Omicron vs NBA Fans
What fans going to NBA games can learn from NBA players in order to help stop the spread of the latest coronavirus variant.
First of all, I get it, you don’t wanna hear about Covid or Omicron or be lectured. Or maybe you do. In starting this newsletter it’s apparent to me that I really don’t know what people want to read anymore. Seems like Covid stuff still gets plenty of clicks online but, in real life, people are always saying stuff like “I’m so sick of Covid.”
This is no more apparent than when I’m in an NBA arena. Let’s take FTX Arena in Miami, for example (and because that’s where I live). To get through security, fans are checked and encouraged to wear a mask. But once inside the arena, in the shoulder-to-shoulder confines of the concourse, most folks make like Future and say Fuck it, mask off.
Why? Because, like everyone else, they’re tired of this shit. They are tired of masking, tired of having to scream through it to have a conversation or take it off to take a swig of beer.
But there’s something else, too. Arena workers are tired of enforcing these rules, and the NBA is tired of lecturing franchises to do so. While NBA players, coaches, personnel and media strictly abide to mask-wearing, 20,000 fans pack into an indoor space as Omicron — the most transmittable coronavirus variant to date — storms across the country. As of Wednesday morning, the United State’s seven-day average was reported as 155,467 new coronavirus infections per day, an increase of about 27%, per the Washington Post.
And yet, hospitalizations remain stable, vaccines and boosters are available and President Joe Biden this week promised more rapid tests are on the way. We don’t need a shutdown, as the president and NBA commissioner both said this week.
“No plans right now to pause the season,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in an interview with ESPN. “We have looked at all the options, but frankly we’re having trouble coming up with what the logic would be behind pausing right now. … This virus will not be eradicated, and we’re going to have to learn to live with it.”
Silver’s announcement comes a day after the NHL elected to pause its season. Meanwhile, the NFL has gone the other way, creating more lax guidelines so its franchises may field more complete teams. Each league will approach this latest wave differently, but it remains true that vaccination rates among professional athletes remain ahead of the population. In general, players and coaches are careful to wear masks and get vaccinated so that they can participate in their sport. They are the role models for following rules in order to do what they want.
Unfortunately, that has not resonated with the larger sporting-event-attending public. I could tell you that fans aren’t wearing masks, but I don’t have to. You see it on broadcasts — fans at best treating their mask as a chinstrap. As the Athletic’s John Hollinger wrote:
“On this front, the league is likely to have the bat taken out of its hands long before it acts on its own. Already, Toronto is forced to operate at half capacity, and it seems only a matter of time before other hard-hit locales enforce equal or stronger limits. Responses will vary based on local politics and outbreaks, but even in locales with more lax approaches, many more fans will likely stay home.”
While I agree with Hollinger’s statement that the league is not in a position to dictate capacity, I wish I shared his optimism that people will take matters into their own hands and simply stop going to games. With the NBA, NFL and NHL season (hockey will return in January) in full swing, there are plenty of events to attend. Even a diluted NBA product won’t stop people from going to games.
More than 100 players have entered the league’s health and safety protocols this month, including stars such as Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden and Trae Young. The NBA has postponed a handful of games but has allowed teams to sign players temporarily in order to roster enough to play.
This has resulted in the weirdest free-agency frenzy ever, with Woj and Shams tweeting like it’s the summertime only instead of reporting deals for Kyle Lowry and Lonzo Ball, they are typing names you haven’t heard of or haven’t heard in a while. Mario Chalmers just signed in the G League, Lance Stephenson signed with the Hawks and seven-time All-Star Joe Johnson is signing with the Celtics. I mean, Joe Johnson?! He’s 40 years old, for christ’s sake.
Only time will tell if people care, and Christmas will serve as the first benchmark. Eight of the 10 teams scheduled to play on the most important date on the league’s regular season calendar have players in protocols. Missing key players threatens to spoil the NBA’s marquee showcase. In response, the NBA this week reinstituted enhanced coronavirus health and safety protocols.
Here, the NBA is leading once again. If society is to learn to “live with” the virus, as Silver said, it could take a page from the league’s decision to re-engage with the current rules. As Dr. Ashish K. Jha wrote in the Atlantic:
Successfully navigating the next wave of the coronavirus pandemic requires charting a middle course—one designed with clear goals in mind: preventing deaths, protecting our hospitals from crushing caseloads, and keeping schools and businesses open. We can do this with the proven, effective tools we already have, while giving in to neither dismay nor dismissal.
As if on cue, the Biden administration is reportedly considering shifting its message from beating the virus to living with it. New York Magazine’s Will Leitch summed it up well:
"Sports leagues have made it as clear as possible that in an Omicron age, their future depends on making peace with the virus. That future looks increasingly like our own."
What exactly does that look like? It looks like getting vaccinated, getting boosted and wearing a mask when coronavirus-related hospitalizations flare.
It looks an awful lot like an NBA player.
Great article Wes. As someone who bought tickets for a Warriors game scheduled for January well before Omicron I’ve been thinking a lot about these things and the personal responsibility associated with deciding if I should still go or not. It’s going to be a very important next few months as we all learn to how we can best deal with the state of the virus though.