U.S. president holds conference call with pro-sport leaders
Everyone wants to know: When will sports return?
“Soon,” U.S. President Donald Trump promised Saturday at his daily afternoon news conference in the White House.
Not soon, countered the governor of California.
On a news-filled afternoon regarding when sports might return, we did get bright-eyed optimism from Trump. But also stark contradictions. And pessimism.
Whereas Trump gave us all — including pro-sports leaders — a pep talk of hope, California Gov. Gavin Newsom countered with a sobering dose of reality. In basketball lingo, Trump leapt to power-dunk a big ball of hope, but Newsom slapped that garbage outta there.
Trump confirmed reports from earlier Saturday that he had spoken by phone with pro-sport commissioners such as the NFL’s Roger Goodell, the NHL’s Gary Bettman, Major League Baseball’s Rob Manfred, the NBA’s Adam Silver, Major League Soccer’s Don Garber, the PGA Tour’s Jay Monahan, the LPGA’s Michael Whan and the WNBA’s Cathy Engelbert.
“These are all the great leaders of sport. They’ve got to get back. They can’t do this,” Trump said, referring to how their pro-sport business models all have been shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic. “Their sports weren’t designed for it. The whole concept of our nation wasn’t designed for it. We’re going to have to get back. We’re going to have to get back soon, very soon.
“We’re going to open our country again. We have a big decision to make at a certain time. I said it from the beginning: The cure can’t be worse than the problem itself. And we cannot let that happen. We have an incredible country … At a certain point, some hard decisions are going to have to be made … We’ve got to get our country open.”
Trump furthermore promised at his press briefing that stadiums and arenas will be packed again, with the same numbers of seats filled as before — and not with capacities, say, halved to keep people six or more feet apart.
“Absolutely, I want fans back in the arenas. Whenever we’re ready,” he said. “As soon as we can, obviously. And the fans want to be back too. They want to see basketball and baseball and football and hockey. They want to see their sports. And they want to go out onto their golf courses and breathe nice, clean, beautiful, fresh air.
“I can’t tell you a date, but I think it’s going to be sooner rather than later … Eventually, people are going to be able to occupy their seats in arenas, next to each other, like we have for all of my life, and all of your life.”
But at other times at his news conference, Trump echoed his top medical advisers in saying it’s too early both to return to life-as-normal now, or even predicting a date for that. He just kept saying “soon, in my opinion.”
Same with youth sports, he said.
Trump was asked how his son with the First Lady, Melania Trump — Barron — is coping with isolation. The president brought up how his 14-year-old misses playing his favourite sport.
“He’s a good athlete, and he loves soccer. He’s like everyone else — everything’s shut down. He’s in his room. He’s happy. But he’s not as happy as he could be. He’d like to be playing sports.
“Let’s see what happens. But we have to get back. We have to get back, remember that. And we have to get back soon.”
Cross-continent an hour or two earlier, at his own daily briefing for Californians, Newsom was told about Trump’s conference call with sport leaders, on which the president reportedly said he believes the NFL regular season will start as scheduled in September.
The governor crashed the president’s party of optimism with these detailed, logical-sounding — but it must also be said, deflating — comments:
“I’m not anticipating that happening in this state,” Newsom said of NFL football being playing in September by his state’s teams, the San Franisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers.
“Let me tell you why. We’ve all seen the headlines the last couple of days in Asia, where they were opening up certain businesses, and now they’re starting to roll back those openings because they’re starting to see some spread. There’s a boomerang.
“One has to be very cautious here. One has to be careful not to over-promise … I’m not here to second-guess anybody. But I am here to say this. Our decision on that basis, at least here in the state of California, will be determined by the facts, will be determined by the health experts, will be determined by our capacity to meet this moment, bend the curve and have the appropriate community surveillance and testing to confidently determine whether that’s appropriate.
“And right now I’m just focused on the immediate. But that’s not something I anticipate happening in the next few months.”
Same thing applies to other pro sports besides the NFL, Newsom suggested.
“As long as we’re still in a place where, when a single individual tests positive for the virus that you have to quarantine every single person who was in contact with them — in any shape, form or fashion — then I don’t think you can begin to think about reopening a team sport. Because we’re going to have positive cases for a very long time.”
Anyone else have that same, ruinous, gut-punched feeling you only get when the sports team you live and die with loses on the last play?
But keep the faith, people. Somehow. Keep it.
JoKryk@postmedia.com
@JohnKryk
