Oh man, 2020. I can’t say I’m going to miss you in all honesty. To say you’ve come to throw absolutely everyone and everything out of the groove and into a time of stoppage and some panic is putting it nicely. All sorts of industries have felt the true wrath of the COVID-19 pandemic with everything being put on a momentary stop.
The sports industry couldn’t escape the grasp of the coronavirus, with major leagues and events being canceled or suspended for the vast majority of the year leaving sports betting aficionados sitting, waiting and wishing for better times to come.
With 2021 and some glimmers of hope beginning to show up on the horizon let’s look back on what was of 2020 in the sports industry calendar.
If there has always been one thing that people can rely on to at least cut them a break from everyday living it’s sports. Whether you had a bad day at work, at home or wherever people can always count on sports to pick them back up. Then 2020 and COVID-19 showed up and threw all that down the drain.
Most if not all major sports leagues and events around the world were canceled or postponed, with some exceptions in countries like Belarus, Nicaragua, Turkmenistan and the Hong Kong territory.
Some of the most important professional leagues and sports tournaments in the world have started to go at it again but with all the disruption COVID-19 caused finding a regular rhythm of competition and organization is still up for grabs in certain ways.
The most important sporting event to be canceled and afterward postponed was the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games. Never before in the history of the sporting world’s most important event had there been a cancelation or postponement because of any other reason than war.
While most sports fans held the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as the last glimmer of hope for the sporting world, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the International Olympic Committee, President Thomas Bach, agreed on the postponement of the Tokyo games for one year.
It is expected from officials for this tournament to be a new sign of hope with the Olympic flame signaling the light at the end of a harsh and rather dark tunnel, a tunnel the coronavirus pandemic has produced worldwide.
In the soccer world the two most important nations tournaments, Europe’s Euro 2020 and South America’s Copa América 2020 were also at first canceled and then rescheduled to avoid the spreading of the COVID-19 virus across the countries that were staged to host each tournament.
Euro 2020 for example was slated to be played in 12 different cities across Europe with stadiums ranging from Wembley in London, the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Allianz Arena in Munich to the Olympic Stadium in Baku, Azerbaijan.
In order to be able to offer a safe environment for teams and fans who will likely still be either banned from attendance or in very limited quantities, the move to 2021 was a no brainer. South America’s Copa América to be hosted in Argentina and Colombia got the same treatment in order to ensure the teams’ and fans’ safety above all.
In the United States, all major sporting leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, PGA and NASCAR all saw their tournaments either canceled or postponed until ways to find a way to function with the pandemic happenings were ensured.
The NBA decided to form a bubble style championship in the Walt Disney Complex with 23 teams participating under very strict safety and health protocols. At the end of the day we were able to see Lebron James and the LA Lakers win their first championship in years.
Leagues like MLB and the MLS decided to reschedule and finish out their tournaments under strict safety protocols and without any fans in attendance. The NFL started their 2020 season with no fan attendance in stadiums and very strict protocols including hefty fines for coaches for not wearing protective face masks.
As of today, some teams have allowed small numbers of fans to come back to games and the Super Bowl odds in Tampa Bay is expected to allow a limited number of fans into the venue for the game.
Author Bio: Tim Smith caught the sports bug when he first visited Las Vegas with his U14 soccer team and never looked back. A 2018 graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in Economics, Tim often looks at sports entertainment from a value perspective. He’s also an avid traveler who put his plan to attend law school on hold, spending almost a full year in Asia, South America, and Europe since graduating. He comes from a long line of journalists as both his father and great grandfather were former reporters for NYC newspapers.
