We already know that the 2020 sports calendar has been shredded by the Coronavirus. We also know that there’s too much at stake for there not to be some sort of season(s) at some point this year. We have little to no idea what those events will look like when they finally happen, but it will be odd, it will be awkward, and it will be…very welcomed.
But what will the lingering effects of the pandemic do to the sports calendar in 2021?
What happens this year will have a huge impact on what next year ends up looking like — especially if any of the talk about delaying the football seasons comes to fruition. If that happens, things will get crazy.
This year, we’ve already had March Madness, the College World Series, Wimbledon, the British Open, most of the Auto Racing calendar, the PGA Tour and many more sporting events cancelled outright. The list is looooooooong.
Fortunately, some events still have a pulse. Those now set for the fall includes the Masters, the Kentucky Derby, UFC, the Tour de France, the Indy 500, and the French Open tennis tournament. This year’s Summer Olympics are now rescheduled for summer of 2021 in Tokyo.
Yet to be rescheduled, but still hopeful to be played at some point, the NBA playoffs, the NHL play-offs and of course the entirety of the Major League Baseball season with however many games they can squeeze in this year.
But here’s where it gets dicey. IF…and that’s an enormous IF…there’s professional and/or college football being played as scheduled this fall (empty stadiums?), and presumably the World Series is pushed back into November, we are still looking at an unprecedented smorgasbord of sports being played while the leaves are changing colors. That would be a welcome…if not slightly confusing time for sports fans.
IF that happens, all could be well in the sports world.
But what if the country is not ready for big sporting events this summer? Certainly, golf tournaments without galleries of fans is very doable. So are tennis matches, car and bicycle races and horse races. No fans in attendance would actually mean even bigger TV ratings, meaning some events are likely to happen sans crowds.
But football? The World Series? With no one in the stands?
If circumstances push the NBA and NHL playoffs (likely in empty arenas) deep into the summer, and don’t allow for football to be played this fall at all, what will the next sports season could conceivably look like?
When the calendar turns to January, we’re likely to have college basketball going on, and the NBA having perhaps started their new season in December – which would be two months later than normal. They do need some sort of offseason, even if this one goes into late summer. That means the next NBA season will also stretch into August, overlapping with Major League Baseball and – significantly – eliminating any NBA players from participating in the Tokyo Olympics.
Same with the NHL, minus the concerns about Olympics. There needs to be an offseason for hockey too, so if they finish this season in August, they can’t really start next season until December, either. That pushes next hockey season into the summer as well.
Then there’s football. Both pro and college. Depending on how determined the leagues are to have fans in the stands for the upcoming season, they could opt to push back and delay the start of this NFL season for several months, meaning the playoffs and Super Bowl could be taking place in say, March and April. This would put the Super Bowl around Easter, bumping head long into March Madness, the Masters, and MLB’s Opening Day.
Then there’s college football.
There’s been serious talk about keeping college campuses closed for the first semester of next school year and not starting the upcoming college football season until March of 2021. Besides the obvious strangeness of it all, there are a couple of really big sticking points here. First, college football and college basketball would be going on at the same time during the latter’s biggest month of the year. How are fans supposed to be in two places at once? Make that three places at once. The College World Series will likely go on as scheduled next June, right in the middle of bowl season. Yes, we could have college football, baseball, and basketball all being played at the same time next spring.
And pushing back the college football season into March-April-May would push bowl season into June and perhaps July. How about having the College Football Playoff in Phoenix or New Orleans over Fourth of July weekend?
This is all mind bending.
How will fans and players adjust? Are there enough eyeballs to watch all this at the same time?
A few things could be semi-normal by then.
Major League Baseball will probably be minimally impacted. Ending this abbreviated season in November would not impact their 2021 much, schedule-wise, but having MLB games going on the same time as all this other stuff won’t necessarily help the game. Same with college basketball. They could start their season on time with no fans if necessary but competing for attention with the NFL and college football would be no fun.
Other sporting events that should not have their schedules impacted would be the PGA tour, major tennis events, horse racing and boxing/UFC. But again, the impact on their fan base could be significant.
Then what happens to the fall football 2021 seasons? Do players get a month off and then get right back to it for the next (regularly scheduled) season? Same dilemma for the NFL, right? How closely can these seasons be jammed together?
Obviously, there are a lot of very smart people working on all this stuff right now, and its likely that workable plans will emerge. But whatever ends up happening will be strange, uncomfortable, and nothing close to our old normal – and that includes all that revenue that’s so important to so many. But then again, we’ll probably never have our old “normal” back again anyway.
Listen to Mark Knudson on Monday’s at 12:30 with Brady Hull on AM 1310 KFKA and on Saturday mornings on “Klahr and Kompany” on AM 1600 ESPN Denver.
More from The Woody Paige Sports Network:
- Woody Paige: Six-time Olympic medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen glad 2020 Games postponed
- Betting odds for where Cam Newton will play in 2020
- Woody Paige: Latest John Elway comeback off to a good start for Broncos
- It’s time for everyone to sacrifice and agree to push high school spring sports season into the summer
- Woody Paige: The Chargers need to move back to San Diego (VIDEO)
- Super Bowl LV odds shift following Tom Brady free agency decision
