Big 12 tourneys continuing as planned as MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS curtail locker-room access
As COVID-19 coronavirus concerns grow, major U.S. sports leagues and events are taking mitigation steps that include limited media access or outright postponement and cancellation.
On Monday, a joint statement issued by the NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer announced that they are closing locker rooms and clubhouses to all non-essential personnel in response to the coronavirus situation.
The statement read, in part, “Given the issues that can be associated with close contact in pre- and post-game settings, all team locker rooms and clubhouses will be open only to players and essential employees of teams and team facilities until further notice. Media access will be maintained in designated locations outside the locker room and clubhouse setting.”
The changes, which the leagues say are temporary, will begin Tuesday.
The high-profile PNB Paribas Open tennis tournament had been set to begin this week in Indian Wells, California. Instead, it has been postponed after a case of coronavirus was confirmed in the area.
Several of college basketball’s major conference tournaments begin this week, including the Big 12 men’s and women’s tourneys in Kansas City. Next week, the NCAA Tournament will be scattered in cities across the country. No schedule alterations, or policies banning fans or media, have been implemented for March Madness ... not yet, anyway.
NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said Sunday that plans to operate the NCAA Tournament in 14 host cities over a three-week span beginning March 17 remain in place.
“The advice we’re getting from our experts is playing without fans is uncalled for,” Gavitt said.
Throughout America’s history, sporting events have been affected in times of tragedy or health crises. The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists attacks brought the NFL, college football, MLB and NASCAR to a halt. Football games resumed after a weekend of inactivity.
The assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963 produced what then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle said was the biggest mistake of his tenure: not postponing a full schedule of games to be played two days later. Several college football games set for that weekend were postponed.
In terms of prolonged impact on games, nothing tops the influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed 675,000 Americans and at least 50 million worldwide.
The first documented influenza case occurred at Camp Funston at Fort Riley, Kansas. In just a month, it had spread across the Atlantic Ocean to soldiers fighting in Europe during World War I. The virus faded away but returned ferociously in the fall and affected that year’s college football season.
The flu and war-time travel restrictions — teams had to be able to travel to and from an opponent’s venue in one day — reduced the numbers of games many teams played to just four or five.
Missouri’s eight-game season was wiped out. The school closed for several weeks, and Columbia banned public gatherings.
At Kansas, students were forbidden to leave Lawrence. A temporary hospital was built on campus. The Jayhawks played four football games that fall. Some 22 students and 10 in military training on campus died.
Kansas State played five games in 1918. Those teams were part of the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association. No conference games were scheduled that year. There were no league standings; there was no champion crowned.
Though nothing has since come close to matching the disruptions of the 1918 college football season, the flu has made news in sports as recently as 2009.
Several programs, including Wisconsin, Mississippi, Duke and Tulane, dealt with depleted rosters during the preseason that year because of the spread of the H1N1 virus. And a Division II program in Alabama, Stillman College, canceled its opener because 37 players had come down with flu-like symptoms.