News: MLS Suspends season due to Coronavirus

California with the lowest number of Coronavirus deaths on Monday since March 30. Holiday has a lot to do with it, but assuming holiday reporting is similar to Sunday reporting, the point still stands.

 

As a result of the pandemic...Australia's PM made some announcements today.

I fell off my seat... work colleagues rushed over to help... grasping for air and in dizzy disbelief I point to my computer screen...

Then another person collapsed in shock struggling to get words out...

Our PM announced today... . he wants to overhaul industrial relations... no brainier as his party is right wing conservative ... followed that up with he wants the Unions involved and business to develop a workable system for job creation and decent pay... he then announced all government current legislation going through parliament against unions would be cancelled.... essentially a type consensus between labour and business to create meaning jobs in new sectors to replace sectors hurt badly by the shut down and broader closures..

Watch the vid it only goes for about 50 seconds ... maybe I am dreaming... read the article as well ...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05...elations-business-unions-coronavirus/12287072

 

Watching the Bayern/Dortmund match that just kicked off, they seem to be piping in fan sounds on the broadcast.

I actually think I prefer it to the empty stadium sounds from the previous post COVID broadcasts I've watched.

If MLS ever does kick off again to empty stadiums, what would be everyone's preference?

 

If you’re not 100% watching the game it can be distracting as it doesn’t quite match the action on the pitch.

Is it FOX noise or Germany noise? I heard that the domestic feeds have noise but Phil Bonney clearly said we’d hear everything, because there’s no noise on the int’l broadcast.

Thx,

Jay!

 

I prefer the empty stadium sounds to fake crowd noise. Watching Dortmund/Bayern I find the latter too distracting.

 

I actually like it because I normally have other things going on with the game in the background and without crowd noise it can be hard to tell whether anything is happening unless the announcers really get excited. At least one of the games I watched over the weekend did a decent job of changing the sound to match what was happening so it was a nice cue to start paying attention.

 

The noise is bad because they are showing a real event in a real place and they should present what is actually happening.

 

for me it is like laugh tracks... They don't belong in tv anymore

 

MLS needs to do this crowd noise thing on some matches just to improve their image

 

This is awful. Fox used to do this nonsense with EPL games, overriding real crowd noise with some canned singing and chanting...

 

NHL to resume season with 24 team playoff in 2 cities.

 

Candidates for the two NHL cities include Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Edmonton, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Vancouver.

I don't know why Los Angeles is on the list, as it's one of the few cities that still have an increasing rate of infection...

 

I don't know if it was mentioned in this thread already, but last week DHS announced an exemption to the border entry bans for foreign pro athletes. This is very necessary for the NHL.

 

And MLS if they want to do home site games after the Summer tournament. Same for NBA.

 

Latest update is that this is the format the NHL will use IF the season resumes. No commitment yet.

 

June 1 self imposed deadline for the NBA to announce resumption plans.

Mark Cuban's proposal suggests 5-7 regular season games for all 30 teams to fulfill local broadcast contracts, followed by expanded playoffs with 10 teams from each conference.

Damian Lillard already said that he won't play if his team is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.

 

About case numbers: here's a model of current R_e values that includes what I think is the best attempt yet at estimating uncounted cases, using test positivity rates. This includes estimates for all US metro areas that have at least 100 total cases and have had at least three days with 10 or more cases.

(Full disclosure: the person responsible for this modeling is a friend of mine.)

https://www.cerner.com/covid-19/predictive-models/reopening-projections/

The Bay Area is currently seeing a spike in cases as restrictions have been relaxed, and it's not just because of more testing. Also note that some of the places with low R_e values are still not really safe, they're just descending from much higher case numbers, which you can see if you click on the bars for individual metro areas.

 

California has entered phase 3 of reopening today. Phase 4 includes spectator sports.

 

Please note that all phases of reopening are pending counties meeting certain benchmarks for case counts, testing, contact tracing, and treatment capacity. What the "Phase 3" announcement means is that California will now begin to certify counties to enter Phase 3, not that the state is moving there as a whole. I don't expect any of the major cities to enter Phase 3 in the next week. For now it will probably only be a few rural counties with extremely low case numbers. Sacramento County, despite having the lowest infection rate of any urban county in the nation and already being able to test asymptomatic people for three weeks, just entered the second stage of Phase 2 on Friday.

 

It's worth mentioning that MLS and NWSL were NOT mentioned in this exemption. Just the big 4.

 

46 out of 57 counties have entered phase 3.

 

https://diehardscarves.com/product/the-94/

 

Sounds like soccer will have to play this season with players currently in the country.

 

I looked up the proclamation and here is a quote:

"certain professional sporting groups organizing the United States’ largest sporting events, including Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Professional Golfers’ Association Tour (PGA Tour), the National Hockey League (NHL), the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA),"

Horribly ambiguous wording, as it says "including", which doesn't explicitly exclude other organizations, but nothing in the proclamation says whether or not this list is the complete list of covered entities. It doesn't mention the NFL, which doesn't have very many foreign players, but it does have some.

 

NWSL returning next month with a tournament in Utah. Opener and final to be on CBS. All games streamed.