Off-Topic Forum

Both NASCAR and Indycar are still going on, but without fans. (For now) Maybe  without other sports going on more people will watch my first sport on TV and the fanbase will grow.

GatorNationals here in Gainesville, FL have been cancelled ... NHRA

https://nypost.com/2020/03/12/woman-who-survived-coronavirus-shares-her-early-symptoms/amp/

I'm back long enough to say that I have seen no apology from the member here yesterday. Not surprised. Its funny how some still consider this a stupid situation or overboard. I can not visit my mom in the home right now, she has dementia and just got back from a 11 days stay in the hospital from the regular flu, even after having the fall flu shot. So I'm not thrilled at all. The basketball player with the terrible attitude that was lets say player one in the NBA should be suspended for the reminder of the season for what he did. Gary Bettman should apologize for lagging behind the NBA in putting the season on hold. Appears that the NBA is just a bit more willing to do what was right than the NHL. It has gotten our PM and his wife quarentined, I'm guessing yours SHOULD be and its far from done. Let this crazy play out. Oh or move to Russia I think Papa Putin said there was 6 cases total there, right?! =/

I really hope NASCAR sticks to their plan of running the races without fans at the tracks! Otherwise, Sunday is going to be completely BORING!!! The ACC had that plan for the rest of their Tournament until minutes before today's 1st tip-off this afternoon. Then they cancelled the rest of the tourney. It's going to suck to not have the NCAA tourney to take up a bunch of my time for the next month, but I guess that gives me more time to clear some stuff off my DVR.

I'm guessing ESPN will become the Medical Network for a while. They have nothing else to talk about really. OR they'll just start re-airing everything they have in their archives. I suspect theme-days will be coming to ESPN soon. Old NCAA Final Four and Championship games, playoff runs from the past in all the major sports leagues, etc.. If the stoppage lasts long enough, we'll see them re-airing bowling and billiards matches from the past as well.

They should consider running old Olympic Games and/or X-Games. Something ..... anything lol.

That's a good idea. I probably wouldn't watch Olympics stuff (depending on the sport), but I might watch some older X-Games stuff again. What they really could do is air more of the international X-Games competitions. They don't air much from the events held in Norway, Brazil, Spain, etc. in North America. I'd watch those.

Rerunning sports seems trivial in a way right now, but on a personal note also not. Let me explain.

If you look at my avatar you will see me and my two sons. The one in the middle, the young one, is Cooper. He was pretty much in tears this evening because all sports have been cancelled. No baseball, no hockey, no basketball, all the things he loves to watch on tv. He is scared. He is worried nothing will come back. Sports is what he is projecting out, but its everything. School here in Ontario just got shut down for the next three weeks, maybe longer who knows. He is aware that the leader of his country has this virus. And to top that off on him the Ontario Minor Hockey Association cancelled all minor hockey in the province for the foreseeable future...he was about to play in his houseleague's championship game. His first love is the same as his father's (indeed both of the boys) and that is baseball. Both Jackson (the older son) and I are the coaches of his travel baseball team. Cooper also found out today because of the school closures his baseball is suspended because we practice in a grade school gym over the winter months. Pretty much everything the kid loves just got ripped away from him in a matter of hours and at 10 he cannot understand fully why. 

Now that brings me back to the rebroadcast of sports. Normalcy. What I would like to see is not the rebroadcast of Super Bowls, world series, or Olympic glory, We know how that ends. We (he) needs normalcy in a, hopefully short era, where that is being ripped away. Give a random game from 1980 something. Canucks vs Whalers from 1983 where you won't remember how the heck that ended. In other words like watching a live game now. Something you can watch and anticipate something that may or may not happen. You know...how sports are normally watched.

I hate that there's a political discussion here, but I'll chip in anyway. One of America's, and businesses', and ordinary people's great problems is waiting for something to become an actual crisis before doing anything to prevent it. Anyone who knows me well, or even a little, knows that I am not a panicky kind of guy. I don't go around worrying about all the bad things that could happen. I cannot live my life that way. BUT, I am not an idiot. And when I see a danger, I much prefer to prevent it than trying to deal with it when it's out of control. Climate change, an aging team, too much work building up, various family crises, and a freaking pandemic. For all of those, we can sit and compare them to worse situations and say that this isn't that bad. Or we can take reasonable steps immediately to avoid, or at least lessen, the bad future. Each situation is a judgment call. But, boy do I hate when people do virtually nothing when something serious is staring them in the face, only to come back later, when disaster hits, and say, "Whew, no one could have seen THAT coming." Yes, actually, people could see it coming. And people could see THIS coming. They have for weeks. And we've done virtually nothing. Told people it's all good. Nothing to see here. "People are going to work, not even knowing they're sick." Not a big deal. I cannot believe this is our government's reaction.

And for you analogy people: Yes, driving a car is dangerous. And it's STILL dangerous after we've put all sorts of laws in place and taken safety precautions. And yes, thousands of people die of the flu, after we've taken precautions and developed vaccines. So we should do nothing about COVID 19 because it's not as bad as those...yet? "Let's see if maybe it burns itself out. Let's just see if gets really bad. Then maybe, perhaps, if it gets worse than car accidents, we should take some precautions." WHAT?!?!? Shouldn't we do all we can to prevent it from becoming as bad or worse than those things? Isn't part of our job as adults to minimize the obvious dangers in the world? I'm sorry, but I just don't understand people, sometimes. I really don't.

Don't panic. Don't buy all the toilet paper. Don't lock yourself in your house. But, you know what? Also don't put 20,000 people in close proximity to one another for the sake of a little entertainment. I LOVE the NCAA tournament. Both Maryland men and women could have won the whole thing this year. I look forward to few things more than baseball's opening day. My kid has three wonderful trips that are in jeopardy. I can't go visit colleges with my other kid. That kid's musical, in which she has a huge role and has worked her tail off, is likely to be cancelled. I might not get to go to my older kid's graduation. And that all makes me sad. But so what? We need to take steps to prevent this disease from spreading wider and faster. We just do. The smart countries that have acted decisively and quickly have nearly contained the virus. The idiot countries, of which we are now one, are watching things get worse. 

I'm sorry, but complaining that our little sports entertainment is gone or essentially alleging that the entire world is conspiring to make our President look bad is asinine. There's a crisis. Do something useful -- my daughter is joining a network to be available to help anyone in the neighborhood in need -- or stay out of the way. But don't complain about conspiracies and games. Just don't. 

I'm done now. 

v3

I completely agree with you, rmpaq5. I'd rather watch re-runs of something I don't remember instead of classic games or series'. But I'm guessing that ESPN will only care about ratings to fill the void left in what were supposed to be live broadcasts. They'll try to do that with big-name match-ups from the past. The NCAA is the only one canceling things right now (maybe the PGA did too). The major sports leagues are just postponing things until later. They'll pick back up before too long. As for your youngest son, tell him about the lock-outs in the MLB, NBA and NHL that have happened since 1994. They all got it together eventually and started playing again. All these suspensions are not cancellations of a season like the lock-outs were. I'd think that can comfort him some. He'll be able to play ball again soon. There just won't be quite as many games probably.

Most of the counties in my area have now suspended all after-school activities/gatherings (all sports, all band/drama/chorus performances, etc.) until further notice. They haven't canceled school itself so far.

The "overkill" of precaution for Covid-19 is a world-wide attempt to cut off the spread of the virus much faster than in the past when MERS, SARS, and H1N1 lasted way longer than they would have if these steps had been taken earlier for each of those events. China is now claiming they will have a cure within 30 days. I can't say I believe that from China, but I can believe that some country will find a cure or fast-acting medicine within that time. With all the precautions taken across the planet, there's a good chance that life gets back to normal in the next 30-60 days.