News: MLS Suspends season due to Coronavirus

https://www.beinsports.com/en/serie-a/news/italian-pm-wants-more-guarantees-before-serie/1467578

Italian PM not ready to support Serie A return quite yet.

 

Probably waiting for the infection rate to decrease

 

I've heard they'll pay you $5 per game to watch.

 

About those South Korean "spectators"...

https://www.espn.com/soccer/fc-seou...seoul-apologise-as-sex-dolls-appear-in-stands

 

Watching the Dortmund vs Shalke Game..

the no celebration thing is stupid. They can't celebrate together, but on corner kicks, free kicks and the like there are a LOT of contaact, not to say the whole game. Banning celebrations while letting the other such contacts occour is just stupid

 

Wouldn't surprise me if MLS does the same when they come back

 

The lack of crowd interaction wasnt as bothersome as i had imagined it would be.

 

The Scottish Premiership has announced Celtic as the champions and Hearts as the relegated team. That wraps up the season for Scotland.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52646282

 

I actually had the opposite reaction. A Dortmund match, particularly a rivalry match with Schalke, without the Yellow Wall made it much less enjoyable for me.

 

Watching the non-England non-Germany leagues once they start up is going to be a lot less noticeable.

On the plus side, less racism in Serie A and homophobia and Ligue 1.

 

Vaccine by January? Initial tests on a vaccine created by Moderna and funded by NIH is having promising results as volunteers are developing antibodies against the coronavirus.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/health/coronavirus-vaccine-moderna-early-results/index.html

 

Maybe we will also finally get some answers of whether antibodies provide immunity in a few months. They almost certainly do, but we just have not had proof yet. Also, all the people who have retested positive in Korea have been shown to NOT be contagious.

EDIT: Also the Oxford study can theoretically be complete by September, but only if enough people in their control group get sick, which means they need the rate of infection in England to remain high.

 

Unfortunately this is likely going to be the hard part. There's more likely than not "some" immunity given by antibodies but we really don't know how much if any. If not, we're in for a world of problems.

 

They just want your credit card number.

 

They do. They've been shown to provide immunity in monkeys, and with millions infected around the world we'd be seeing widespread reinfection by now if they didn't. We just don't have any scientific proof yet.

 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-18/newsom-reopening-coronavirus-benchmark

People are saying the latest from Newsom would allow spectator free sporting events in California in early JUNE.

Quite an acceleration from previous statements.

 

They need to open Sofi Stadium somehow

 

With so many states now allowing spectator free sports, I wonder if the NBA and NHL will end up dropping their neutral site idea... Probably not because of Canadian teams...

 

Tax $$$$$$

California might have been the first state to indicate that it was owed state income tax for work performed in California regardless of the legal residence of the person performing the work. This was seen as a way to capture a large portion of payroll being paid out by professional sports teams and entertainment industry (movie business) to players/actors who would maintain their legal residence in a more income tax friendly state.

If professional sports opens back up - specifically the Big 4 sports and specific other athletes (MLS DPs, PGA...) California (and other states) that chose not to open up would be losing large amounts of tax revenue at the exact moment that their revenues are already cratering.

 

I expect that we'd see something like when the New Orleans Hornets spent a couple of years in Oklahoma City after Hurricane Katrina.

There are definitely places that would love to temporarily house an NBA/NHL team (Sprint Center in Kansas City anyone?). I suspect finding temporary homes for Toronto FC, Vancouver Whitecaps, and L'Impact de Montréal wouldn't be too hard.

 

The real problem with New York, California, and Texas (among others) getting on the "let's have pro sports" train is how to safely move teams around. The Big Four leagues could probably foot charters and have dedicated staff/ground transportation. That sort of thing would be a big expense item for a league with MLS's non-gameday revenue stream.

 

MLS is probably the only borderline major league for whom this will be a tough decision. I don't expect the minor leagues to bother playing games without fans - not enough TV revenue.

 

For MLS I think the big deciding factor is the language in the TV contract. Do they need to meet a certain number of games to satisfy this season? If they don't, do they owe a year or is the year simply cancelled?
While our current deal isn't that big, our next deal is widely expected to be much larger. Having to make up a year at the current rate instead of getting to that new deal ASAP is a twist.

 

MLS will probably stick with its Orlando plan if it can get the union to agree.