The past few days have been a whirlwind across the globe, thanks to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Sports fans around the University of Idaho campus have been wondering how it will impact their March Madness brackets, what games they can watch over the break and if they can snag some last-second tickets to a game.
But this is not just a concern to us as students. This is now officially a global pandemic, and we are at a tipping point unlike anything in recent memory.
Numerous tournaments will not have fans in attendance, locations of home games across sports are looking at possible relocation and sports leagues are suspending all operations until further notice.
This isn’t the cause of a lockout, protest or scandal where leagues need to readjust, these are uncharted waters where we have an indefinite distance in reaching our destination.
The NCAA Tournament, which UI is hosting in Spokane, Washington, will be played in mostly empty arenas across the country for men and women’s basketball.
Italy has suspended all professional sports until April 3 for reevaluation, according to Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte.
Italy’s premier soccer league, Series A, is even on hold from playing, including one of the country’s top teams, the Juventus football club. Juventus defender Daniele Rugani tested positive for COVID-19.
This came the same day Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert from the NBA tested positive, leading to the postponing of the game between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder.
These could potentially be the tip of the iceberg.
The NBA has suspended the season until further notice, something not many could have imagined at this point in the season, especially with the playoffs just around the corner.
Numerous other leagues around the world are either making decisions or talking about restrictions, including the New York City half-marathon, the German Bundesliga soccer league having games behind closed doors and even the Seattle Mariners not playing in Seattle.
What do we do from here?
This is usually where a hot take or an unrealistic solution would be thrown out to stir up a storm of arguments, but honestly, all we can do is wait.
This is a rare moment of total uncertainty. None of us know when or how it’s going to end.
I just cancelled a trip to Salt Lake City. I would have watched the Utah Jazz play the Memphis Grizzlies, I bought a brand new Ja Morant jersey and had a great weekend planned with my closest friends. Now those plans are tossed out the window, and I’m stuck in Moscow just waiting.
Sports will hopefully return soon but we are living through a period that will go down as a major pause in the sports world which are an integral part of millions of fans’ daily lives.
But for the first time in many of our lives, we have no idea when this is going to end. We just need to wait patiently for this wave of anxiety and worry to be over, so we can get back to watching and playing sports we love.
Zack Kellogg can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter@kellogg_zack