COVID-19 News & Rumors

Here’s some good news for football fans. Sources close to the situation tell Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk that there is an “extremely small” chance that there will be no NFL season in 2020.

The league expects to release the 2020 schedule on May 9 as planned, and it will look like the usual 17-week, 16-game itinerary. It will be structured to allow for contingencies, but even if those contingencies are necessary, the NFL thinks it can play a full slate of 256 games and that the season can unfold just as it otherwise would in home stadiums that are open to fans from the jump.

While that position will surely attract plenty of skepticism, it’s expected that testing for COVID-19 will be simple and efficient by the time August rolls around. In addition, testing is expected to be widely available to the general public by then, which will allow the league to justify testing all of its players and other personnel on a daily basis.

Some reports have indicated that the league could impose a social distancing requirement for fans within stadiums, but Florio says that will not happen. After all, while those requirements could perhaps be enforced in the seating area, it would be impossible to enforce them in bathroom and concession queues and when entering/exiting. So if stadiums are open, they will be fully open, and it will be incumbent upon the fans themselves to stay away if they are susceptible to the virus. The league will likely protect itself by requiring some sort of “assumption of the risk” acknowledgment for fans who purchase tickets.

None of this means that training camp will open on time or that the season will get underway in September. But a delayed start to the season, which we discussed last week, would still allow for a full schedule to be played. And as long as the information the scientific community has gathered on the behavior of the virus is not proven “dramatically incorrect,” NFL fans can remain hopeful. Indeed, Florio says that real progress in testing is being made outside of the public eye, which is obviously great news for fans and non-fans alike.

Florio also says the NFL remains serious about moving some games to Saturdays in the event the college football season is cancelled, though the first iteration of the NFL schedule is not expected to include Saturday contests.

The NFL is planning to release its schedule at some point late next week. It will include the usual 17-week, 16-game slate, though contingency plans are believed to be built into teams’ schedules. One notable adjustment, however, is not yet on the table.

While the NBA and Major League Baseball have discussed holding games at centralized locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NFL has not put such a scenario on the table, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com reports. Empty stadiums have been discussed, but as of now, it sounds like those sites will be in teams’ home cities.

This proves interesting because of the increased personnel the NFL requires compared to the two other top American sports. NFL teams will have 55-man rosters this season, which obviously dwarf the NBA or MLB’s game-day numbers. Each team then employs dozens of coaches, training staffs, executives and various other personnel. Based on the current landscape, that would require a massive coronavirus testing undertaking — one that would include fewer variables if centralized location(s) were used. Coupled with the uncertainty of playing games in the states ravaged most by the pandemic, the viability of holding contests in certain cities is in doubt. Travel may still be an issue by this point as well.

The NBA has discussed congregating at Disney World in Orlando, while the MLB season occurring at spring training sites in Florida and Arizona surfaced weeks ago. As of now, no NFL teams are allowed in their respective facilities. As long as any state has a stay-at-home order, the NFL’s offseason must continue to unfold virtually.

The NFL’s schedule is also not expected to include Saturday games, Fowler adds. This comes after a report indicated the league has discussed moving some games to Saturdays — in the event college football postpones or cancels its season. It is not clear if this means the NFL will not still consider moving games to Saturdays, but it sounds like the Thursday-Sunday-Monday setup will be what appears on the schedule when it’s released next week.

Although the NFL has begun discussing contingency plans, Roger Goodell said Wednesday the NFL’s expectation remains for Week 1 to start on time. The commissioner, however, said during an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up alternative plans will be in play.

The NFL is working with the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health to establish work procedures, and Goodell said the league and the owners will determine if the season must be delayed.

“We’re going to do the things we need to do to make sure we’re operating safely, and that includes our fans,” Goodell said during the interview (via SportsBusinessDaily.com). “Everything’s on the table. We’ve got to be smart. We want to try to do what we can to continue playing football, but doing it correctly and safely.”

The NFL’s workforce dwarfs the other major American sports’, creating a bigger problem for the league operating under the cloud of a highly contagious virus. Frequent testing of more than 2,000 players and hundreds of coaches would be quite the undertaking, but the NFL is hoping better testing will be in place by the fall.

NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said (via ESPN.com’s Cameron Wolfe) mass testing will indeed be critical to the NFL returning on time next season. Both the NFL and NFLPA have formed task forces to gather information about how the coronavirus is impacting the country, Mike Jones of USA Today notes.

Regarding player salaries in the event of a shortened or canceled season, Smith said the NFL CBA does not contain a force majeure provision. This means the NFL cannot unilaterally cut players’ salaries if the season ends up being canceled. The NFL and NFLPA would need to negotiate a new arrangement if the season is impacted.

“Our salaries are tied to revenue. The CBA is clear on how that’s calculated. It’s also clear about the obligations to the parties in the event of cancellations of games,” Smith said. “[There’s] an obligation for the parties to get together and negotiate in good faith as far as projecting the salary cap. We have provisions in place where we know process-wise what happens.

“The only thing we don’t have to plug into the formula is exactly knowing what’s going to happen. We certainly will be engaging in those projections as we go forward.”

Days after the pandemic halted sports, the NFL was still set to negotiate TV deals that were expected to produce bigger cap spikes than the 2011 CBA did. It is unclear where potential negotiations stand a month later, but Smith now expects the 2021 cap to be impacted by the coronavirus.

“Obviously if there are no fans attending games, there is going to be some impact on ticket revenue,” Smith said. “The impact of this virus is going to cut across not only a scenario that includes no fans but also for companies who don’t have the money available to match or increase their sponsorships that they’ve done in the past. Companies that might spend a tremendous amount of public relations money on luxury suites or anything else.

“You don’t have to look far but the travel and hospitality business is probably the hardest hit, and all of those things could and probably will have an impact on our overall revenue.”