After a fall sports season in which media pundits spread doom and gloom about the spread of the coronavirus, the results are in: They were wrong on every count.
Pundits such as ESPN’s Max Kellerman declared that the NFL would never finish its season if it did not take place in a bubble. But the NFL managed to play all 269 games this season, with fans in the stands for many of them, and a study now suggests that NFL and college football games with fans in the stands did not cause significant increases in coronavirus cases.
Meanwhile, the dire predictions of “super spreader” events haven’t come to pass, either. Two weeks after Super Bowl LV and the maskless celebrations in Tampa Bay, Florida, cases in the city have continued to decrease. Pundits such as Vox’s Aaron Rupar were wrong (and often hypocritical) to bemoan that Notre Dame students celebrating their victory over Clemson in football would spread the virus as well.
These Tweets were less than 11 hours apart. The coronabros are complete and total hypocrites. pic.twitter.com/ImHYol0no7
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) November 8, 2020
It wasn’t just the professional or collegiate levels that proved everyone wrong. High school sports are still shut down in some parts of the country. Yet, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, released a study back in October suggesting that high school sports did not cause an increase in cases among athletes in the state of Wisconsin.
College athletes, who wanted to play their sports seasons, were ignored as people such as the Atlantic’s Jemele Hill indirectly mocked them as being in denial about the pandemic. Kurt Streeter of the New York Times said the real champions were the teams that didn’t play, while USA Today’s Christine Brennan said playing football in the fall was worse than covering up sexual assault allegations.
The only known college football player to die of the coronavirus, Jamain Stephens, attended California University in Pennsylvania, a school that did not play football this season. Much like the NFL, college football conferences that did the proper planning had successful seasons, and no athletes for teams actively playing died from the virus.
Every dire prediction aimed at the sports world was wrong. Even now, the Ivy League, the first conference to cancel its fall sports season, has terminated its spring season despite all evidence that it could be done safely. The return of sports was a massive success, and, with cases falling across the country as more people are vaccinated, it’s clear that sports should be allowed to move forward with fewer restrictions, not more.
