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Talkin’ Sports
What Do You Think About “The Bubble”?
By Justin Hanover
I
t was the average mid March Wednesday night, pretty much like every other Wednesday night. I returned home from my soccer match, took a shower, grabbed something to eat and sat down in front of the computer. With the family all tucked away in dream mode I logged onto twitter to see the usual nightly “hot takes”. The first tweet I encountered seemed like the dumbest, as in ever. It read and I quote, “The NBA has suspended its season”. My first thought was, sure people say and do ridiculous things on twitter but this one may have just taken the cake. How and why would the NBA suspend its operations? That doesn’t happen, how silly. Then suddenly a flood of similar tweets reigned down. Long story short, the Oklahoma City Thunder game against Utah was canceled because Jazz Center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the Coronavirus and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver took swift action in actually suspending the season. Then all the other sports followed suit. You see, when your entire career has been centered around professional sports and announcing to the fans, this is especially shocking. Eventually many people in the know starting talking about “a bubble”. This is where the players, coaches and mandatory personnel all go to a central location. They basically stay quarantined away from anybody but themselves. But how could entire leagues pull this off? We’re talking thousands of people. The National Women’s Soccer league and Major League Soccer were the first to return in America. The “most popular sport in the world” became
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our guinea pigs creating this bubble and actually showed it could work. Both tournaments were played with great success and a lack of positive tests, with the ladies in Utah and the men down in Disney World. “The Bubble” has also worked so far for both the NBA (also in Disney) and NHL (in Edmonton and Toronto) as they have advanced into their playoffs without any setbacks. All leagues followed this strategy, except Major League baseball, which opted to play in normal home ballparks, without fans, meaning OUR HOMETOWN BRAVES would still be running the bases right here in Truist Park, but without anybody in attendance (except cardboard “fans”). Unfortunately the Cardinals and Marlins early on had numerous positive tests and therefore had to take a break for a few weeks. St. Louis stopped after just five games where as other franchises continued to play as many as 20 games before the Cardinals were able to come back. When adding in other team outbreaks Major League Baseball has become the “outcast” and has somewhat been rendered to disaster status. We have seen our beloved sports justifiably be put on the back burner due to real life issues and are trying to make a comeback. For the most part, except for baseball, it has been successful. Stay tuned and....Go Braves! Justin Hanover is a sports reporter/analyst who has worked in the business since 1996. His stops have included ESPN, CNN, 790 The Zone and 680 The Fan. He has also done play-by-play analysis and color commentary ranging from the high school level all the way through the professional level. Justin lives in Smyrna with his wife and three children.
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