Professional Sports in a Pandemic

[_MeDotOrg]

I miss sports. What we have now feels extraordinarily weird. It makes me realize how important passion from fans helps make a sporting event. Now games are played in empty stadiums that look like ghost towns, with piped-in fan reactions as artificial as the sweetened laugh track from a sitcom.

I watched the end of a clippers/mavericks game, where Luka Dončić scored 42, including a 3 pointer at the buzzer to win the game. The dramatic basket-matching-basket action as the game wound down would have been electrifying in front of a packed house, but it felt like the tree that falls in the forest when no one is around.

The NBA could halt its season. The clippers and the lakers have both reportedly want to end the season. The Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the floor after the shooting of Jacob Blake. Sports feel irrelevant right now, and I think many athletes feel that as well.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

SCREW THE NBA; NFL FOOTBALL STARTS IN THREE WEEKS. I have a new ridiculous tv, a Bose soundbar, and I'm stocked up on cigars. WE'RE ON TO CINCINNATI.

- Doc

[_subgenius]

Sports are not irrelevant, but professional athletes - arguably - are irrelevant right now. Lebron has zero credibility given his position wih Hong Kong, and most likely professional basketball teams are pondering "quit" because no one is tuning in to see their millionaire posturing. I think you can afford to pause your franchise support system and cheer on another group of players making the effort.
But do not lose sight of what sports are - Local sports are active in many communities, and likely convenient to you. Support those around you, watch local sports, and be a part of "that hometown team", because that is what is most important in the whole world of sports.

[_subgenius]

[_Some Schmo]

Sports feel irrelevant right now, and I think many athletes feel that as well.

I know what you meant by this, but I actually think sports has never been so relevant. It's impossible for millions of sports fans to ignore what the players are saying right now.

Trump and his merry band of idiots tried to stuff Kaepernick in a box four years ago, and now we see what happens when the fu-cking children running the country try to ignore a problem in hopes that it will fade away. You've got the kneeling protests x 1,000,000. The Trumpian idiots will be idiots.

I'm not a basketball fan, but I am an NBA players fan this week.