Fans Want Sports. Sports Want Fans. But It’s Not That Simple.

As much of the nation emerges from the cultural hibernation caused by the coronavirus, with varying degrees of concern and glee, American sports are now thrusting themselves headlong into the recovery effort.

It is not going particularly well.

Despite the announced comeback plans of several major American sports leagues in the past days and weeks, there are no regular-season games on any public, revised schedules. There may be a lot of quarantining at single sites, but no clue as to when teams might play again in home arenas and stadiums. There are no sturdy plans for having fans.

Even in a best-case scenario — and 2020 is where best-case scenarios go to die — there may be nothing that resembles a normal game between now and September.

“We have to get our sports back,” President Trump said — in mid-April.

Two months later, all American sports have are loose plans and good intentions.

For weeks, Major League Baseball could not figure out how to play even a part of a season, creating the possibility that 2020 would be the first year without baseball in 150 years.

The N.B.A. wants to quarantine teams in Florida to finish a season in August and perform a two-month postseason beyond that, though some players are balking at such confinement, partly over racial unrest. The N.H.L. has similar ideas for finishing a season that would have ended by now, in a normal year, but nothing is truly scheduled.

In tennis, Wimbledon in late June and early July was wiped out. The United States Open in New York has vowed to start on time in late August, but some players do not want to go, raising questions about whether a fanless, star-depleted event is worth the effort.

\"At — At MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the lockdown offered a long window to swap out the playing surface.Credit...Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press

N.F.L. teams are not sure about the start of training camps in July, and the N.C.A.A. has no cohesive plan and no real idea for what the coming seasons in college football or other sports might look like. The collective strategy is largely to cross fingers.

“One of my takeaways from all this is that we don’t have uniform risk tolerance in this country,” the University of Washington epidemiologist Steve Mooney said. “I have some fear that people who have a higher tolerance of risk than I do are making these decisions.”

There are glints of optimism. Professional golf and NASCAR have returned, though more as made-for-TV events than as anything resembling a collective experience.

Fans, desperate to be entertained and discombobulated by the loss of traditional sports cycles, still do not know if there will be games, or if they will be invited to attend them.

And as they see clips of normal-seeming games from around the world — soccer in Europe, baseball in Asia, rugby in New Zealand — nothing feels normal at home. When England’s Premier League became the latest to return to the field on Wednesday, with matches at home stadiums but without fans, even that modest reboot looked like a mirage from the American viewpoint.

Messages are mixed. Commissioners unveil plans. Scientists inject reality.

“The virus doesn’t watch football games,” said George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

The risk-versus-reward equation has never been more fraught. More than 116,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, and two million have tested positive for the coronavirus in the United States. The country’s daily death toll was 800, on average, in the first half of June. Hopes that the virus would recede in the summer have been punctured by spikes in some parts of the country.

A virus testing site in Brooklyn. Epidemiologists said reserving tests for athletes raised ethics concerns.Credit...James Estrin/The New York Times

The risk remains exacerbating the spread of a highly contagious and deadly virus.

The reward is entertainment, first on television, someday again in the bleachers and luxury boxes and sports bars. It is also economic. There are billions of dollars to be made and spent.

“People who are not sports fans, I could see how they might question if it’s responsible to restart sports, especially when somebody isn’t allowed to restart their job,” said Dawn Comstock, a sports epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health.

She and others also wonder about the ethics of spending finite resources on sports — testing, especially — that might be used elsewhere.

For now, it is mostly the professional leagues desperately trying to reboot, perhaps setting an example that will flow through colleges, high schools and youth sports.

They are navigating those epic concerns while trying to appease their fans and finances, getting mired in politics, logistics and geography. Comstock said she believed rules could be put in place to make most sports safe. Few are asking if those rules can be followed.

She noted a high school baseball team in Iowa, kneeling shoulder to shoulder, without masks, during the national anthem on Monday. She saw a girls’ soccer scrimmage at a park in Denver on Tuesday, the parents spread out but the substitutes on the sideline gathered close to the coach.

Germany’s Bundesliga warned celebrating teammates to keep their distance. But old habits die hard.Credit...Pool photo by Thilo Schmuelgen

And what of the high-five, the huddle, the mob after a goal or a game-winning home run?

“It’s such a challenge, not just because of the virus, but how we play sports,” Comstock said. “The activities are so ingrained and part of the culture that even when the sport can be played safely, it’s not likely that the participant will be willing to adopt the guidelines needed to do that.”

She laughed.

“And that’s just the players,” she said.

Putting people in the stands is riskier and more complicated. In a recent New York Times survey of more than 500 epidemiologists, 64 percent said they would wait a year or more before attending a sporting event, concert or play. It was a higher percentage than any other activity.

“Not that I don’t love sporting events, but for me, the risk-reward ratio is wrong,” Mooney said.

Rutherford, at U.C.-San Francisco, expects there will be major college football in the fall, partly because there is so much money at stake, and also some fans — spread out, masked, maybe even tested.

“Ten, 12, 15,000 fans, mostly season-ticket holders? Yeah, that strikes me as doable,” he said. “Trying to fill up the Rose Bowl? That’s another issue.”

Mooney is more pessimistic. Even classes on most campuses are not certain.

“I think it’s unlikely that there will be football games at U.W. in the fall,” he said of Washington, a member of the Pac-12 Conference. “I’d be pretty outraged if I need to teach my class remotely, but the football stadium is filled with people who intermingle.”

Still, plans are emerging, clunkily. Major League Soccer has scheduled its return, but in a revised format and at a single site in Florida. On Monday, the W.N.B.A. announced plans for a shortened, single-site season, also beginning in July, though no schedule was released.

The Coronavirus Outbreak

Frequently Asked Questions and Advice

Updated June 16, 2020
- I’ve heard about a treatment called dexamethasone. Does it work?
  
  The steroid, dexamethasone, is the first treatment shown to reduce mortality in severely ill patients, according to scientists in Britain. The drug appears to reduce inflammation caused by the immune system, protecting the tissues. In the study, dexamethasone reduced deaths of patients on ventilators by one-third, and deaths of patients on oxygen by one-fifth.
- What is pandemic paid leave?
  
  The coronavirus emergency relief package gives many American workers paid leave if they need to take time off because of the virus. It gives qualified workers two weeks of paid sick leave if they are ill, quarantined or seeking diagnosis or preventive care for coronavirus, or if they are caring for sick family members. It gives 12 weeks of paid leave to people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose child care provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus. It is the first time the United States has had widespread federally mandated paid leave, and includes people who don’t typically get such benefits, like part-time and gig economy workers. But the measure excludes at least half of private-sector workers, including those at the country’s largest employers, and gives small employers significant leeway to deny leave.
- Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
  
  So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.
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  Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.
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  A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.
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  The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.
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  Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.
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  States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’t being told to stay at home, it’s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.
- What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
  
  Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
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  If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
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  Taking one’s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “normal” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’t have a thermometer (they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
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  The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.
- What should I do if I feel sick?
  
  If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
- How do I get tested?
  
  If you’re sick and you think you’ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’t be able to get tested.

The same day, Major League Baseball’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, said he was “not confident” that there would be a 2020 season, a week after saying “unequivocally” that he was “100 percent” sure there would be.

The change was foreboding. If professional baseball could not figure out how to play games in the summer, which it has been doing since the 1870s, what hope is there for everyone else?

(By Wednesday, Manfred was saying that he and the head of baseball’s players union had reached an agreement for a 60-game regular season, but it still needs the players to sign off.)

Globe Life Field, the new home of the Texas Rangers. If baseball doesn’t hurry, it may not use it at all this year.Credit...LM Otero/Associated Press

The N.B.A.’s plans to convene and quarantine at Disney World in July has met some resistance. Players worry about time secluded from family, and the racial turmoil and protests after the death of George Floyd have left some stars, including Dwight Howard and Kyrie Irving, questioning American priorities.

“Basketball, or entertainment period, isn’t needed at this moment, and will only be a distraction,” Howard, a veteran player for the Los Angeles Lakers, said.

A distraction is precisely the point, at least to some. Sports occupy an elevated place in American culture, and part of the mythology is that they are not just wanted, but needed, especially in times of crisis.

That might be a reasonable argument after a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. But it is a thorny one during a pandemic.

“We have an obligation to try this,” Adam Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A., told ESPN this week. “Because the alternative is to stay on the sideline. And the alternative is to, in essence, give in to this virus.”

Despite all the cheery announcements and detailed plans, there remain more questions than answers. How to keep athletes, coaches and staff safely quarantined from the outside world, and the outside world safe from them? What if someone declines to participate? What if someone tests positive? What if a dozen people do? What about the support staff?

Mainly, what is the proper ratio of risk to reward in the name of entertainment?

Already, football players from Alabama and Texas were among those to have tested positive as college teams gathered for workouts. N.F.L. players tested positive for the virus, too, raising concern over what will happen when they convene for training camp.

That makes it hard to imagine stadiums filled with opposing teams — never mind thousands of fans — come late August, as scheduled.

Never have American sports fans been left without teams to cheer for so long. Back in March, it was the decisive shutdown of the N.B.A., the halt of baseball’s spring training and the cancellation of the N.C.A.A.’s basketball tournaments that signaled the seriousness of the pandemic to many Americans. The anticipation was a short recess, maybe 30 days.

Remember that?

Three months later, with Americans looking for plenty of distraction and signals that everything will be OK, the message from sports is that we have no real idea of what the coming months will bring — or which games will be a part of them.

The faded hopes of spring hopscotch into a summer of discontent, toward an ever-uncertain autumn.