As the coronavirus pandemic spread in March, it has brought disruptions, drama and, frankly, unparalleled weirdness to the sports world.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread in March, it has brought disruptions, drama and, frankly, unparalleled weirdness to the sports world.
Comments
100 Days Without Sports
ByVictor MatherandTalya MinsbergJune 19, 2020
100 Days Without SportsAs the coronavirus pandemic spread in March, it has brought disruptions, drama and, frankly, unparalleled weirdness to the sports world.
BY VICTOR MATHER AND TALYA MINSBERG
March 9:Before the coronavirus started sweeping through the United States, Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz decided to mock people’s fears by touching all of the reporters’ microphones after a postgame news conference. Two days later, he tested positive for the virus, the first N.B.A. player to do so.
March 11:The N.B.A. was the first major league to suspend its season. The moment when Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, learned of the decision on his phone was captured on video, and his astonished reaction was mirrored around the country as sports began to fall like dominoes.
Mark Cuban reacts moments after the NBA season was suspended.pic.twitter.com/4g8Z7yLts6
Alonzo Adams/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
March 12:The men’s basketball tournament, the N.C.A.A.’s primary source of revenue, was canceled, driving home the seriousness of the virus. The cancellation of all spring college sports followed.
Ben Solomon for The New York Times
March 12:Major League Baseball, amid spring training, decided the prudent course would be to suspend play and postpone opening day. In a sign that few realized how much the virus would be affecting life for months to come, baseball officials initially delayed the season by only two weeks.
Elise Amendola/Associated Press
March 22:Desperate for sports content, ESPN turned to a variety of off-the-wall events, including cornhole, ax throwing, miniature golf, cup stacking, arm wrestling and cherry-pit spitting.
Michael Dodge/EPA, via Shutterstock
March 22:Nick Heath, a suddenly idle British rugby announcer, had a social media moment when his sports-style commentaries on quotidian goings-on in the park and town center went viral. “It’s the final of the two lonely blokes in a park contest.’’
After the lunch break now...2020 Crossroad Dash. Live.#LifeCommentary#LiveCommentarypic.twitter.com/QFkW0SUqy8
March 24:The biggest shoe dropped. The Tokyo Summer Olympics, a multibillion-dollar event with thousands of moving parts, was postponed by a year.
March 24:With sports shutting down around the globe, a few places soldiered on. Fans eager for something to follow found themselves learning about Belarusian soccer and Nicaraguan baseball.
Getty Images
March 25:All kinds of games and competitions were canceled or postponed, including the National Spelling Bee, the World Series of Poker, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the Eurovision Song Contest.
Fide, via Reuters
March 27:Some sports manufacturing companies, finding themselves idle, turned to making equipment to help fight the pandemic. Formula One teams made ventilators, and both New Balance and the uniform maker Fanatics made cloth masks.
New Balance
April 2:Tennis superstars, like everyone else, went a little stir crazy. With no tournaments to contest, Roger Federer hit tennis balls against a wall … in a snowstorm. Novak Djokovic used a frying pan instead of a racket.
Making sure I still remember how to hit trick shots#TennisAtHomepic.twitter.com/DKDKQTaluY
April 12:You enjoy watching them play five-on-five basketball, so maybe you’d like seeing N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. stars play HORSE from their own homes? Well, it was a good idea. Shaky video and sound and an absence of trick shots meant the show got mostly bad reviews.
🏀 NBA HORSE Challenge 🏀@alliequigleypays homage to “Pistol Pete” Maravich!📺: ESPNpic.twitter.com/EPuhV72ZxQ
April 13:The virus didn’t just postpone leagues, it killed one of them. The XFL, which had begun its first football season in 19 years in February, filed for bankruptcy.
Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images
April 16:Von Miller, the Broncos' star linebacker, revealed he had the coronavirus, one of the most prominent athletes to do so.
Jack Dempsey/Associated Press
April 17:Darts stars were able to set up competitions, with each entrant throwing at his or her own home. Unfortunately, at least one player had to pull out … because of bad Wi-Fi.
Reuters
April 19:With almost no live sports to watch, fans suddenly got extremely interested in Michael Jordan. A 10-part documentary on ESPN, “The Last Dance,” set ratings records and dominated the sports conversation.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBA, via ESPN
April 21:The coronavirus affected everyone, from the small to the mighty. Tom Brady was exercising in a public park in his new hometown, Tampa, Fla., only to be approached by a worker who told him the park was closed.
Tom Brady may have won six Super Bowls, but like the rest of us, he’s just trying to find a place to work out. Tampa mayor@JaneCastorsaid in today’s briefing that a@tampaparksrecemployee approached a man working out downtown and told him the park was closed. It was@TomBrady.pic.twitter.com/etrPdrrGsN
April 25:It was all systems go for the N.F.L. draft, live from … Roger Goodell’s basement? The event offered a preview of the 2020 season, a look at the inside of the homes of future stars and the arresting visual of a dog sitting at Bill Belichick’s desk.
NFL, via Associated Press
May 1:Stadiums around the world sat empty, and some were turned into makeshift hospital wards and intensive care units.
Victor Moriyama for The New York Times
May 4:Athletes, accustomed to training in world-class facilities, were stuck working at home like the rest of us. They had to improvise.
Eric Lalmand/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images
May 5:With no real fans in the stadiums as sports began to resume in some places, teams tried creative alternatives.Robots,mannequins (including sex dolls?),and cardboard cutouts. (Wait, was one of them a notorious serial killer?)
Ryu Young-Suk/Yonhap, via Associated Press
May 5:South Korean baseball returned and was quickly broadcast on American television in the middle of the night. It was a little whiff of spring for deprived baseball fans.
ESPN
May 8:In the middle of the sports desert, an unexpected feat. For the first time, a skateboarder landed a 1080, three full spins, on the half pipe. Oh, and he was 11 years old.
May 9:The Ultimate Fighting Championship pushed the envelope on returning harder than most, eventually settling on Jacksonville, Fla., for three cards in one week. Still to come: bouts on Fight Island, a man-made island in Abu Dhabi.
Julio Cortez/Associated Press
May 15:Rudy Garcia-Tolson had been to the Paralympics four times. But with the postponement of the Games, he decided the extra year would give him the opportunity to train and compete again.
Brittainy Newman/The New York Times
May 16:The Bundesliga resumed in Germany under strict virus protocols. It was one of the biggest leagues yet to return.
Martin Meissner/Associated Press
May 18:It was an era in which something as simple as getting a haircut could get you into trouble. Ben Roethlisberger’s trip to the barber drew a rebuke from the governor of Pennsylvania, though the stylist later said he was just doing a favor for a friend.
Feels good to be back out there with my guys!@TeamJuJu@JamesConner_@Switzpic.twitter.com/hAlOwr7Ias
May 19:The Kentucky Derby and the Preakness were postponed for months, but the Belmont was to go on in June, scrambling the race order for the tradition-laden Triple Crown.
Steven Ryan/Associated Press
May 24:Big-name athletes returned, if only for a golf exhibition: Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning beat Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady. A highlight? Brady ripping his pants.
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images for The Match
May 25:The racecar driver Daniel Abt significantly improved his performance in a virtual racing event. Unfortunately, he had hired a ringer to drive for him.
Kenzo Tribouillard/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
May 28:The marathon circuit was thrown into disarray, with Boston and Berlin canceled and London postponed for six months.
Ryan Mcbride/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
June 1:In Denmark, as elsewhere, soccer fans couldn’t sit in the stands because of social distancing rules. So F.C. Midtjylland, the league leader, hosted a drive-in, inviting fans to watch the game on a big screen outside the stadium from their cars.
Mikkel Berg Pedersen/Ritzau Scanpix, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
June 3:Thomas Waerner won the Iditarod sled dog race. Then the virus stranded him and his dogs in Alaska. They made it safely home to Norway on an unusual conveyance: an antique airplane bound for an aviation museum.
Carina Johansen/EPA, via Shutterstock
June 4:Disney World was to be the center of the American sports world as the N.B.A. and M.L.S. planned to play their games there for an extended period.
Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press
June 5:Sports was trickling back, and so were angry fans. After a loss, a few Benfica supporters in Portugal scrawled graffiti on players’ homes and dropped cobblestones from an overpass onto the team’s bus.
"Estamos bem. Sabemos que os verdadeiros adeptos do Benfica não são assim!"#PeloBenfica#EPluribusUnum
June 5:After shutting down the season, the women’s soccer league in England determined its champion by points per game. And in a mathematical quirk, the winner turned out to be the team in second place, Chelsea.
Richard Sellers/Press Association, via Associated Press
June 8:As other North American leagues finalized plans to return, Major League Baseball owners and players continued to bicker over the future of the season, which was likely to be severely truncated.
Elaine Thompson/Associated Press
June 9:When cricket comes back, for the first time in decades, no one will spit on the ball. The act, always a bit unsavory, became potentially dangerous with the pandemic.
June 9:Ace Speedway in Elon, N.C., defiantly held auto races with large crowds despite warnings from the authorities. Gov. Roy Cooper finally ordered that the track be closed.
Robert Willett/The News & Observer, via Associated Press
June 16:The upper crusty Royal Ascot horse racing meeting went on, but there were no fans in top hats and fascinators, jockeys wore masks, and the Queen was absent for the first time in 68 years.
Pool photo by Edward Whitaker
June 17:At the first Premier League game since March, players from Aston Villa and Sheffield United wore jerseys saying "Black Lives Matter" and all 22 knelt at the start of the game to protest racism and police brutality.
Pool photo by Peter Powell
Produced by Michael Beswetherick