Get Ready to Watch Your Favorite Sports Teams Play With No Live Audience

The spread of COVID-19 continues to affect all aspects of everyday life and the sports world is no different. March Madness will be played with no fans, the Golden State Warriors will also play a game in an empty arena. But what about Major League Baseball? Opening day is two weeks away and while they would like to use alternate sites for games, it seems like they too might play with no fans in attendance. Jared Diamond, national baseball writer at the Wall Street Journal, joins us for more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Thursday, March twelve. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily
coronavirus update. The spread of COVID nineteen continues to affect
all aspects of everyday life, and the sports world is
no different. March Madness will be played with no fans.

(00:21):
The Golden State Warriors will also play a game in
an empty arena. But what about Major League Baseball opening
days two weeks away? And while they would like to
use alternate sites for games, it seems like they too
might play with no fans in attendance. Jared Diamond, national
baseball writer at The Wall Street Journal, joins us for more.

(00:43):
Thanks for joining us, Jared, Yeah, thanks for having me.
The situation with coronavirus COVID nineteen is moving very fast
across the United States, and we want to take a
look into how it's impacting the sports world overseas. We've
already seen a bunch of soccer game MS and other
sports being played in empty stadiums without any fans. That

(01:04):
seems to be what's going to start happening now here
in the United States. I think San Francisco and Washington
have put bands on large gatherings of people, So the
Golden State Warriors are gonna have to do a basketball
game with no fans in attendance. There's a lot of
stuff happening, but Major League Baseball has not really decided

(01:25):
exactly what it's going to be doing yet opening days March,
so it's about two weeks away and they're trying to
find some contingency plans on what to do. They want
to try to take each game on a case by
case basis. Jared tell us what they're working on. Baseball's
hope and goal throughout all of this was if they
had to do something, their first choice was alternate sites

(01:48):
for games, as opposed to the empty stadium approach which
we're now seeing in San Francisco in Columbus, Ohio, which
we're likely to see in other places that well moving forward.
But the reality is, even since a day or two ago,
the possibility of actually doing these games and alternate sites
is becoming less and less likely. More and more local

(02:09):
governments are stepping in and saying that you cannot have
mass gatherings. At the end of the day, it's very
hard to envision a scenario where any sport is played
in front of fans for the foreseeable future, So ultimately,
I don't think this is going to be Baseball's decision.
These decisions are being made for them by these governmental entities,

(02:30):
as seems like one after the other is now coming
out saying no mass gatherings in this city or this state.
One of the interest things I noted in your article
is that roly MLB stadiums are owned by governmental agencies,
So if a local government there says something, they're really
gonna not have any say there. They don't have any
say in Seattle right now, where they're already have made

(02:52):
it clear they're not going to be able to play
in front of fans in Seattle, at least for the
beginning of this season. We've seen orders come down Ohio
as well that so far only pertained to indoor events,
but could very easily sort of expand outwards from there.
Baseball says, we want to find alternate sites. Well, where
are these alternate sites? Right? If every single state has

(03:15):
rules against large gatherings with fans, they're they're not going
to be any alternate sites for baseball or any sport
to play, which is why it just feels like we're
getting to the place where we're going to have to
just either not play at all, which is obviously the
last last resort, or play in front of empty stadiums,
and look, the Double A Tournament is doing it. Mark Madness.

(03:35):
I think if March Madness could agree that it's best
to play in front of no fans, who have to
imagine ultimately baseball in all sports, the NBA, NHL come
to that conclusion as well. Yeah, I know Lebron James
had said he would not want to play if there
were no fans there. I know he hasn't necessarily walked
anything back, but he's kind of quieted down about that.
But it would just totally upend all these sports if

(03:58):
they were not to play. I mean, they've basically canceled
the season at that point. I guess it just seems
like it's more trouble to not play than just to
go without the fans for a few months, hopefully just
a few months. Who knows how long these bands would last.
We're in uncharted waters here for sure. There's no playbook
for this because this has never happened before. But I
will say I think that the leagues rightfully are going

(04:21):
to do everything in their power to play the games.
And then I don't mean to sound sentimental when I
say this, but the reality is we're moving toward a
scenario where large swaths of the country are going to
be sitting at home for potentially weeks at a time.
That's just where this is going, and it would be
naive at this point to think otherwise. And I think
it would be really meaningful to people to have these

(04:43):
games don TV when they're sitting at home, going store crazy,
to have baseball games, to have March Madness games, have
NBA playoff games in April, May, June, whatever on TV.
I think that would really matter to folks. And I
hope that the leagues, and I think they do recognize
that and understand that even if there are no fans
in the building, there's real value to trying to get

(05:04):
these games into the extent possible. And we hope we
don't get to the point we're playing the games becomes impossible.
But if the alternative is playing in front of empty arenas,
empty stadiums, if that's something that we agree is could work,
I think that would be a really good option that
would really make a lot of people happy and what
is a really difficult time. Spring training is going on
right now in Arizona and Florida. Things haven't really slowed

(05:27):
down there. I mean, they're still holding games. There's still
attendance levels I think are kind of at the same
as they have been before. So it hasn't slowed down
as of yet on that front. As of now, spring
training has been business as usual for the most part.
The players seem to be, by and large blissfully unaware
that there's a global emergency going on outside their doors.

(05:49):
I mean, these are pro athletes have this incredible way
of like being in the zone and blocking out everything
else besides of what they have to do. And that's
where baseball players are right now. I don't think many
of them have quite come to grips with the fact
that their lives and jobs are about to fundamentally change.
But they'll get there, because, as I've been saying, I
really believe that we're very close to every league, baseball, basketball, hockey,

(06:14):
saying probably collectively we're gonna have no fans at games
for the foreseeable future. I just, at this moment I
sit here today, I don't see any alternative. I don't
see how that isn't the end results of this just
the way things are going. Do you think MLB makes
the call a lot sooner than later. We only have
two weeks until opening days, So when do you think
they'll start making the calls. I think it's going to

(06:36):
be an announcement put out by the NBA, NHL, and
baseball altogether. All the leagues and Major League Soccer got
together and put out a statement a couple of days
ago saying they were closing their locker rooms to media
and other sort of non essential personnel. That was a
joint statement that was made collectively with those four leagues.
I would not be surprised if we see the same
sort of thing here where all these leads get together

(06:59):
and together as one say this is what we're doing.
At the end of the day, they're not gonna have
a choice, right because we're already seeing these governments making
these calls for them more going to do that soon,
very soon. It seems like they will not have any
option but to do this or canceled games entirely, which
remains the absolute last resort. And I think for good reason. Well,

(07:20):
it's just another look at how COVID nineteen. The coronavirus
is really changing daily life. The pandemic is here now
and we'll have to all adjust as things keep going.
Jared Diamond, national baseball writer at The Wall Street Journal,
thank you very much for joining us. Yeah, thank you.
Stay safe out there. This has been your daily coronavirus update.

(07:43):
I'm Oscar Ramirez and don't forget that. For today's big
news stories, you can check me out on the Daily
Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us on
our heart radio or wherever you get your podcasts