A day after ESPN’s
Brian Windhorst reported that the NBA will be spending more than $150 million to operate its Orlando Bubble, there’s a question that needs to be asked:
The hell are we doing, man?
It’s a question I’ve been thinking about for a while.
The return of sports, chiefly — the NBA’s bubble, MLB’s 60-game sprint and the NFL’s, well, business as usual — feels reckless and dangerous.
I’m not the only one who’s been asking this question.
I was emboldened to write this after hearing a recent segment on ESPN’s The Dan LeBatard Show with Stugotz. Midway through the opening hour of Wednesday’s show (jump to the
19:21 mark), LeBatard offered the following analysis.
“Even though it goes against the better interests of everyone at this company, I begin the siren call on, ‘It’s really irresponsible to play sports now.’ Like, we need to be saying this. I think somebody here needs to be saying this really strongly…”
“Super irresponsible and greedy, Stugotz,” LeBatard continued, as the music played and his co-host, the aforementioned Stugotz, prepared to read a sponsor’s ad. “To be headed back into sports at the moment. It’s feeling more and more like that everyday and I say that as someone in the middle of getting paid from sports.”
Today, there was the news that Florida — the teeth of the pandemic, oh, and the site of the bubble — reported
10,109 new cases of COVID-19, setting a new one-day record in the state.
The NBA and the NBA Players Association also reported the sport's latest testing results,
nine new positives between June 24-29.
As if the concept of a bubble weren’t problematic enough, then there’s MLB and the NFL, who aren’t even bothering with such a setup, instead endeavoring to fly around the country. A country which continues to demonstrate staggeringly poor judgement amid this massive public health crisis.
Some young people in Alabama are throwing Covid-19 parties, a disturbing competition where people who have coronavirus attend and the first person to get infected receives a payout, local officials say. https://t.co/jp8PoX3a3w
— CNN International (@cnni)
July 2, 2020 Earlier this week, ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio reported that “multiple” NFL teams are planning to fly to, and from, road games on game day. A strategy that speaks to the inherent concern surrounding these games and, again, begs the question:
The hell are we doing, man?
