Come on, even the first FA Cup final had an attendance of 2,000. It will take more than one season to establish a new competition.
People seem to think every country is like England or Germany when it comes to attendance. This year's Coppa Italia had 3rd round games where Parma and Genoa draw 5.5k each, Udinese 5.2k, and Sassuolo 2.9k. The 4th round had several first division teams not even break 2k. Udinese had an attendance of 3k for their match. The Coupe de France has some real crap attendance at times and even Nice only drew half their normal attendance for a quarter-final game while several teams in the Netherlands play to half or less of their normal attendance. Of course even the FA Cup has half filled stadiums in a bunch of earlier round games, but people only focus on the crowds of the big teams or when a big team plays down a level. They ignore Burnley playing in front of 8k, Preston North End getting 7.6k for a game against Norwich (they averaged 13.5k in the league), or Cardiff not even getting 5k (averaged 22.8k in the league) for a game against Reading. People need to get some perspective when they assume that the USOC isn't taken as seriously as it is in "Europe".
It's hard to see the news re: the Oxford study as being particularly comforting. This BBC story (about the Moderna vaccine, but with an Oxford update) includes this quote: It ends with: So it might not reduce transmission. That has to be a serious shortcoming. The news of the Moderna vaccine trial is very heartening, but the Oxford results are probably a reminder of why we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves until human trials are much further along, and there's a better idea of how billions of doses of vaccine can be made. There's never been an RNA vaccine for humans that's gone to market. But the good news is that it should be faster and cheaper to ramp up production than would be the case for a traditional vaccine: https://www.phgfoundation.org/briefing/rna-vaccines
And the bad news is that it will be very hard to distribute as RNA vaccines have very short expiration dates. I am still optimistic about the Oxford vaccine. If it cuts death tolls by say... 10 by preventing the chance of pneumonia it's still a game changer until we can get something better.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/costa-r...ere-able-to-restart-two-months-after-shutdown The Costa Rican league is back.
Read the articles about the Modena work - they essentially released a press release after testing on 8 people. It was done specifically to get administration attention and shouldn't be cause for either enthusiasm or pessimism. Science needs to science before we get enthusiastic.
Did you check out this this article that @CMeszt posted? None of this invalidates anything in the Moderna research. Just places it into context. I appreciate that people whose opinions I value still say they're cautiously optimistic about this. Though that doesn't mean they're optimistic we'll have a vaccine by early 2021.
Lets see the news out of Oxford that they are promising by mid-June. They skipped small trials and went straight to thousands, so they really are years ahead of everyone else.
A collab from @TheAthleticSCCR crew. More details on the working proposal for the MLS tournament in Orlando.➡️ Four groups with seeded teams (LAFC, Seattle, Atlanta and... ?!)➡️ Five games count toward regular season➡️ Potential expanded playoff fieldhttps://t.co/sAMSQH96hL pic.twitter.com/xokw3VW2zc— Paul Tenorio (@PaulTenorio) May 21, 2020 Too weird. I'd rather they just crown the winner of this tournament the 2020 champion and move on to planning a way for us to have a full 2021...
So I read the athletic article (you all should subscribe) and it seems like a decent plan to get something on the field and salvage some joy. It does seem that there is a lot of convincing to be done for the players to agree. The article mentions that some stars (Vela, Chicharito and Nani specifically) aren't fans of the idea. I think the bottom line with the near term return of sports is that there are no good options just a variety of bad ones to choose from.
So between 3% and 5% of the entire population of the city they play in? haha. but I get your point. Coppa Italia has never been seen as very prestigious. I wonder why they bother with it tbh.
It does seem a pretty pointless exercise once you've got 22 players playing a soccer game with all that entails. Everyone is breathing down each other's necks on set pieces while yelling. So what if teammates, who are practicing together everyday, additionally yell after a goal? It seems negligible at that point.
NHL voting on whether they should come back with a 24 team playoff instead of finishing the regular season.
The United States is investing $1 billion to start manufacturing the Oxford vaccine at scale this fall. (presumably only if it works)
That hasn't stopped some political figures from investing in and promoting experimental drugs that have PROVEN to not be effective against Covid......
Or maybe not. I mean, Bill Gates is proposing to fund (or help fund) the proactive development of seven factories to produce the seven most promising vaccines, while testing is still underway. The only way to get vaccines mass-produced quickly is to build out the capacity to produce them in vast quantities while the vaccines are still in development (i.e., before it's known which one(s) - if any - will work). That almost guarantees that some (perhaps a lot of) money will be spent building facilities that aren't used. But if you don't do it, you delay by months actually having access to a working vaccine. To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with the US Government (or Gates Foundation) "wasting" a few billion $ in this way. Money well-spent, if you ask me.
I suppose you’d have to look at the cost of unused manufacturing capacity vs the cost of a multi-month delay in rolling out the vaccine. Seems like a no-brainer to me if reopening the economy in earnest is the goal.
Reasons: Germany is a bit bigger than New Mexico. Germany has full buy in from all towns, cities, leagues, etc. for testing, tracing, distancing, etc. Germany overall understands that science will drive this and will ultimately provide the way out and back to a new normal. Having all MLS teams in one area is a bit like having all the teams in one state. We could have all the teams come to CA and play in San Jose, Stanford, Berkeley, Oakland, Los Angeles, Carson, Pasadena, Coliseum, and UCLA. Northern Cal/Southern Cal - travel by bus. The problem is a lack of permanent broadcast infrastructure. Orlando apparently has that. If they had made a plan a month ago we could have CA Regions/Games. But - we've got Florida.
How quickly can you vaccinate 365 million people, how do you monitor potential side-effects, and how many have to suffer side effects before you shut the whole thing down?