want to have same as the NBA and the NHL to isolate players and have like no one in the stands the bare minimum in order to have an athletic competition to make money I have to ask you about the NFL because it is being super optimistic about a regular September season launch with fans in the stands I know you guys are working on the schedule now. How's it looking? We are planning to be playing on time and a full season. We know that we're dealing in a different environment and obviously public safety will be number one in our mind. But we believe that we've been able to make modifications. I mean, I mean, what do you make? Well, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the NFL stadium is a perfect example of how you spread this disease. I think it's feasible that negative testing players could play to an empty stadium.

I think it's feasible. Is it guaranteed? No way. Yep. like okay so beyond the fact of whether you should have 60 or 70 or 80 000 people in a stadium and not just sitting in the seats shoulder to shoulder but lining up for the bathroom lining up for food lining up to get into the stadium that is one of the worst ideas anyone could have now here's the dark side of this because of how the united states is reacting to this virus, are you telling me Florida or another Republican state might not let an NFL game happen?

Like, I'm not ruling that out. The NFL is really arrogant as a league. I remember a story about Roger Goodell once. Someone said, well, Obama, the president, had done this interview. Why won't you do this interview? And he said, well, Obama isn the president, had done this interview. Why won't you do this interview? And he said, well, Obama isn't the commissioner of the NFL. There's an enormous arrogance to that league. And the NFL right now is probably ahead of everyone in that respect. Or fair to say how

hopeful, maybe naively so. That's totally naive. I'm sorry. Fair enough. Fair enough. The NFL, because they have a longer window, this is also the league, which hasn't made almost any compromises with the virus. They did the draft with everyone in their living rooms. It's now my honor to announce that the first ever virtual NFL draft is officially open. But other than that, the NFL has almost pretended like the virus doesn't exist, which tells you a lot about the NFL.. So I guess like two points from what you're just saying there. The first one is it really just shows how much of a commodity players are. Or maybe I'm wrong there, Bruce. Like if the players union says, look, in whatever sport we're talking about,

we don't care that you want to go ahead. We're not putting our players at risk. Can they do that? They can, I believe. And I mean, in the NBA, I don't think there's a question. There are NBA players can say, I'm not playing. I'm not willing to risk that. Like, think about how many players are in contact with a family member who is immunosuppressed in some way, right? Or how many players have a pregnant wife in which they're immunosuppressed? Like, what are the risks of all that the players are willing to take? Until there's a vaccine, we're all engaged in risk mitigation and management.

And that's going to be the same for professional athletes. I spoke with Michelle Roberts, who is the NBA Players Association executive director this week. And she mentioned to me that some of the players feel like, you know, what happens if we get to a place where there's safety protocols teams are coming back and we still don't feel comfortable and she says i don't have a good answer for that right now you know we've been talking a lot in our household about imagine you're like a teenager about to go pro or in your early 20s and you're about to get drafted and the virus sticks around and your league is canceled for

the next year or two or you're a guy who's got a year or two left or a gal year or two left of playing and you're going to have to retire early because you don't have a season to play. I mean, I guess my point is, Bruce, a lot of dreams are on hold, especially for young people are hoping to make it in the big leagues. How has this pandemic disrupted the recruitment of athletes? Well, you make a really good point. The interruption comes with human costs. And you can expand that out to the Olympics. There's a lot of athletes that were building training programs

to compete this summer, and now they have to rebuild them for next summer. And it may never happen. We may lose an entire Olympic summer cycle because of this. And that's athletes who their window closes when that's over. Someone like LeBron James at 35, 36 years old, this is a year that's gone. The Raptors don't get to defend their NBA championship this year if they don't get back to playing.

That's something that's going to be gone. For young athletes, I would look at it this way. Ted Williams flew fighter planes in World War II. Like literally, like Major League Baseball players, because they made less money, went and enlisted in the army. And some of them actually fought in World War II because that was the level of societal demand, shared sacrifice and disruption. I don't think that's going to happen with professional athletes here.

Like they're not going to go and become doctors. But this is what happens when history happens that's what this all is this this is what it feels like for everybody to live through history and if you're at the end of your career for instance vince carter of the formerly of the toronto raptors um he hit a shot at the end of a game, I think on the Tuesday, before Rudy Gobert tested positive. They're going to give it to Vince. He's going to take a three and hit it. And that's probably the last shot of his career. He's not coming back. It's a weird way to end a career for me. It's just the way it goes sometimes.

I'm one with it. It'll be a special memory for me. It'll be talked about forever. So when I always hear about it, I can always revert back to that last basket. So this thing, it's going to disrupt a lot of what previously was a really predictable cycle of athletes, both ending and beginning and all things in between. well I'm glad you brought up Vince Carter one of the greatest Raptors of all time arguably I know but a great basketball player because that segues nicely to another a great former Raptor Kawhi Leonard who exactly one year ago on this date May May 12th, 2019, made his iconic, now historic, buzzer beater shot against 76ers to clinch the Eastern Conference semifinals. Is this the tagger? Then it was this moment, as you know, Bruce, that galvanized people. People jumped up and down, brought this country together.

And now here we are a year later. We're arguably more isolated than ever. What do we lose as a culture then and a community when we lose sports? Sports, I've described this as I've transitioned into becoming a coronavirus columnist. Sports matters to a great number of people, but it doesn't truly matter, right? Like it's not something which is societally vital. It's something which is societally appreciated. But when something like the Raptors winning a championship happens, when they won game six against Golden State in the finals, 7.7 million Canadians watched on television. That doesn't happen for

almost any other aspect of our culture. Like 7.7 million people don't watch elections. We don't watch telethons. We don't watch television shows in that volume anymore. Sports brings us together in a way, and it sounds like a cliche, it brings us together in a way that nothing else does. The thing I don't think about in terms of last year with the Raptors in the context of this virus, it's not necessarily the playoffs as much as that was an incredible ride for a lot of people. It's the parade. No one really, I've seen estimates as to how many people were in that parade. Two million, two and a half million, three million million all I know is that I was at Nathan Phillips Square and I I saw so many people jammed together for so long like shoulder to shoulder for hours yeah and it is it was incredible and it was a shamefully badly executed parade but it was something which

is unimaginable now unimaginable and we were so kind and generous to one another. And I guess in some ways we're all doing that with, well, most of us are doing that with one another again. I guess that's the parallel one year later, isn't it? One thing that I hope we come out of the whole, this is a bigger point, but in terms of this pandemic, one of the hopes you have is that society comes out of it and individuals come out with it with a better understanding of what we need and what is important. I still think sports is something that's going to come back. And at some point, depending on a vaccine, could indeed be exactly what it was.

But when you get two years, three years down the line. But in the meantime, the things that are important, sports is pretty low on that list. And I say that as someone who loves sports and who wrote sports, has written sports for 20 years. It's always good to talk to you, Bruce. Thanks for all your smarts. It was my pleasure. Before I let you go, on Monday, the AHL announced that it was cancelling the remainder of the 2019-2020 season, including the playoffs. The American Hockey League is the NHL's main minor affiliate, with four Canadian teams, the Toronto Marlies, Belleville Senators, Laval Rockets, and Manitoba Moose. That's all for today. I'm Pia Chattopadhyay. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner.