If you’d been under a rock for the past few weeks or just coming out of a coma, the first hint something was amiss in our world might have come from your TV on the weekend.
When you tuned in to watch sports, pretty much nothing that was on the screen matched what was on the menu. An NHL hockey game? Something else was playing. The Players Championship? Last year’s tournament. Spring training baseball? Nope, something else was there. Soccer, basketball, tennis? No, no, no.
Some UFC fights? Well, yes, they kept going. Otherwise, the sports world has pretty much gone into full blackout in response to the Coronavirus. Which stinks for fans and isn’t great for players or leagues. But for all-sports networks? Yikes.
This happened once before, sort of. That was around 9/11. The difference was, while the baseball playoffs were in full swing and football was in season, hockey, basketball and a bunch of other stuff hadn’t really begun yet. Plus, it only lasted a couple weeks.
Today? The NHL season was in the home stretch as was the NBA, March Madness was about to begin and golf was heading into majors’ season with The Masters looming. Soccer was up and running on both sides of the ocean, the NFL Draft with its huge live party was on deck, auto racing was underway and the junior hockey playoffs leading to the Memorial Cup were about to happen.
Take all that away and you’re left with … well … what?
This is the busiest time of the year for sports. Yet if the Centre for Disease Control’s latest recommendation is followed, it’ll be at least two months before anything can get rolling again.
These are early days, but Monday’s Sportsnet schedule for its seven channels showed a whole lot of Sportsnet Central — which is destined to run out of material pretty soon without actual games or practices to cover — some hockey talk, Tim and Sid and then what you’d expect. Some old games, some plays of the month packages and a hefty helping of poker.
Ah yes, poker, faithful saviour of dead air.
Tuesday offers more of the same. Wednesday? Same thing again.
