
Editor’s Note: The pandemic that started in early 2020 upended the world order and sports was not exempt; in fact, when the NBA announced that it was pausing its season in the wake of Rudy Gobert’s positive test for COVID-19, our staff was gathered for dinner at an industry event in Colorado Springs, Colorado. From lockdowns to protocols, masks to social distancing testing to vaccination, SportsTravel has tracked the ways in which our industry has been affected. We started writing and providing small updates on this story in the early hours of the pandemic and just like the rest of the world, sports has moved past the stops and starts to move past the coronavirus. We hope not to have to update file after today; but through the more than 336,000 words that are below, we also think it provides an interesting perspective on how the sports industry has adapted, pivoted and changed.
Djokovic cleared to play U.S. Open after vaccine travel policy change
Posted: May 3, 2023
Perhaps the last COVID-related saga in the sports world ended on Tuesday with official word that Novak Djokovic can return to the U.S. Open this year — and at tournaments throughout the country — because the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for foreign air travelers ends next week.
The White House announced Monday most of the last remaining federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements will disappear May 11, when the national public health emergency for the coronavirus ends.
The U.S. Open, the season’s final Grand Slam, begins in New York in August. Djokovic, a 35-year-old from Serbia, has missed several key events — including the 2022 U.S. Open — because he decided not to get inoculated against the coronavirus.
Back in April 2020, Djokovic said he was opposed to needing to be vaccinated to travel. He later said he would not get the shots even if it meant he would not be allowed to participate in some of his sport’s most important tournaments. Unable to travel to the United States, he missed the Masters 1000 tournaments at Indian Wells, California, and Miami both last year and this year.
Djokovic earlier this year won the Australian Open in January for the first time in two years, his 22nd Grand Slam title. Djokovic, famously unvaccinated against COVID-19 and a skeptic of vaccines general, was kicked out of Australia in 2022 in a back-and-forth that became an international sensation over his stance compared to Australia’s vaccination mandate for foreign travelers.
The nine-time Australian Open champion was not allowed to seek a 10th title at Melbourne Park after a tumultuous 10-day legal saga over his vaccination status that culminated with his visa being taken away on the eve of the tournament. Djokovic was allowed to play at the French Open, where he lost in the quarterfinals, and at Wimbledon, which he won, before he sat out the U.S. Open and other summer tournaments in the U.S. last year.
“I don’t have any regrets. I mean, I do feel sad that I wasn’t able to play (at the U.S. Open), but that was a decision that I made and I knew what the consequences would be,” Djokovic said in September at the Laver Cup in London. “So I accepted them and that’s it.”
IIHF Women’s Hockey Event in China Postponed
Posted: March 7, 2023
The 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship Division I Group A, due to take place in Shenzhen, China, has been postponed based on international travel restrictions and testing requirements the participating teams would face as a result of ongoing complications related to coronavirus, the IIHF said.
The event was scheduled to take place from April 11–17 and will have new dates announced later. The tournament in Shenzhen will feature Denmark, Norway, Slovakia, Austria, China and the Netherlands with the winning promoted to the top division of the IIHF.
“The International Ice Hockey Federation firmly stands behind the contract with the Chinese Ice Hockey Association and is only postponing the tournament to make sure it starts in a positive way,” said IIHF President Luc Tardif.
The IIHF has postponed and pivoted repeatedly over the past three years. The 2021 Women’s World Championship was moved to Calgary and played at a later date after the event in Halifax and Truro was postponed. The 2022 World Junior Championship in Edmonton was cancelled during the tournament due to Covid before resuming later that year at the same venue.
One Year After Omicron, Sports go Full Steam Ahead in Holiday Season
Posted: December 2, 2022
It was around this time a year ago that things started going haywire in the world of sports — professionally and collegiately. As the then-new omicron variant spread around the country, fall and winter sports that started its respective seasons with optimism sudden felt anxiety and stress levels rising.
The news between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2021 seems like not just a year ago, but many years. Yet it was right there in black and white;
- The NFL postponed three games at the end of December because of omicron. What started with NFL teams averaging 28 positive Covid tests per week skyrocketed to over 700 in the span of two weeks around Christmas.
- Between December 12 and January 8, 756 NBA players and 478 staff members tested positive for COVID. The league postponed 11 games in December alone.
- College football’s bowl season was a game of musical chairs. The Fenway Bowl and Hawaii Bowl, along with Arizona Bowl and Holiday Bowl, were cancelled. The Gator Bowl and Sun Bowl were played only after replacement teams were secured on short notice to replace other programs that had omicron outbreaks.
- And in the NHL, plans for players to participate in the 2022 OIympic Winter Games in Beijing were scrapped after the league, which had only one unvaccinated player, had to postpone 105 games including a one-week break around the Christmas and New Year holiday.
The retiring Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said the administration was hopeful a combination of infections and vaccinations had created “enough community protection that we’re not going to see a repeat of what we saw last year at this time.” Part of that is while the percentage of Americans who are fully vaccinated and double boosted still lags — nearly three months after updated doses of boosters were made available to the public, only about 35 million people have received one of the new shots from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna.
But so far this year, with Thanksgiving in the rear-view mirror, the sports world has seen barely a ripple because of Covid. There still are COVID lists with each pro league; the NBA’s Denver Nuggets have missed Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Bones Hyland at points already this season because of Covid protocols. And there still is the designation by many teams as whether an illness is Covid or non-Covid related.
Yet there are no cancellations. No games postponed for good on any level. And no vaccination requirements or mask mandates by any team or arena throughout college or professional sports. Is the sports world done with Covid? We all thought that was the case last year and it turned out to be a false premise. But does this time feel much different? Yes.
TENNIS: Djokovic Appears Able to Play in Australian Open
Updated: November 16, 2022
Nearly a year after one of the biggest dust-ups in international sport erupted, Novak Djokovic looks ready to be allowed into Australia to compete in the Australian Open in January for the first time in two years.
Djokovic, famously unvaccinated against COVID-19 and a skeptic of vaccines general, was also famously kicked out of Australia last year in a back-and-forth that became an international sensation over his stance compared to Australia’s vaccination mandate for foreign travelers.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. and multiple newspapers in the country said Immigration Minister Andrew Giles would put aside a potential three-year ban from entry that Djokovic, a 35-year-old from Serbia, had faced as a foreign citizen whose visa was revoked.
The nine-time Australian Open champion was not allowed to seek a 10th title at Melbourne Park after a tumultuous 10-day legal saga over his vaccination status that culminated with his visa being taken away on the eve of the tournament.
Djokovic arrived at Melbourne Airport with a visa he had obtained online via what he believed to be a valid medical exemption from the country’s strict laws governing unvaccinated visitors. His application had been endorsed by Tennis Australia and the government of Victoria state, which hosts the tournament.
As it turned out, that apparent medical exemption allowed him to enter the tournament but not necessarily to enter the country. The Australian Border Force rejected the exemption and Alex Hawke, Australia’s immigration minister at the time, used discretionary powers to cancel Djokovic’s visa on character grounds, stating he was a “talisman of a community of anti-vaccine sentiment.”
Australia has had a change of government since then and since July, incoming travelers no longer have to provide proof of receiving shots against COVID-19. Djokovic was allowed to play at the French Open, where he lost in the quarterfinals, and at Wimbledon, which he won, before he sat out the U.S. Open and other summer tournaments in the U.S. because he could not fly into the country as an unvaccinated foreign citizen.
“I don’t have any regrets. I mean, I do feel sad that I wasn’t able to play (at the U.S. Open), but that was a decision that I made and I knew what the consequences would be,” Djokovic said in September at the Laver Cup in London. “So I accepted them and that’s it.”
SOCCER: Qatar Changes Course, Scraps COVID-19 Requirements for World Cup Fans
Updated: October 30, 2022
World Cup host Qatar has scrapped a requirement for visitors to obtain a negative COVID-19 test before arriving to watch games when the World Cup starts November 20.
Previously, Qatar had told fans they must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test regardless of their vaccination status, before departing by air or at the border crossing.
The health ministry also dropped a requirement that adults show their COVID-19 status on a government-run contact tracing smartphone application called Ehteraz before entering stadiums or other establishments. Organizers re-confirmed all visitors aged 18 and over need to have a Hayya Card (Fan ID for the tournament) via qatar2022.qa, which alongside a valid match ticket is the only way to enter the country during the World Cup.
The original plan was players and staff with the 32 World Cup teams will have to take rapid antigen tests every two days in Qatar, as will referees and match officials, FIFA said. Masks must be worn on public transport, including the subway system that many fans will use to get to the eight stadiums in and around Doha.
Qatar has recorded nearly 440,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 692 deaths from the disease, according to the country’s ministry of public health. More than 97% of the population in Qatar has had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the data states.
MLB: Canada Lifting Vaccination Requirement Changes Playoff Picture
Posted: Tuesday, September 20
One of the biggest COVID policies in North American sports may be ending as the Globe and Mail in Toronto has reported that the Canadian federal government will drop its vaccination requirement for visitors to the country by the end of this month.
Changes for arrivals at land, air and sea ports of entry, are planned but a mask requirement for people on trains and planes will remain in place, the Globe and Mail reported, adding aviation and travel industries have pushed the government to relax the rules that cover international travel.
This would affect all major sports leagues that have teams in Canada, with each season since those teams were allowed to play in its home markets marked by the question of which players would not travel with teammates to games because of their individual refusal to get vaccinated. While the NHL only had one unvaccinated player last season, the NBA had others who did not travel to Toronto to play the Raptors — famously unvaccinated Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets as well as Philadelphia’s Matisse Thybulle, who missed two playoff games between the 76ers and Raptors in the Eastern Conference first round.
The potential lifting would affect the stretch run of the Major League Baseball season and a potential postseason appearance by the Toronto Blue Jays, who entered Tuesday night in the first wild-card spot in the American League. Should it hold onto that spot, the Blue Jays would host a first-round series against potentially a team like the Tampa Bay Rays or Seattle Mariners. While the Rays did not have any players on the MLB restricted list for its last visit to Toronto, the Mariners placed reliever Drew Steckenrider on the restricted list and starter Robbie Ray also didn’t make the trip.
The vaccination requirement to this point has affected other MLB teams in different ways. The Kansas City Royals had nearly a dozen players skip the trip to Toronto earlier this season while National League MVP candidate Paul Goldschmidt sat at home when the St. Louis Cardinals traveled north of the border. The New York Post reported last week that should there be a World Series between the Blue Jays and New York Mets, the Mets franchise was worried because they “still have multiple stars who remain unvaccinated.” Mets pitcher Chris Bassitt ripped MLB’s coronavirus protocols in July after he was scratched from a start and added to the COVID-19 injured list, saying “it’s ridiculous we’re still doing it. Stop testing it. Stop acting like COVID is far worse than a lot of other things.”
The potential lifting of the requirement would also affect international sports in Toronto including Formula 1 and the ATP and WTA Tours, which hold a major event each summer in Toronto and Montreal. Novak Djokovic, who is unvaccinated, was not allowed to play in this year’s ATP Nations Bank Open because of his status.
On June 20, the Canadian government suspended vaccine requirements for domestic and outbound travelers, federal government employees and federally regulated industry workers. While Canada’s vaccination requirement may be dropping soon, the United States still requires all entrants to be vaccinated.
NFL: New Season, No COVID Restrictions
Posted: Friday, September 9
The 2022 NFL season started in the same location where the 2021 season ended: SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, with the Rams playing in front of a sold-out home crowd.
The result may have been different: The Rams lost 31-10 to the Buffalo Bills, a team many are picking as a Super Bowl favorite this season. It also started a different season for the NFL — the first since 2019 in which there are no intensive COVID-19 protocols.
After a 2020 season that was held in stadiums with restricted numbers in attendance — if any at all — the 2021 season had some lightened protocols but still with plenty of testing. The league also had to, like every other professional league that was in action during the omicron surge, adjust the schedule in limited circumstances.
In 2022, that is no longer the case. There is no testing even for unvaccinated players. Unvaccinated players are also no longer required to wear masks at team facilities. While a positive test means a player must isolate for five days — which happened in the preseason for Minnesota quarterback Kirk Cousins, who remains unvaccinated and missed a key game last year when he test positive while in the NFC playoff hunt as the Vikings eventually were shut out of the postseason.
Another thing that is in the past for the NFL: vaccination mandates for fans at games. Most notable last season were the mandates in Las Vegas and Buffalo, where two fans were charged for using fake vaccination cards after posting them on social media.
And as always, the demand for tickets to NFL games is seemingly insatiable; ticket sales were up 5% over the same time before training camp, reported Sports Business Journal. Bobby Gallo, senior vice president of club business development, told the publication the NFL it will set a record for gross ticket revenue even with no new stadiums opening after last year saw the public debut of Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
NBA: Testing Still Mandatory for Unvaccinated Players This Season
Posted: Wednesday, August 31
Unvaccinated NBA players and team personnel must submit to weekly COVID-19 testing this season, the league told clubs in a memo Tuesday according to multiple media reports.
The policy for the coming season was agreed to by the National Basketball Players Association. There will be certain exceptions to the mandate, the league said, such as when an unvaccinated person is considered to have been “recently recovered” from COVID-19.
Canada’s vaccination policy for travelers will mean a continuation of last year’s NBA policy for players who would have to miss games at the Toronto Raptors. The NBA told teams this week that players who are not fully vaccinated and have not been given a medical clearance will be barred from traveling to play the Raptors. Canada’s mandate for incoming foreign travelers to be vaccinated has been an issue all season for Major League Baseball, most notably when 10 Kansas City Royals did not travel to a recent weekend series with the rest of their teammates.
The league had a 95 percent vaccination rate last season but most of the attention was focused on one player who was famously unvaccinated, Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving, who missed most of his team’s home games in the regular season because of New York City mandates that were eventually lifted.
This coming season, testing will not be required except when “directed by their team physician or a league physician or government authority,” the league said. Face masks also will not be required, though they will be recommended for use indoors in cities where coronavirus levels are classified by government officials as high.
“It looks like we’ll be on our normal track in terms of when the season starts, in terms of our protocols around the game, particularly around the health and safety of our players,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said at the league’s Board of Governors meeting in July. “I have learned over the last 2½ years not to make any predictions when it comes to COVID, but only to say we’ll be prepared for anything that comes our way.”
The league said it is strongly recommending that those people remain up to date with their vaccination status, including all boosters that are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All players and team personnel will be required to get tested when exhibiting symptoms, plus they will be required to report those symptoms, as well as any positive or inconclusive results of tests not administered by the team or the league. Players and personnel will also have to report when someone in their household tests positive for COVID-19.
TENNIS: Unvaccinated Novak Djokovic Withdraws from U.S. Open
Posted: Thursday, August 25
With the final Grand Slam of the tennis season about to start in New York, one of the biggest stars in the world will not be there — of his own volition.
Novak Djokovic, who is famously unvaccinated, withdrew from the U.S. Open on Thursday because he is not allowed to travel to the United States. Djokovic announced his withdrawal hours before the draw for the event was revealed.
“Sadly, I will not be able to travel to NY this time for US Open,” Djokovic wrote, wishing luck to his fellow players, and said he would “keep in good shape and positive spirit and wait for an opportunity to compete again.”
While the U.S. Open will mostly be known for Serena Williams’ final tournament before retirement, the Djokovic situation also loomed over preparation. When the event posted social media promotions, several eagle-eyed observers noted how Djokovic was not one of the players featured.

Djokovic could have remained in the draw after it was made on Thursday but later withdraw, similar to what he did earlier this spring at tournaments scheduled for the U.S. One player, Liam Broady, criticized Djokovic this week the possibility of denying a spot to a fringe player given the financial stakes; making the main draw at the U.S. Open is worth $80,000 to a player.
“There should be a rule against late withdrawals from slams when you know you aren’t going to play,” Broady said on Twitter. “Really tough on No 1 seeds in qualifying seeing players they know aren’t playing on the main draw list but still having to go through qualifying.”
There is one former player outspokenly defending Djokovic: John McEnroe said the U.S. government should allow Djokovic to play, telling Australian media, “He’s won a lot more majors than me because he’s dug his heels in and found that will, that very few people in sport have ever found. That’s part of what made him so great, so he sticks to his guns.”
Not playing at Flushing Meadows completes a rollercoaster year of Grand Slams for Djokovic. He was deported from Australia over that country’s vaccination mandate hours before the 2022 Australian Open after being in the country for nearly two weeks, then lost in the semifinals of the French Open to Rafael Nadal and won Wimbledon. The win was his first Grand Slam since last year’s Wimbledon, gives him one more career Grand Slam than Roger Federer and brings him within one of re-tying rival Nadal for the all-time record.
Djokovic has been mum other than on social media since Wimbledon but said after his men’s championship win at the tournament that “I’m not vaccinated and I’m not planning to get vaccinated so the only good news I can have is them removing the mandated green vaccine card or whatever you call it to enter United States or exemption … I don’t think exemption is realistically possible. If that is possibility, I don’t know what exemption would be about. I don’t know. I don’t have much answers there.”
The past two years at the U.S. Open have been tumultuous for Djokovic for different reasons. In 2020 at a tournament closed to fans, Djokovic was defaulted in the round of 16 after striking a lineswoman with a ball; in 2021, he had a Grand Slam at stake before losing in the final to Daniil Medvedev.
It was weeks after the 2021 Open that the U.S. issued an order requiring vaccination for nonimmigrant noncitizens hoping to enter the country. Djokovic’s inability to enter the U.S. led him to withdraw in the spring from high-profile tournaments in Indian Wells, California, and Miami; the hard-court season leading to the U.S. Open is based in the U.S. and Canada, meaning Djokovic did not participate in any of those tournaments.
In February, Djokovic told the BBC “the principles of decision making on my body are more important than any title or anything else”, but added he was keeping an open mind about being vaccinated in the future. Djokovic has “always been a great student of wellness, wellbeing, health and nutrition” in his words but insisted he was “never against vaccination.”
SOCCER: Europe’s Revenues Increased Post-COVID
Posted: Monday, August 22
Throughout the major professional sports leagues in the United States, commissioners almost unanimously have been able to give strong financial updates while coming out of the worst of COVID-19, with both the NHL and NBA pleased with the past season’s overall revenue and the NFL remaining the titan of money-making sports leagues.
Those positive financial figures are the trend around the world in most parts as well. Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance showed the European soccer industry had held up across the continent with total revenues of approximately $27.6 billion, a 10% rise from the previous season despite in some cases still having to deal with various capacity restrictions depending on the country.
Deferred broadcast revenues from the previous season and revenue generated from the rescheduled Euro 2020 tournament played across the continent in 2021 were behind the rise, the report said.
“Clubs across Europe played a significant proportion of matches behind closed doors or with reduced capacity during the 2020/21 season which caused an almost complete loss of matchday revenue,” said Tim Bridge, lead partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte. “It’s testament to the resilience of the industry, the value driven by broadcast deals and the success of the Euros that the European football market has achieved tenacious growth, in revenue terms, over the past year.”
Stuck within the financial report were some notable figures. While the overall revenue grew throughout Europe, it was entirely down to the Premier League in England. Excluding the Premier League, the leagues in Germany, Spain, France and Italy reported total operating losses for 2020-21 of nearly $905 million. Italy’s Serie A increased revenue 23% to $2.5 billion and England’s Premier League rising 8% to $5.5 billion both Germany’s Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga both saw reported combined revenues down 6%.
Those gap between the Premier League and others in Europe will only continue to grow when you factor in what they get from international broadcast rights in the U.S. The Premier League’s new U.S. TV contract averages $450 million per year, more than double La Liga’s and in the case of the Bundesliga, a nearly 14-fold increase. UEFA announced a renewal of its U.S. broadcast rights with CBS, a $1.5 billion deal over 6 years, that is worth 2.5 times the previous contract.
“As the Premier League enters its fourth decade, it’s further ahead of the competition than ever before, having emerged from the pandemic without as significant an increase in net debt as many might have expected,” said Bridge.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Division II team moves four games from Canada to U.S.
Posted: Tuesday, August 16
An NCAA Division II school in Canada will play four of its six scheduled home games in the upcoming 2022 season in the United States because of Canada’s border restriction that requires all visitors into the country to be fully vaccinated.
Simon Fraser will move games from SFU Stadium at Terry Fox Field to Blaine, Washington, the college announced on Tuesday. The games affected are against Texas A&M-Kingsville (October 1), Western New Mexico (October 22), Angelo State (October 29) and West Texas A&M (November 12).

“We are all looking forward to a time when the impact of the global pandemic will be behind us,” said Theresa Hanson, senior director of athletics and recreation at SFU. “This news is especially disappointing for our student-athletes, but we continue to support them and advocate for ways to ensure they can train and compete. We are looking forward to creating a home-field atmosphere in Blaine for these games.”
The program also announced a game against Montana State-Northern scheduled for September 10 has been cancelled. Simon Fraser has two scheduled home games at SFU Stadium remaining, against Central Washington on September 17 and the Shrum Bowl against the University of British Columbia on December 2.
Simon Fraser was predicted to finish last in the Lone Star Conference, which is comprised of all Southern U.S.-based schools except for SFU, Central Washington and Western Oregon. Those three schools are typically in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. In November 2021, SFU, Central Washington and Western Oregon were accepted into the Lone Star Conference, creating a 10-team league. With only three NCAA Division II football schools in the Pacific Northwest, it was an essential move to guarantee a full conference schedule.
Simon Fraser obviously does not have a large following in college football but did make news last season as Kristie Elliott became the first Canadian female to play and score in an NCAA college football game in the 2021 season, during which SFU played two home games and six games on the road. The program’s 2020 season was canceled by the pandemic.
NFL: Kirk Cousins to miss Vikings preseason game
Posted: Friday, August 12
One of the NFL’s biggest COVID skeptics will miss his team’s first preseason game this weekend because he tested positive for COVID for the second time in less than 10 months.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, who is unvaccinated, was told to isolate for five days after testing positive for COVID on Friday, meaning he would miss the team’s Sunday preseason opener against the Las Vegas Raiders.
Barring complications, Cousins would be eligible to rejoin the team Tuesday. Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said Cousins had “minimal” symptoms starting Thursday and reported it to the team.
“I like the way he handled it,” O’Connell said, “reporting the symptoms and just going through our in-house process here. I’m proud of how he did that, looking out for his teammates and making sure that we’ll get him back ready to roll as soon as possible.”
The NFL paused its COVID-19 protocols in March. Players are not required to be vaccinated while nearly all league employees and coaches on its teams do have a mandate. Players are not tested on a daily basis but anyone who tests positive must quarantine for at least five days.
Cousins has been one of the most anti-vaccine NFL players in a league that has been overwhelming vaccinated among team rosters. He had to quarantine last preseason as a close contact of backup QB Kellen Mond after he tested positive. He said later he would rather have meetings either outside in the winter — in Minnesota! — or have indoor meetings with everybody plexiglassed off rather than get vaccinations, saying “if I die, I die” when asked about his exposure to COVID.
Cousins then missed a crucial late-season game for the Vikings after testing positive for COVID as Minnesota, a game out of the playoff race, was blow out by the Green Bay Packers and failed to make the expanded postseason.
NBA: Vaccine Mandate Still in Effect for Travel to Canada
Posted: Wednesday, August 10
Canada’s vaccination policy for travelers will mean a continuation of last year’s NBA policy for players who would have to miss games at the Toronto Raptors, according to multiple reports.
The NBA told teams this week that players who are not fully vaccinated and have not been given a medical clearance will be barred from traveling to play the Raptors. Canada’s mandate for incoming foreign travelers to be vaccinated has been an issue all season for Major League Baseball, most notably when 10 Kansas City Royals did not travel to a recent weekend series with the rest of their teammates.

Yahoo Sports earlier this summer reported the league will not have a mandate for vaccination next season, a continuation of last season’s policy. The league had a 95 percent vaccination rate last season but most of the attention was focused on one player in particular who was famously unvaccinated, Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving, who missed most of his team’s home games in the regular season because of New York City mandates that were eventually lifted.
As for health and safety protocols next season, “what it looks like to me is people who are symptomatic would test, and would be tested quickly,” Commissioner Adam Silver said during the start of the NBA Finals — an event he missed the final two games of after testing positive for COVID himself. “And to the extent a player or a member of the staff is positive, they would then, whatever the state of the protocols are then, whether there’s antivirals available to them, but certainly they would be separated from the team.”
Silver added “my assumption is there would probably be some mask-wearing — not required of fans, unless local municipalities require it. But in the bowels of the arena, where people are proximate and trainers and others are working on players. To the extent there are relatively simple things we can do to reduce risk of transmission, we would do those as well. … But I don’t see much more beyond that, at least right now. I think it’s going to seem, as it essentially did for most of the playoffs, very much like the pre-COVID protocols we were following then. But as you mentioned, you never know what’s coming.”
The Raptors will play 41 home games in the regular season, as tradition dictates. Toronto also has exhibition home games scheduled in Edmonton against the Utah Jazz, in Montreal against the Boston Celtics, and at home against the Chicago Bulls. Additional home games would also come in the playoffs; Toronto last year had three home playoff games in the first round against the Philadelphia 76ers, who were without guard Matisse Thybulle, who as of the postseason was not fully vaccinated.
Vaccination Status Adds Twist to MLB Trade Deadline
Updated: August 3, 2022
As the Major League Baseball trade deadline approached, for anybody involved in the American League playoff race, one question was added to the number of things to consider when making a move: A player’s vaccination status.
One of the wild card contenders in the American League, the Toronto Blue Jays, are fully vaccinated as a team and visiting players who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 are not allowed to enter Canada. Several teams have gone to Canada this season without some of their best players. The Kansas City Royals were the most extreme example, losing 10 players ahead of their trip north of the U.S. border — two of which were traded in the past week, one of them to the Blue Jays themselves.
Two-time All-Star Whit Merrifield, who is unvaccinated but said he would get his shots if it meant playing in the postseason, was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. Merrifield’s stance about changing his mind to play in the postseason made him the target of some criticism from Royals fans, who have seen the team languish near the bottom of the American League all season.

Merrifield’s explanation for his unvaccinated status was contradictory at best. He said a close college friend died from COVID but “… I don’t feel like COVID is a threat to me. So it was a choice I made when talking to my family, talking to my wife. Didn’t think the risk was worth it, honestly.” He also said vaccination “(is) helping people to stay out of the hospital. But I don’t feel like I’m in that demographic. And if I am, I get it, and I get sick and get in the hospital, that’s on me. But if it was foolproof like it was supposed to be, I would get the vaccine and it would stop me from spreading COVID. No problem. But unfortunately, that’s not what it’s doing.”
“We’ll let him work through that with his family,” Blue Jays General Manager Ross Atkins said of Merrifield. “We felt like we made a very good team better today.”
Andrew Benintendi’s unvaccinated status was also more notable after he was traded to the New York Yankees, who could play the division foe Blue Jays in the playoffs in addition to remaining regular season games.
“I’m open minded about it,” Benintendi said after the trade about getting vaccinated. “I’m not against it, but time will tell as we get closer, but for now I’m just focused on getting here, getting comfortable, getting to know the guys and winning baseball games.”
Given the number of players that have had to miss games this year in Canada because they are not vaccinated, it’s perhaps no surprise that Toronto entered the week 13 games over .500 at home — and one game under .500 on the road. The Yankees, Guardians, Rays, Orioles, Red Sox, Angels and Cubs all play games in Toronto after the deadline.
Even in the National League, where teams have much less travel to Toronto but still could have their postseason status come down to a three-game series in Canada, a player’s vaccination status is “certainly one of the things that’s new that you didn’t have to think about,” Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington told The Associated Press. “I think every team obviously wants to feel that the full complement of their roster is available to play, but we’re in a new world and there’s personal choices.”
The St. Louis Cardinals were without All-Star infielders Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt for a two-game series plus catcher Austin Romine. Going into the series, the Cardinals were in the final wild-card spot in the National League.
Arizona Diamondbacks General Manager Mike Hazen said the vaccine status of players was affecting trade talks “to some degree” but didn’t believe it would be a deciding factor in many deals. He added vaccine status is part of a player’s medical file, so there shouldn’t be any secrets, since teams are free to discuss those details.
Report Says NBA May Forgo Vaccine Mandate
Posted: July 27, 2022
The league will strongly suggest vaccinations but not require them next season
Vaccine mandates were a major story line during the last NBA season, but they not be much of a story when the 2022–2023 season tips off.
According to a report from Yahoo Sports, the NBA will forego a vaccine mandate next season but will strongly suggest all personnel be up to date with vaccines. There is also the possibility, according to the report, that periodic testing of unvaccinated players could still be allowed, pending discussions with the players’ association,
NBA health and safety policies last season left the issue of vaccine mandates up to local state and city laws. While players were not required to be vaccinated, they were subject to more stringent testing and restrictions if they declined to get the shot.
The issue of vaccines still played out throughout the season, including with Brooklyn Nets’ star Kyrie Irving who was unvaccinated. New York state laws on the issue prevented him from playing home games for much of the season. He finally made his home debut in late March only after New York lifted its local mandates.
According to league statistics, most NBA players were vaccinated last season, with the league boasting a 95 percent vaccination rate.
While the NBA may not require vaccines, the issue at the moment is likely to remain for teams traveling to Toronto, where Canadian restrictions require anyone entering the country to be vaccinated. If those national laws don’t change, any NBA player competing in Toronto would have to prove their vaccination status. That issue continues to play out this season in Major League Baseball, where several high-profile players have had to stay home for games against the Toronto Blue Jays because they have not been vaccinated.
Canadian Vaccine Requirements Keep Two Cardinals Home
Posted: Monday, July 25
Major League Baseball teams traveling to Toronto to play the Blue Jays continue to run into challenges bringing their entire roster with them to compete. And in the case of the St. Louis Cardinals, the country’s vaccination rules mean the team will be without All-Star infielders Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt for their two-game series as both are unvaccinated.
Catcher Austin Romine also will miss the series because he is unvaccinated against COVID-19.
Canadian rules still require anyone entering the country to have received a second COVID-19 vaccine shot, or dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, at least 14 days before entering the country.

In the case of the Cardinals, Arenado and Goldschmidt represent their two best hitters in the lineup. For the pair, there are also financial considerations as Arenado will lose $384,416 and Goldschmidt will forfeit $241,758 in pay under terms of the contract negotiated with the players’ union.
The Cardinals sit in second place in the National League Central and hold the third and final wild-card spot.
Earlier in July, 10 members of the Kansas City Royals didn’t make the trip to Toronto for their four-game series with the Blue Jays. Prior to Kansas City, 25 MLB players had hit the restricted list due to being unvaccinated.
Since Olympics, China Seemingly Adopts ‘Zero Sporting Events’ Policy
Posted: Monday, July 18
The 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing was held with pomp, circumstance and little cheering — because there was no crowd.
China’s determination to keep one of the world’s largest sporting events on schedule without having to deal with potential delays stemming from COVID-19 included a strict closed loop, daily testing and more than a little fear of what would happen for any athletes who would test positive after entering the Olympic Village.
The desire to have the Games go on was China’s geopolitical weight at its most prominent with the IOC falling in line. The closed loop also was a convenient way to keep foreign press from going out in public and talking with citizens while foreign fans were banned months before the Opening Ceremony — all in the name of controlling the narrative for as much as China could.

It worked in February with the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games going off on schedule with China shown across the world as host. Since then, it’s clear to assume that China’s willingness to continue hosting sporting events that do not match the Olympics for prestige is not nearly as strong.
The 2023 Asian Cup, the continent’s top soccer tournament? No way, even if it’s a year out.
International figure skating and X Games events? Also cancelled.
The PGA and LPGA Tour events scheduled for October? Not a chance.
World Athletics’ half-marathon championships? Axed from the calendar.
Seemingly every international sporting event that was scheduled for China is off the calendar — except for the one that it had the maximum worldwide exposure to showcase its “zero-COVID” policy that the World Health Organization recently called unsustainable, a view which Chinese officials have rejected outright.
The latest outbreak in Shanghai, a key international business center, has been linked to a karaoke parlor that reopened without authorization during lockdown. Residents of parts of Shanghai and Beijing have been ordered to undergo further rounds of COVID-19 testing following new cases in the two cities while tight restrictions remain in place in Hong Kong, Macao and other Chinese cities.
Shanghai has only just emerged from a strict lockdown that confined most of its 24 million residents to their homes for weeks and the new requirements have stirred concerns of a return of such harsh measures. One thing will be for sure this year; the chances of an international sporting event coming to town in the coming months is slim to none.
Those fans will instead watch on TV as they did during the Winter Games — an event that started with Vladimir Putin smiling as an invited guest during the Opening Ceremony as his country prepared to invade Ukraine, with no discussion of human rights abuses of the Uyghur and Tibetan minority communities and curated coverage by the International Olympic Committee of China’s ability to host the Games.
Yes, there was no known spread of COVID-19 among athletes and new stars emerging while others bade an Olympic farewell. The question remains, however, and it’s semi-rhetorical: Did China care about the athletic portion of the Games as much as its ability to propagate itself?
Kansas City Royals Without 10 players in Toronto Because of Unvaccinated Statuses
Posted: Wednesday, July 13
One of the main storylines during the developing early action in the American League playoff race is the three unvaccinated Boston Red Sox players as the team is in the beginning battle for a wild-card spot against the Toronto Blue Jays. Given how Canada does not allow unvaccinated visitors to the country, those three players have been the focus of attention.
Turns out all along that one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball likely has the most unvaccinated players in the league — the Kansas City Royals.
The Royals announced that 10 players will not travel to Toronto for an upcoming four-game series because of their unvaccinated status including one of the team’s best players in Whit Merrifield and one of its leading candidates to get traded in Andrew Benintendi. Players who are unvaccinated and miss games in Toronto forfeit service time and salary for the four games missed. Prior to Kansas City, 25 MLB players had hit the restricted list due to being unvaccinated.
Along with Merrifield and Benintendi, missing games will be catcher MJ Melendez, utilityman Hunter Dozier, outfielders Michael A. Taylor and Kyle Isbel, catcher Cam Gallagher and pitchers Brad Keller, Brady Singer and Dylan Coleman. Only the Oakland Athletics have a worse record in the AL than the Royals.
“It’s an individual choice,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said after Wednesday’s game, a win over the Detroit Tigers. “The organization’s done a real good job bringing in professionals and experts to talk guys through tough conversations and then put it in their hands to make the decisions they believe is best for them and their families.”
Benintendi’s and Taylor’s vaccination statuses could play a role in trade talks, especially for a team that would want to be in the playoffs — and be matched against Toronto. Merrifield did not rule out the possibility of vaccination should he be traded, “(if) I happen to get on a team that has a chance to go play in Canada in the postseason, maybe that changes.”
Merrifield’s explanation for why he is unvaccinated is the stuff that would make medical experts’ heads explode. He said a close college friend of his died from COVID last fall but “I feel that the vaccine initially — what it was supposed to do, it’s not doing it — and if it was doing what it was supposed to do, stopping the spread of COVID — I would probably have a little more willingness to take it. But it’s not doing that, and I don’t feel like COVID is a threat to me. So it was a choice I made when talking to my family, talking to my wife. Didn’t think the risk was worth it, honestly.”
If that is not confusing enough, Merrifield admitted that vaccination “(is) helping people to stay out of the hospital. But I don’t feel like I’m in that demographic. And if I am, I get it, and I get sick and get in the hospital, that’s on me. But if it was foolproof like it was supposed to be, I would get the vaccine and it would stop me from spreading COVID. No problem. But unfortunately, that’s not what it’s doing.”
Some of the other comments were also medically strange, ranging from Coleman saying the vaccine “felt very rushed to me, like as soon as it came out I feel like that mainly was it” to Dozier saying he doesn’t “do any vaccines” and that since he got COVID two years ago, “I have antibodies … I want my body to naturally fight stuff off.”
NBA Almost Completely Back to Pre-Pandemic Normal
Posted: Wednesday, July 13
With revenue better than it has been since the start of the pandemic, arenas that aside from a few weeks in Toronto were open to full capacity all season long and the return of a popular team in the Golden State Warriors to the role of NBA championship, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver sounded more than ever this week to turn the page on the pandemic as far as the league’s future outlook.
“It looks like we’ll be on our normal track in terms of when the season starts, in terms of our protocols around the game, particularly around the health and safety of our players,” said Silver, who missed the last two games of the NBA Finals after testing positive himself for COVID-19, with Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum stepping in to award the Larry O’Brien Trophy to the Golden State Warriors. “I have learned over the last two and a half years not to make any predictions when it comes to COVID, but only to say we’ll be prepared for anything that comes our way.”
The 2019–2020 season famously was suspended during the start of the pandemic before resuming in a bubble environment at the end of summer in 2020 in Orlando, Florida, before a shortened 2020–2021 season that was held in front of sparse crowds for most of the year.
The 2021–2022 season started off as normal as ever during the pandemic but the league did have to deal with several rescheduled games during the omicron wave in the holiday season. It also had the sideshow all season long of the famously unvaccinated Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn.
As for health and safety protocols next season, “what it looks like to me is people who are symptomatic would test, and would be tested quickly,” Silver said. “And to the extent a player or a member of the staff is positive, they would then, whatever the state of the protocols are then, whether there’s antivirals available to them, but certainly they would be separated from the team.”
Silver added “my assumption is there would probably be some mask-wearing — not required of fans, unless local municipalities require it. But in the bowels of the arena, where people are proximate and trainers and others are working on players. To the extent there are relatively simple things we can do to reduce risk of transmission, we would do those as well. … But I don’t see much more beyond that, at least right now. I think it’s going to seem, as it essentially did for most of the playoffs, very much like the pre-COVID protocols we were following then. But as you mentioned, you never know what’s coming.”
The NBA also announced that it had cleared $10 billion in revenue the past season, which Silver said exceeded the league’s projections: “I think it’s quite remarkable from where we came in only two and a half years ago when it was — the future of this industry was in question, in part because of the pandemic and also people questioning whether people would want to continue to assemble in arenas and stadiums the way they are.
“I think what it demonstrated this past season was an incredible amount of pent-up demand from people to get out and be with other people,” Silver said. “I think there is something unique and special about being around other people. Whether you’re there to cheer or jeer or whatever it is, there’s something really special. Particularly, I think, about arena and stadium sports.”
Silver was speaking after a NBA board of governors meeting in Las Vegas, where Summer League is ongoing through the weekend. Silver said this year’s 10-day Summer League will fill 70,000 hotel rooms with 135,000 tickets and an estimated economic impact of $125 million.
“While I know we don’t have a franchise in Las Vegas, it feels like we have a franchise in Las Vegas, certainly with the impact that we are able to have here over the summer,” Silver said.
Unvaccinated Djokovic Wins Wimbledon, Another Part of a Tumultuous Year
Posted: Monday, July 11
Novak Djokovic’s celebration and happiness after winning the Wimbledon men’s championship on Sunday in England was evident. The win was his first Grand Slam since last year’s Wimbledon, gives him one more career Grand Slam than Roger Federer and brings him within one of re-tying rival Rafael Nadal for the all-time record.
And that’s as close as Djokovic will get for quite some time — and all of his own doing.
Barring a change in U.S. entry requirements for foreigners, Djokovic will not participate in the U.S. Open at summer’s end because of his refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“I’m not vaccinated and I’m not planning to get vaccinated so the only good news I can have is them removing the mandated green vaccine card or whatever you call it to enter United States or exemption,” Djokovic said Sunday. “I don’t know. I don’t think exemption is realistically possible. If that is possibility, I don’t know what exemption would be about. I don’t know. I don’t have much answers there.”
The past two years at the U.S. Open have been tumultuous for Djokovic for different reasons. In 2020 at a tournament closed to fans, Djokovic was defaulted in the round of 16 after striking a lineswoman with a ball; in 2021, he had a Grand Slam at stake before losing in the final to Daniil Medvedev, who was not at Wimbledon (for reasons we’ll get into later).
It was weeks after the 2021 Open that the U.S. issued an order requiring vaccination for nonimmigrant noncitizens hoping to enter the country. The U.S. ceased requiring negative coronavirus tests for entry in mid-June but did not stop requiring full vaccination of noncitizen nonimmigrants. Djokovic’s inability to enter the U.S. led him to withdraw in the spring from high-profile tournaments in Indian Wells, California, and Miami; the hard-court season leading to the U.S. Open is based in the U.S. and Canada, meaning Djokovic would lose ranking points that he earned from playing last summer.
Djokovic was asked Saturday: “About the U.S. Open, you said there’s nothing you can do at this point, but you do still have time to get vaccinated before New York to make it in time for the U.S. Is that something you’ve completely closed your mind to as an option going forward or …”
“Yes,” Djokovic said.
“It is [closed]?” the reporter said.
“Yes,” Djokovic said.
Djokovic’s Grand Slam journey this season has been a rollercoaster; he dealt with deportation from Australia over that country’s vaccination mandate before the 2022 Australian Open after being in the country for nearly two weeks, then lost in the semifinals of the French Open to Nadal.
“Certainly this year has not been the same like last years,” Djokovic said. “It has started the way it has started and it has affected me definitely in the first several months of the year. I was not feeling great generally. I mean, mentally, emotionally, I was not at a good place.”
(This is where observers can point out that getting vaccinated would have solved a lot of these problems, but … )
COVID was a storyline throughout Wimbledon and not only because of Djokovic’s eventual victory in the men’s singles draw. Three men’s players had to withdraw after testing positive in the first week, leading some players to return to wearing masks when indoors while others lived as they had for months without restrictions, leaving to widespread confusion as to what the tournament’s protocols would and would not entail.
“So many rules,” Nadal said. “For some people some rules are fine; for the others rules are not fine. If there are some rules, we need to follow the rules. If not, the world is a mess.”
Wimbledon also dealt with international drama of its own doing before the tournament began when it banned Russian and Belarussian players from participating because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The decision was protested by both the ATP and WTA Tours, which decided that it would not award world ranking points at Wimbledon.
And the issue was again in front of mind during championship weekend when the women’s title was won by Elena Rybakina, who plays while representing Kazakhstan — but who is born, raised and still lives in Russia and only switched allegiances four years ago when Kazakhstan said it would help with her expenses. The Russian Tennis Federation was quick to claim “our product” on Rybakina’s run.
MLB: Red Sox Still Vexed by Vaccination Issues
Posted: Thursday, July 7
The Boston Red Sox have been one of the hottest teams in Major League Baseball this summer, going 22-8 since June 1 and rocketing into second place in the ultra-competitive American League East division, taking the lead in the wild-card race.
One of its challengers for a wild-card spot already this season is division rival Toronto, who took two of three games from the Red Sox recently thanks to late-inning rallies thanks to Boston missing its closer — because of his unvaccinated status.
Red Sox closer Tanner Houck is not only unvaccinated and has missed two series so far in Toronto, but he has also not committed to getting his shots ahead of the next visit to Canada in September.
“It’s tough watching, but that’s all I really have to say about it right now,” said Houck last week. “Just not going to comment on it.”
Teams that must play in Toronto have known what the situation was since spring training; Canada’s restrictions on allowing individuals unvaccinated against COVID-19 into the country led MLB and the MLB Players Association to agree to roster modifications for games in Toronto. While most of the attention due to the Canadian government’s rule was focused on potential key players missing for both the Red Sox and New York Yankees, the Yankees did not have any players missing during its earlier visit to Toronto this season.
Houck is one of three Red Sox players that are unvaccinated. Outfielder Jarren Duran said over the weekend that he plans to get his shots so that he will be available in September, when the games could have playoff positioning at stake.
“I love this game too much to miss out on opportunities to play baseball,” said Duran. “I could care less about the money or service time or any of that. I just missed the boys and playing baseball, so that’s kind of like the deciding factor.”
Duran is the only one of the three Boston players who has committed to getting vaccinated. Houck was non-committal as well as starting pitcher Chris Sale, who is injured and undergoing rehab in the minor leagues.
“I just had a lot of fun,” Sale said to reporters in Portland, Maine, on Thursday when asked about vaccination. “Let’s not ruin that. I’m enjoying this process. I appreciate being where I’m at and what I’m doing. Today’s today and tomorrow’s going to come. We’ll figure that [stuff] in a month.”
The potential for Boston missing at least one and potentially two key pitchers for the final visit to Toronto is huge given its spot in the schedule with one week remaining in the season when the series begins. Even beyond the regular season, there remains the possibility that the Red Sox and Blue Jays would be matched up in a playoff series.
“I hate to say it this way, but it is what it is right now,” said Boston manager Alex Cora. “We’ve got plenty of time to get some more players in that series [in September], and if we make it to the playoffs and they make it to the playoffs, then we [could] have to go up there and play. We talk to the players, and I think things are going to be changing with time.”
One non-Red Sox player who has been on the MLB COVID list, upon rejoining his team, said that if he does feel symptoms again, he would not inform anybody and that MLB should “just stop testing.”
New York Mets pitcher Chris Bassitt, who missed a start while being on the COVID list, said he was asymptomatic and “stop acting like COVID is far worse than a lot of other things. I was never sick.”
Bassitt will make his next start on Friday. He said he reported symptoms because he has a daughter.
“If I can somewhat be safe I will,” he told reporters on Thursday. “I tested myself. It was positive. So I basically had the choice to tell them so I can protect my teammates or not say anything and (put) my teammates at risk. I never had a symptom. I woke up perfectly fine the next day. Have not had a symptom since.”
PGA, LPGA Events in China Cancelled
Posted: Wednesday, July 6
The PGA Tour and LPGA Tour cancelled upcoming major events scheduled for China on Wednesday, saying the decisions were made in conjunction with the China Golf Association.
The PGA’s World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions was scheduled for October 27–30 in Shanghai while the LPGA Tour’s Buick LPGA event was scheduled for October 13–16 at Qizhong Garden Golf Club.
“We have worked with all Tours, as well as the China Golf Association, on the viability of hosting the WGC-HSBC Champions this fall, but unfortunately the logistical implications forced the difficult decision to cancel the event,” said PGA Tour Senior Vice President, International, Christian Hardy. “We are thankful for HSBC’s partnership during these trying times as we continue to navigate the changing COVID-19 climate.”

With the cancelation of the WGC-HSBC Champions, the Butterfield Bermuda Championship will be played as a standalone event with full FedExCup points and a purse of $6.5 million.
Wednesday’s announcements — the third straight year that both events have been cancelled — comes as parts of Shanghai and Beijing will undergo further rounds of COVID-19 testing. China has put tight restrictions on arrivals from foreign countries during the pandemic and imposes wide-ranging lockdowns for any COVD-19 positives within the country.
China hosted the Winter Olympics in February in a bubble that involved cordoning off whole sections of Beijing, but has routinely called off less-prominent international sports events.
The golf announcements come a day after the world half-marathon championships were canceled because China wasn’t able to host the races due to the coronavirus pandemic, World Athletics said. This year’s event was due to be the last before the championships are renamed the World Athletics Road Running Championships with the addition of 5-kilometer races and mass-participation events alongside the elite competitions.
The first of those is in Riga, Latvia, next year. The World Athletics Road Running Championships will be held Yangzhou in March 2027, World Athletics announced also on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, the championships can’t be held this year, through no fault of the (local organizing committee), but our endurance athletes will have the opportunity to compete in Riga next year,’’ World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said. “The Council’s decision to award another event to Yangzhou in 2027 indicates its faith in the organising committee and willingness to return and stage a World Athletics Series road running event there at the first available opportunity.”
Surge in Positives Cause Concern at Wimbledon
Posted: Friday, July 1
Wimbledon is at full capacity for the first time since the pandemic started; the tournament was cancelled in 2020 for the first time since World War II and last year had capacity restrictions throughout the event plus testing required for players and their support team.
This year there is no mandatory testing, however, and masks are not required. But COVID is front and center among the tournament’s storylines after three prominent men’s players had to withdraw after positive tests, including last year’s runner-up. No. 8 seed Matteo Berrettini’s withdrawal came two hours before his first-round match on Tuesday.
“I have had flu symptoms and been isolating the last few days,” Berrettini wrote on social media. “Despite symptoms not being severe, I decided it was important to take another test this morning to protect the health and safety of my fellow competitors and everyone else involved in the tournament.”

Men’s 2017 finalist Marin Cilic also tested positive on Tuesday. No. 17 Roberto Bautista Agut pulled out of the tournament on Thursday after he also tested positive. Reports out of England say Wimbledon shared new safety measures including increased cleaning throughout the player areas and masks will be available for anyone who wants.
Not just tennis but in most professional sports, protocols have changed to where it is a player’s responsibility to notice symptoms that could be COVID-related and get tested. French player Alize Cornet had some startling comments after her first-round win Tuesday, saying players contracted COVID while at the French Open but did not tell organizers because of fears of being barred from continuing. Two women’s players, Barbora Krejcikova and Marie Bouzkova, did leave the French Open after contracting the virus.
“At some point… we all might have had the flu,” Cornet told French daily L’Equipe. “At Roland Garros, yes, I think there have been a few cases and it’s a tacit agreement between us. We are not going to self-test to get into trouble. Afterwards, I saw girls wearing masks, maybe because they knew and didn’t want to pass on.”
While the ATP and WTA Tours did not mandate vaccination among players, most of the top 100 on both tours are vaccinated because of the consequences should they test positive at an event.
“The ATP, similar to the NFL, the NBA, MLB, they’re kind of making you get it, in a way,” said Sam Querrey, an American who reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2017. “They’re saying: If you don’t get it, you might not be able to play certain tournaments or in these games, and we’re going to kind of make things so miserable that you’re going to have to get it. So for me, it was a combination that I think it was good to get it, and it makes your life a lot easier from a professional standpoint.”
“Pretty easy: Vaccines work. Everyone has a right to choose, but more or less, the reason we don’t die from diseases from 50 years ago is because we got vaccines,” added eighth-seeded Jessica Pegula, who is from Buffalo and won Thursday to reach Wimbledon’s third round for the first time. “Of course, it came out really fast, so, sure, there’s always that thought: ‘I hope nothing happens.’ Some people had bad experiences. But for me, I thought it was worth the risk.”
But having three players withdraw with positive tests has led whispers that the tournament could be dealing with an outbreak that grows as the event continues. “I didn’t even know that people were testing positive,” said Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American who was the runner-up at Roland Garros this year, “until I saw another player wearing a mask.”
And for many of the players, COVID has become part of the reality of traveling around the world to play professional tennis. Women’s No. 5 seed Maria Sakkari said after her win Tuesday “I’m pretty sure I had Covid, so I’m less afraid than I used to be,” adding “we have to get back to a normal life again” and comparing COVID to being forced out of a tournament for food poisoning. Asked after her victory Thursday what her level of concern, women’s No. 4 seed Paula Badosa replied “zero,” adding she is vaccinated and already came down with every “type of COVID possible.”
The biggest tournament in the world, Wimbledon has been dealing with off-court news for more than a month after the All England Tennis Club announced that Russian and Belarussian players would be banned because of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine; in response, both the ATP and WTA Tours said it would not award ranking points at the tournament. While several months ago it looked like the tournament would not allow Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 seed who is famously unvaccinated, to participate, England’s entry protocols for athletes changed in the spring to allow Djokovic to play.
Djokovic, a 35-year-old with 20 Grand Slam titles, was deported from Australia because of his unvaccinated status hours before the tournament started after a protracted legal battle. He was barred from participating in tournaments in California and Florida earlier this season and as of now would still be stopped from going to the U.S. Open, because he says he will not get a shot against COVID-19.
“The sport needs him — needs him in the sport and at big events,” said Denis Shapovalov, a 23-year-old Canadian seeded 13th at Wimbledon who said he did not have an easy time deciding whether to get the shots himself but in the end, “I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.”
NHL: As Avalanche Win Stanley Cup, COVID Hits Bettman
Posted: Tuesday, June 28
As NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman addressed the media before the Stanley Cup Final series that started in Denver, Colorado, he spent most of the news conference in an exuberant mood, boasting of increased media revenue from the first year of a new TV deal, how scoring was up this season and how revenues were trending way up, leaving him to exclaim “I am delighted that after two and a half years, things are actually feeling normal.”
On Sunday night as the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup by winning Game 6 at the Tampa Bay Lightning, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly handed the Stanley Cup to Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog in place of Bettman, who recently tested positive for COVID-19 and was unable to produce enough negative results to get back to the series in time.

It’s the first time someone other than Bettman — NHL fan tradition demands he get roundly booed while on ice — handed out the Cup since he took over in 1993. A league spokesman said Bettman was resting at home and feeling better less than two weeks after giving his first Cup Final address in person for the first time in three years.
It was during that address at which Bettman was in a good mood. Even after a hard winter that included a temporary shutdown of the season because of the omicron variant, the NHL was expecting to hit $5 billion in revenue for the first time in the 2019–2020 season. After that season was finished in two fan-free bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton with the Lightning winning the Stanley Cup at a nearly empty Rogers Place in Edmonton, the 2021 season was abbreviated to 56 games with no cross-border travel and regional scheduling with several arenas not allowing fans at full capacity.
Even while more arenas opened up as the season went on — eventually the Lightning repeated as Cup champions at home in front of a sellout crowd — Bettman acknowledged that the league’s lost revenues had reached the billion-dollar level last season, making this season all the more important financially. The league was able to return to 82 games and its traditional division alignment and while 105 games were postponed, all were rescheduled thanks to not taking a break for the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
“We were able to stabilize the business and power through,” Bettman said. “Didn’t mean that at times there weren’t challenges, didn’t mean at times we didn’t have to adjust. Some of you on occasion said we were making it up as we went along, and we were, but we did what we had to do to get through it.”
Bettman’s absence for the Cup handover comes less than two weeks after NBA Commissioner Adam Silver missed the last two games of the Finals after a positive COVID test, leaving Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum to present the Larry O’Brien Trophy to the Golden State Warriors.
Could Booster’s Waning Effects Hurt Sports Next Winter?
Posted: Monday, June 20
With the NBA season and the Stanley Cup Final cementing the end of the NHL’s season, the 2021–2022 winter pro sports have been able to complete another season that was complicated by COVID-19. Unlike the previous season that was held with fan restrictions in nearly every arena, this year’s NBA and NHL seasons were almost always held in front of crowds allowed at 100 percent capacity, and those that started the season with masking and vaccination requirements eliminated those protocols by the time spring came.
But the seasons will be remembered for more than just having been completed and with revenues more in line with traditional expectations. There were moments of genuine concern for both the NBA and NHL because of the omicron variant that surged around the United States and Canada during the winter months. Some NBA games had to be rescheduled, with players coming out of retirement on 10-day contracts to fill rosters of teams dealing with multiple COVID positives. The NHL had to take even more drastic measures, suspending the season around the Christmas holiday for a short period of time and backing out of its original plans to participate in the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
Make no mistake about it: If the public at large was as vaccinated in the percentages that pro sports leagues and many collegiate programs are, the numbers based around COVID-19 would be drastically different. Nearly every pro league has a 95-plus percent vaccination rate, something few regions in the U.S. can boast. Yet given the way different variants have spread and the general waning effectiveness of the first round of boosters, the question remains: Will what we saw during this past winter potentially happen again?

Dr. Robby Sikka, former vice president of basketball operations for the Minnesota Timberwolves who consulted with the NBA on COVID-19 treatment and protocols and now a physician for the Denver Broncos and founder of the COVID-19 Sports and Society Workgroup, told The Athletic recently that next season will still bring questions related to COVID for leagues to consider.
“We’re talking about a disease that doesn’t just impact life and death, but this is a disease that potentially spreads rapidly throughout a population,” Sikka said. “We probably need to start thinking about, are people going to get a booster ahead of next season? Are we going to have more treatments available, or are we going to more aggressively use Paxlovid? Those are the questions that we should ask.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver before the Finals considered the idea of a COVID-infected player not missing games next season “a really interesting question. I don’t know if it’s analogous or not, (but) there are other viruses, where the flu, historically it’s been a determination from a player and team or player’s doctor as to whether it’s appropriate for them to be out on the floor. Ultimately, I think that’s a bigger issue than the NBA. I don’t think we’re looking to be a trendsetter there. I think we want to be mindful of an impact an infected player can have not just on other players on the floor but people in the arena.”
Of course, about a week after his press conference, Silver tested positive for COVID and missed the last two games of the NBA Finals, leaving Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum to present the Larry O’Brien Trophy to the Golden State Warriors after the Game 6 win in Boston.
NBA: Report Hints at COVID Breakout During NBA Playoffs
Updated: Monday, June 13
The latest person to get caught up in the NBA’s health and safety protocols is the league’s top leader.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver canceled plans to attend Monday’s Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics because of the league’s health and safety protocols.
The league did not say if Silver had tested positive for COVID-19 or was deemed a close contact of someone who had. It was unclear if Silver will be able to resume attending games.
Part of Silver’s job involves handing out the league’s championship trophy, which one team will be awarded either Thursday in Boston or Sunday in San Francisco. Silver has been commissioner since February 2014.
There is a chance that perhaps the most stunning result of the NBA postseason has a COVID-related backstory for why it happened.
Those who watched the Dallas Mavericks’ 123-90 win in Game 7 at the Phoenix Suns were stunned by the ease in which the Mavericks were able to dominate, leading by more than 40 points throughout the second half. Seeing the best team in the NBA’s regular season beaten so easily made some fans wonder if their eyes were deceiving them … and now, a report from The Athletic suggests there could have been a COVID-related reason.

Phoenix assistant coach Bryan Gates tested positive after Game 6 and The Athletic reported that five others tested positive within days the Suns’ lethargic performance in Game 7, including one unnamed player. The NBA requires team personnel to test for COVID if they are experiencing symptoms and a positive test would rule them out of any tasks. Team personnel can be subjected to testing for close contact with someone with COVID-19 if they are not fully vaccinated.
The reports out of Phoenix are not the only time that COVID has affected the postseason. Los Angeles Clippers star Paul George missed his team’s play-in tournament game against the New Orleans Pelicans, a loss that knocked the Clippers out of the first round. Zach LaVine of the Chicago Bulls missed Game 5 of his team’s first-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks, a game the Bulls lost to close the series.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr missed two games in the Western Conference semifinals when he tested positive, saying when he returned “I felt like I had a bad cold, sore throat, cough, congestion. I felt like I could have coached, but I obviously didn’t want to get anybody else sick. So as soon as I tested positive, it was like all right, you’re out of here.”
The Eastern Conference finals was disrupted because of COVID when Boston Celtics forward Al Horford missed Game 1 against Miami before returning to two negative tests 24 hours apart, allowing him to return per the league’s protocols.
And COVID has affected the NBA Finals away from the court. ESPN play-by-play announcer Mike Breen missed the first two games after a positive test that also took him out of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, while analyst Jeff Van Gundy missed Game 1. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski also was not on site for Game 1 after a positive test.
NFL: League Does Away with All COVID Protocols
Posted: Monday, June 6
The National Football League in early March was the first professional sports league in the United States to suspend all of its COVID-related protocols as the combine was starting in Indianapolis — and those suspended protocols will go away for the 2022 season, the NFL Network reported.
According to Tom Pelissero, the NFL Management Council informed teams last Thursday that COVID surveillance testing of players and staff — regardless of an individual’s vaccination status — is no longer required.
When the protocols were suspended, players and staffers were able to go maskless inside team facilities without having to adhere to social distancing measures. Teams provided testing for anyone at a team facility who self-reported COVID symptoms but there is no mandatory testing. Those who test positive will be required to isolate for five days.
The NFL, like every professional league, has been overwhelmingly vaccinated — 95 percent of players and almost 100 percent of team personnel by the end of the playoffs earlier this year — without the need for a mandate for players, although coaches and Tier 1 personnel did face a mandate.
COVID testing will occur “when clinically indicated and/or at the direction of the Club Physician,” Pelissero said, and any individual experiencing symptoms must receive a negative test before going into club facilities. Clubs can determine individually whether to require full vaccination or boosters for staff, subject to state law.
The league did still face a surge in cases in December as the omicron variant spread throughout the country, with more than 1,200 positive tests among players and staff from December 12 to January with multiple games near the end of the regular season postponed a few days without too much disruption to the schedule.
But once it got past the surge, the NFL almost completely stopped testing for the virus even among unvaccinated players in the playoffs. The league changed course for multiple reasons — partially because of a rapid decrease in the number of players testing positive after an end-of-regular-season surge, and partially because the percentage of vaccinated players on the remaining teams was high enough to give the league and union comfort in changing its protocols.
SOCCER: Messi Details Long Bout With COVID Aftereffects
Posted: Tuesday, May 31
Another example of how high-performing, world-class athletes can be affected by COVID-19 was revealed by one of the greatest soccer players ever over the weekend.
Lionel Messi, who had COVID in January, admitted during an interview with Argentina television recently that returning to Paris Saint-Germain after testing positive was difficult.
“It left me with after effects. It left me with after effects in my lungs. I came back and it was like a month and a half without even being able to run because my lungs were affected,” Messi said Monday. “I came back before I should have, and it got worse because I went too fast and it ended up setting me back. But I couldn’t take it anymore, I wanted to run, to train – I wanted to get going. And in the end, it got worse.”

Messi first tested positive for COVID right around New Year’s Day. He was one of four players that was isolated on January 2 after he tested positive while away on vacation in Argentina, leading to a short-term absence during the Ligue 1 season that PSG — the league’s dominant powerhouse — won with weeks to spare in the season.
Messi said his symptoms were a sore throat, coughing and fever. The Argentine forward missed three matches after his positive test in January: two in Ligue 1 and one in the French Cup.
The 34-year-old, already regarded as one of the greats to ever play the game, had a subpar record by his standards with PSG, recording six goals and 14 assists in 26 games. He had five goals in seven Champions League games for PSG, which was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Real Madrid, Messi’s archrivals from his time at Barcelona. Messi’s contract with PSG runs out after next season, with a move to Major League Soccer widely rumored.
Messi is preparing to play with Argentina against Italy in the first edition of the Finalissima, pitting the winners of Euro 2020 against the winners of the Copa Ámerica. The match takes place on June 1 in London.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Financial Reports Show Pandemic’s Impact on Power Five
Posted: Friday, May 27
It was never a question of if, but more how much, college sports revenue dropped during the past two-plus years of the pandemic. Between the cancellation of the NCAA’s winter and spring championships in March 2020 and the following fall’s restricted capacities for football games throughout the country, athletic departments and conferences knew the revenue they would traditionally budget would not be coming.
In the past week, college sports fans have gotten a clearer picture of what the economic impact was with three of the Power Five conferences reporting significant revenue drops for the 2021 fiscal year, which encompassed the 2020–2021 seasons.
USA Today Sports’ examination showed that the Pac-12 had a $190 million revenue downturn in the fiscal year 2021 while the Big Ten was down $89 million and Big 12 was down $53 million.
The inconsistency among the Power Five conferences in how they handled football — their biggest revenue driver — was stark. The SEC and ACC played full conference schedules, which meant that while several longstanding non-conference rivalries were on hiatus for a year, there were still opportunities to get a restricted number of fans through the gates. The ACC also allowed teams to play one nonconference game. Both schools also, by the amount of games scheduled, were able to put together plenty of content for their respective conference networks.

The Big 12 also played as close to a full schedule as possible and while it posted a loss, it was not nearly the amount of the Big Ten and Pac-12. Those two conferences started the latest in the season, played fewer games than any other Power Five leagues and did not have any fans in the stands other than family members. The Pac-12 said only one of its 35 scheduled football games to be shown on the Pac-12 Network in 2020 was actually played because most of its others were already scheduled for national broadcasts.
The SEC also announced in May 2021 that it would distribute an additional $23 million to each member as an advance on future television money — having signed an agreement with ESPN in December 2020 for a reported $300 million per year, multiples more than it previously had for a TV contract. The Big Ten, while knowing its schools would take gigantic hits played in stadiums closed off to fans, during the past fiscal year exercised a pre-existing option to sell 20 percent of its interest in the Big Ten Network to Fox for $100 million in cash or receivables on the books.
Add it all up and the rich got richer in college sports even during the pandemic; the SEC’s financial maneuverings allowed it to distribute $54.6 million to each school, by far the most, while the Pac-12’s member schools each got $19.8 million.
Months After Beijing Olympics, China Says No to Hosting International Events
Posted: Thursday, May 26
Within months of hosting one of the biggest sporting events in the world, there is an open question on when China will ever host another one.
The country announced it will not host next year’s Asian Cup, the continental championship, adding to a list of events surrendered within the past two weeks:
- Hangzhou will not host the 2022 Asian Games after the event scheduled for September 10–25 was postponed until a future date because, the Olympic Council of Asia said, of the “pandemic situation.”
- After “extensive discussions” between the International University Sports Federation, Chengdu 2021 Organizing Committee and other stakeholders, the World University Games scheduled for this summer in Chengdu will be postponed until 2023.
- The Asian Youth Games scheduled for December 20–28 in Shantou, China, has been cancelled.
Giving up so many major sporting events in the coming months comes as China has been fighting some of its worst numbers of COVID-19 since the pandemic. Shanghai will lift a citywide lockdown on June 1 after several weeks of having severe restrictions on movement. Beijing has been gradually tightening restrictions since late April. Shanghai reported fewer than 700 daily cases on Sunday while Beijing reported 61 cases.
“Lockdown restrictions have led to a pivot towards more activities at home, including watching live sports,” said Justin Tan, managing director of Mailman China, a global digital sports agency. “On one hand, we miss the physical proximity to the biggest stars and teams of global sports. On the other hand, we have had the opportunity, with success, to create new experiences for fans here, enabled and powered by digital connectivity and new technologies.”
The cancellations come after Beijing was able to hold the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in February and March with a “closed loop” philosophy which kept athletes and Games personnel sealed off from the public.
The desire to host the Games was not just China’s, remember. The IOC’s annual report, published last week during its Executive Board meetings, showed the organization earning $7.6 billion in total revenue from 2017–2021, which includes the Summer Games in Tokyo.
Of that gigantic number, 61 percent came from worldwide TV broadcasting rights — making sure the show went on in Tokyo and Beijing was of upmost importance to the IOC, regardless of having fans in the stands or even in the country .
NFL: Could Vaccine Mandate Have Led to Raiders’ No-Show Numbers?
Posted: Monday, May 23
One look at the NFL attendance figures for the 2021 season would make an observer believe that the inaugural season for the Las Vegas Raiders was a roaring success for fans. According to the NFL, the Raiders drew an average of more than 61,000 at Allegiant Stadium last season, which is 94.1 percent of capacity.
Those numbers look even better when you consider that according to Team Marketing Report’s Fan Cost Index, the average home ticket for the Raiders was $153.47, highest in the NFL — perhaps showcasing the demand by fans at Allegiant Stadium after it opened in 2020 with games played without fans because of the pandemic.
But a report last week in Sports Business Journal indicates that those attendance numbers may not have been as robust as first thought. The Raiders averaged a 14.3 percent no-show rate after an analysis of attendance reports compared to quarterly reports by the Las Vegas Stadium Authority.
“For an NFL team to have 14.3% percent no-shows with the first year of a new stadium, with a competitive team, that’s more than double what I’d anticipate. Probably really around triple what I’d anticipate,” Tony Knopp, co-founder and chief executive manager of TicketManager, told Sports Business Journal.

Critics would also point out that the Raiders were the only team to have the entire season played with a vaccination mandate for fans; the Bills had one for most but not all of the regular season.
“On the surface what’s crazy was how hot the market was, and it was crazy the no-show rate was this high,” said Patrick Ryan, co-founder of Eventellect, told SBJ. “But it’s Vegas, and no pun intended, all bets are off in Vegas.”
It also is a glimpse inside the dual silos of attendance numbers; teams often trumpet sellouts, those who watch at home on television and see empty seats during games know that it’s more a question of tickets sold but not tickets used.
Vegas’ 94.1 percent capacity figure even before no-shows was in the bottom third of the NFL for stadium capacity last season. While the NFL had two teams at 100 percent capacity — and, somehow, four teams a few tenths above 100 percent capacity, which raises the question of what capacity really means — some teams had large numbers of fans but not as robust a number for capacity.
The Dallas Cowboys, for example, drew an average of over 93,000 per game, far and away the best in the league. But when measured for capacity of a sellout crowd, Dallas actually ranked 23rd last season at 93.4 percent, one spot behind Vegas.
A look through the NFL’s attendance figures also shows that the belief that a worse a team is, the fewer fans show up is not entirely true. If you go by percentage of capacity last year, the moribund Houston Texans (92.8 percent) edged the AFC Champion Cincinnati Bengals (92.1 percent). The Pittsburgh Steelers, with a devoted following at road games that sometimes take over an opponent’s stadium, were at 88.4 percent capacity during its home games, just one spot above the New York Jets’ 86.9 percent.
Overall, though, it is inescapable that a number for just about any NFL team would be the envy for any other professional sports franchise (or at any level, really). After the Jets on the capacity percentage chart were only two teams not to draw at least 86 percent capacity at home games; the Detroit Lions at 79.9 percent and the Washington Commanders at 64.3 percent.
NBA: More Positive Tests Disrupt Conference Finals
Posted: Thursday, May 19
The latest in a string of COVID-19 positive tests to hit the NBA playoffs affected Boston star forward Al Horford on Tuesday night, giving the league another reminder of the road that it has traveled over the past three years when trying to complete each season.

The Celtics made the announcement less than three hours before Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, which Boston lost to Miami. Horford tested positive for COVID-19 during the preseason and was in protocols again in December.
Under the NBA’s protocols, a player must have two consecutive negative PCR tests at least 24 hours apart or two consecutive PCR tests sampled at least 24 hours apart with cycle threshold values greater than 30 no sooner than Day 4 and 5 after initially testing positive. The Celtics announced six hours before Thursday’s Game 2 that Horford cleared protocols.
COVID has been a storyline from the beginning of the NBA playoffs this season, just like the past two — the 2021 playoffs ran into late July because of the season starting late and the 2020 playoffs were memorably held in a bubble environment at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando, Florida, and not finished until October.
The league’s issues started this postseason when Paul George missed the Los Angeles Clippers’ play-in tournament game, a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. Chicago’s Zach Lavine also missed a game during the Bulls’ first-round series loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr missed Games 4 and 5 in the Western Conference semifinals after a positive test and was replaced by associate head coach Mike Brown.
Federal health officials said Wednesday that one third of Americans live in areas where the threat of infection high enough they should consider wearing a mask in indoor public settings regardless of local policy.
Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said “we urge local leaders to encourage the use of prevention strategies like masking in public indoor settings and increasing access to testing and treatment for individuals,” for areas with high case numbers.
According to the New York Times’ daily COVID tracker, there were 100,732 new cases of COVID on Tuesday, up 61 percent over the past two weeks, with a 27 percent increase in hospitalizations.
Of the four teams left in the NBA playoffs, Miami-Dade County has the highest daily number of infections at 1,179, according to the Times’ tracker. San Francisco is next with 503 followed by Boston with 481 and Dallas with 200.
“It’s like every single time we think, ‘All right, this is kind of getting behind us,’ it’s not, and it’s frustrating for all of us,” said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra on Wednesday. “You don’t want to see it on either side. You want to play against their best and try to beat their best with our best. It’s just not the world we’re living in right now. It’s really been three years of this. So I would expect the unexpected.”
WNBA: COVID Already Affecting Season Within Weeks of Tipoff
Posted: Tuesday, May 17
For nearly every professional sport that has been tracked since the fall, any potential spread within a team of COVID-19 has been (for the most part) the more easily transmissible omicron variant, which wreaked havoc with the winter schedules of the NBA and NHL in December.
But while Major League Baseball this season has had just one game postponed so far, one main difference between it and the NFL, NHL and NBA compared to other sports is its teams fly charter all season long. And with the mask mandate on planes being reversed earlier this spring, there were worries within the WNBA in particular about how that would potentially affect players since those teams fly commercial.
The first player to enter the WNBA’s protocols this season was Washington guard Natasha Cloud, who once the mask mandate was lifted in April wrote on Twitter “On commercial flights, trying to have a Covid free season … while being surrounded by random people not wearing masks.”

Seattle Storm star Breanna Stewart and teammate Epiphanny Prince then missed last Wednesday’s game against the Phoenix Mercury after entering protocols. “Fly commercial they say…” Stewart said on Twitter that night.
WNBA players are tested only if they are symptomatic.
“We travel commercial,” Seattle guard Sue Bird said after the game. “When we’re on the road we’re in public places in order to eat, the hotels we stay at. With the new variants and the fact that we don’t have a G League to pull from, one would imagine that this might happen a lot. I don’t hope that for anyone. But who knows … given that the season has just started, and we are already starting to see it.”
Charter flights have been a hot topic in the WNBA already this season in part because of players drawing attention to the issue. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in March that the cost of charters for all teams would be more than $20 million per season, a figure she does not feel the league could incur. The league fined New York Liberty owner Joe Tsai $500,000 last season for chartering flights to every game for his team once the league found out he had kept it under wraps; Tsai, who also owns the Brooklyn Nets, has a reported net worth in excess of $8 billion.
“I personally think airports are the dirtiest places in the world,” said LA Sparks center Liz Cambage, who is 6-foot-8 and told The Los Angeles Times that she spends up to $8,000 of her own money each season to get first-class upgrades rather than try and fit into a regular seat. “And the fact that we’re in [them] every other day, when there are owners out there that want us to fly private? And the league literally doesn’t allow it? It’s crazy to me.”
The WNBA is not the only women’s pro league to have issues with COVID recently. The NWSL announced a player replacement policy last Friday that allows teams to sign emergency players to fill roster spots; the next day, a game scheduled between Gotham FC and the North Carolina Courage was postponed to a later date with 11 players between the two teams out because of health and safety protocols.
“While we are just as disappointed as our fans, we understand and respect the NWSL’s decision,” Gotham FC said in a statement.
NBA: Kyrie Irving’s Actions During Pandemic May Have Consequences
Posted: Monday, May 16
One of the biggest storylines during the NBA regular season was the saga of Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, whose refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19 led to a temporary exclusion from the team entirely, before a part-time return and eventual late-season full return before the team exited the playoffs with a first-round sweep at the hands of the Boston Celtics.
The Nets last week held front office press conferences, two weeks after the Nets were swept with Irving saying after the game he was looking forward to returning to Brooklyn — he is a free agent in the summer — and that he would be “managing this franchise” with fellow star Kevin Durant.
In the wake of those comments, the Nets front office left more than a few hints that this season’s difficulties, in which the preseason East favorite ended up being the No. 7 seed, were Irving’s responsibility.
“We’re looking for guys that want to come in here and be part of something bigger than themselves, play selfless, play team basketball and be available,” Nets General Manager Sean Marks said. “And that goes not only for Kyrie but for everybody here.”

Because of previous New York City mandates, Irving was at the start of the season barred from playing in home games. The Nets first told Irving to stay away from the team entirely before he returned in a part-time role in December. The NYC mandate was eventually eliminated and Irving was able to play a few home games in the regular season before the playoffs, but Irving’s status was a topic of discussion on a daily basis in Brooklyn.
“Whenever you have a key part of your team that isn’t available and you’re trying to build chemistry, you’re trying to build camaraderie out on the court, that’s very difficult,” Marks said.
The little whispers and hints also grew louder in the wake of the Nets’ abrupt end to the season when one of the team’s assistant coaches, former NBA All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire, said he would not return to the team and pointed to Irving’s unreliability as a reason why.
“It made it difficult for us coaches to figure out who’s going to play in spite of Kyrie,” Stoudemire said recently. “The chemistry is not where we would like it to be, so it was difficult for us to manage that. So yeah, it was definitely part of that.”
Irving has been an untraditional figure within the NBA for several seasons. In the 2020–2021 season, he missed seven games while essentially going AWOL and violating the NBA’s health and safety protocols. He flouted his unvaccinated status most of the season, at one point claiming he was a voice for the voiceless. Between his unpredictability and other comments, there were reports last week that Nike may end its sponsorship contract with him for what is his unperceived untrustworthiness.
“I think those are going to be discussions,” Marks said about Irving. “It’s a team sport and you need everybody out there on the court.”
NBA: Playoffs Still Affected by COVID Protocols
Posted: Friday, May 13
While not as prevalent by any means compared to the initial omicron surge during December that forced some games to be postponed in the regular season, the NBA Playoffs are still a reminder of COVID’s existence throughout the world.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday evening and was replaced by associate head coach Mike Brown for Monday’s win Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Kerr had been wearing a mask in recent days and received confirmation of a positive test less than two hours before the game. He also missed Wednesday’s Game 5 loss to the Grizzlies in Memphis; Game 6 is Friday night in San Francisco.
Brown, who will leave the Warriors at season’s end to take over as head coach of the Sacramento Kings, has stepped in on several occasions for Kerr and is 12-0 guiding the Warriors through postseason games between Monday night and the team’s 2017 title run.

“There’s butterflies, because again you’re going into the game with a certain mindset and it’s a big game. Every game that we play at this point in the year, it’s huge,” Brown said. “So to have that kind of thrown at you, you’ve got to switch gears because I know what my responsibilities are going in as Mike Brown the assistant coach, and it changes.”
Kerr’s positive test is the latest of several during the playoffs. Paul George missed the Los Angeles Clippers’ play-in tournament game, a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. Chicago’s Zach Lavine also missed a game during the Bulls’ first-round series loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.
NBA protocols no longer require players to undergo testing unless they are symptomatic or unvaccinated. Players who test positive have to be out six days before potentially being able to rejoin the team.
“I just want to send him my best. Hope he gets better very soon, rests up,” Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said of Kerr. “The way of the world right now, COVID’s still rampant throughout, so I just want to make sure he’s doing well. I know it’s terrible timing and stuff, but hopefully his spirits are up. Just want to send him a good note there.”
As the NBA continues its postseason, the WNBA’s 26th season started on Friday. One of several major differences between the leagues is the mode of travel; while all NBA teams fly charter, the WNBA flies commercially and with the rescinding of the mask mandate on airplanes, there was fear before the season that players would be at a higher risk of contracting COVID.
Washington’s Natasha Cloud was the first WNBA player this season to enter COVID protocols. Cloud is averaging 18 points per game through two games and while watching her team’s win over Las Vegas on Tuesday night tweeted “Shoutout to the @WNBA for flying us commercial during a pandemic. (And no mask mandates) Go mystics.”
MLB: First Game of the Season Postponed due to COVID
Posted: Wednesday, May 11
Major League Baseball had its first game postponed this season because of COVID-19 after the Cleveland Guardians’ game against the Chicago White Sox was called off due to an outbreak within the Guardians organization.
The game will be rescheduled at a later date. Guardians manager Terry Francona had already been announced to have tested positive but neither the team or MLB provided further details on the level of COVID within the organization.

Cleveland’s team recently had a coronavirus outbreak, with infielders Owen Miller, Yu Chang and pitchers Cal Quantrill and Anthony Castro all being placed on the COVID-19 injury list.
“Following multiple positive COVID-19 tests within the Cleveland Guardians organization, their afternoon road game today vs. the Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field has been postponed to allow for continued testing and contact tracing,” MLB said in a statement.
Wednesday’s game was to be the last of a three-game series before the Guardians have an off day ahead of a three-game series at the Minnesota Twins.
It was the first coronavirus-related postponement in the league so far this season, which started on April 7. Last season did not even start before there was a postponement related to COVID-19.
China Postpones Asian Games and World University Games
Posted: Friday, May 6
Only a few months after the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games were held in a tightly-sealed bubble environment in Beijing, the Chinese city of Hangzhou will not host the 2022 Asian Games after the event scheduled for September 10–25 was postponed until a future date because, the Olympic Council of Asia said, of the “pandemic situation.”
Along with the Asian Games, after “extensive discussions” between the International University Sports Federation, Chengdu 2021 Organizing Committee and other stakeholders, the World University Games scheduled for this summer will be postponed until 2023. The Asian Youth Games scheduled for December 20–28 in Shantou, China, has also been cancelled, the OCA said. The next event will be 2025 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
China is in the midst of its worst outbreak of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. While Shanghai said Friday it has brought its outbreak under effective control following a month-long lockdown of nearly 25 million people, other cities including Beijing are facing a wave of targeted lockdowns.
“(The Hangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee) has been very well prepared to deliver the Games on time despite global challenges,” the Olympic Council of Asia said in a statement “However, the above decision was taken by all the stakeholders after carefully considering the pandemic situation and the size of the Games. The name and the emblem of the 19th Asian Games will remain unchanged, and the OCA believes that the Games will achieve complete success through the joint efforts of all parties.”
The Asian Games is second in size only to the Olympic Summer Games. Fifty-six competition venues had been completed as the city prepared to host more than 11,000 athletes from 44 nations and territories.
TRIATHLON: World Triathlon Cancels Two Championships in China
The outbreak in China has also had an impact on two major international triathlon events, which have also been postponed. The World Triathlon Executive Board has approved the cancellation of the 2022 World Triathlon Championship Series Chengdu and the 2022 World Triathlon Cup Weihai, after the Local Organizing Committee and the China Triathlon Sports Association formally requested the cancellation of both events due to the impact of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions in China.
According to the COVID-19 Prevention and Control Policy applied by the Chinese government, all travelers from aboard would have needed to go through “14+7” days of quarantine in designated hotels, a time during which the athletes and staff would not have access to training facilities, making it impossible to move forward with the events, according to World Triathlon.
The events had been scheduled to be staged in September and October 2022.
NHL: Playoffs With Full Buildings is ‘Return to Normalcy’
Posted: May 3, 2022
The Stanley Cup Playoffs started with four games on Monday night, including games in Toronto and Edmonton — under very different circumstances compared to when those cities hosted playoff games two years ago.
When the Maple Leafs hosted the Lightning and the Oilers hosted the Los Angeles Kings, they were the first playoff games in Canada with full arenas since 2019. Toronto and Edmonton were the sites of two bubbles to complete the 2020 NHL regular season and Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“This is the ultimate return to normalcy,” NHL Commission Gary Bettman said as the playoffs prepared to get underway. “To have our full buildings and exciting games, what more could we ask for? Especially after what we’ve all been through the last two years.”
Hockey was affected perhaps more than any sport in the winter as omicron spread throughout the league. The NHL had to temporarily shut down at the end of December, forcing the league to withdraw from plans to have its players at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. There were more than 100 games postponed and later made up overall with some Canadian teams having to return to fan capacity restrictions during the worst of the surge.
The COVID issues throughout the season have affected players all season.
NHL veteran Brandon Sutter, one of 21 Canucks players who contracted COVID during March 2021, told Sportsnet last month that during the summer of 2021 he experienced a raised heart rate and breathing difficulties. He was unable to play when the season started in October before returning to practice in February before setbacks meant he has not skated since early April.

“Thought I was getting better after Christmas and started training again, started skating again and was kind of optimistic about returning at some point this season,” Sutter told Sportsnet. “… I’m always hopeful to get back as soon as I can and doing all we can to correct it. It’s just been dealing with immune system stuff, which a lot of people who are going through it at home too, have had what they’re calling ‘long Covid’ stuff. It’s not a lot of fun.”
Sutter played for the Carolina Hurricanes and Pittsburgh Penguins before joining Vancouver in 2015.
“Being out all year like this, watching the guys, is tough,” he said. “I want to get back as soon as I can … You’re just waiting for answers. You break a bone, you have a broken leg or a knee problem, or a shoulder or something, you go ‘OK, we got six weeks, we got eight weeks, we got 10 weeks, and we’re back to normal.’ This has just been dragging on and dragging on.”
The NHL’s rollercoaster season has mirrored that of its top minor league, the American Hockey League, which will start its Calder Cup Playoffs this week as well.
“It’s been one of peaks and valleys,” AHL President Scott Howson said on the SportsTravel Podcast. “October, the first part of November, we were sailing along. We had some cases, but not a lot of games are being canceled and not a lot of cases were being reported. … then U.S. Thanksgiving hit and the cases, they just exploded. And it seemed like every day we were dealing with a team that was in jeopardy of not being able to play, not being able to ice a competitive team.”
Howson said the AHL would not have been able to play an abbreviated 2021 season without the NHL’s financial support. The NHL itself lost $3.6 billion between having the 2019–2020 season cut short and the 2021 season shortened to 56 games. The NHL this season projected $5.2 billion in revenue at a Board of Governors meeting in December.
“Revenue wise, we did fine this year,” Bettman said. “We did basically what we were projecting. The impact of having buildings empty in Canada for some period of time had an impact — material for those clubs — but in terms of the $5-plus billion were going to do, it was only a very, very small part of that.”
NFL: No COVID, no worries for draft fans in Las Vegas
Posted: Friday, April 29
The crowds were as wild as the Las Vegas nightlife promotes, tens of thousands invading the City that Never Sleeps for the start of the NFL Draft on Thursday night with the promise of a long weekend filled with football, plus all the other attractions that the city in the middle of the desert promises.
It was the first time that the NFL had been able to fully realize its road trip ambitions in three years, explained the man in charge of putting together the NFL draft, former SportsTravel Podcast guest Peter O’Reilly, the league’s executive vice president of club business and league events.
“This feels great and we couldn’t be more appreciative,” O’Reilly told The Associated Press. “We’ve had a core vision that has been three years in place. We’ve learned a ton on how it can evolve and grow.”

And grow it will. One of the league’s most desirable offseason events, the list of potential draft sites is long. The first road show draft after the NFL left New York, where it had been since 1965, was the opener of a two-year stay starting in 2015 in Chicago, followed by Philadelphia, Dallas and Nashville.
The 2020 draft was scheduled for Las Vegas before the pandemic turned it into a virtual event, then last year’s draft in Cleveland was held with some crowd capacity restrictions. O’Reilly told the AP that 20 NFL cities have expressed interest in hosting in the future. The 2023 draft is heading to Kansas City while 2024’s draft is heading to Detroit.
“It’s become a pilgrimage event by NFL fans,” O’Reilly added. “And we’re in a destination market. The fans come in and connect with each other, and they all feel that hope, which is the single most (accurate) word for a draft.”
And for the businesses on the strip, it was a massive boost.
“This is the first time we ever had an event that is close to us,” Linq Promenade General Manager Tonia Chafetz told the Nevada Independent. “What I’m hearing from our team is the numbers are very similar to March Madness.”
Practically forgotten was the past two years with COVID affecting the draft, the NFL, everything in sports and life. And while the draft last night and throughout this weekend is the first step in a professional career for many draftees, there remains memories of the pandemic and what it has wrought for millions around the country.
Alabama receiver John Metchie III, a projected middle-to-late round pick, is from Canada and could not see his family for two years. “Not seeing my mom for two years was tough,” he said in March. “Of course, technology nowadays helps. It’s not the same as seeing them in person or being around them in person, but it definitely helps.”
The uncertainty depending on the school and level of college football means that this year’s draft class has a wide berth of experiences. South Dakota State running back Pierre Strong played 24 games in 10 months on the FBS level while UConn defensive tackle Travis Jones saw his program cancel its 2020 season.
While UConn cancelled its season there were plenty of other schools who put players on an emotional rollercoaster that fall. Some Big Ten schools actually started practicing in pads before the conference said no games would be played. When the SEC and other leagues did not follow the Big Ten’s lead, the league eventually changed course and had an abbreviated season.
“It’s crazy,” Ohio State tackle Nick Petit-Frere said. “The season got canceled, came back, games got canceled. We played one of the most crazy seasons you could ever imagine in the history of college football and somehow, the Ohio State Buckeyes were in the (national) championship game. … This has been a once-in-a-lifetime two or three years.”
At Louisiana, tackle Max Mitchell spent two weeks in isolation in 2020 after a COVID-19 test showed he had antibodies. He returned in October and finished the season, but the impact lingers.
“It was frustrating to say the least,” Mitchell said. “I never tested positive and they came and pulled me off the field in the middle of practice. If you’ve been sick, I understand you have to take care of yourself. But when you feel fine, there’s a guilty feeling when you’re not out there.”
NBA: Kyrie Irving’s Refusal of the COVID Vaccine Looms Large as Nets Contemplate Early Elimination
Posted: Tuesday, April 26
There is no doubt that COVID-19 has disrupted sports throughout the past several months whether it be the postponements for the NBA, a temporary shutdown of the NHL, games cancelled in collegiate sports and minor sports feeling the crunch after a season that started with so much promise because of the widespread availability of vaccination.
Then there is the Brooklyn Nets, who started the 2021–2022 season with championship ambitions before it came to a crushing halt with a first-round sweep at the hands of the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference playoffs. For the Nets, the season was affected because of COVID in a different way than most — because of where the team is located, for starters, and because of one of their player’s refusal to get vaccinated.

The season started under a cloud of controversy when star guard Kyrie Irving made it clear that he would not vaccinated even after then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio put a mandate in place that workers within the city had to get the vaccine. Irving’s refusal forced the Nets’ hand and the team decided at the start of the season that a player to be half-in, half-out would not be good for the roster, telling him to stay away while still paying his salary.
Brooklyn changed its mind in mid-December as the team’s roster began to be depleted because of the omicron variant, with Irving returning to action on January 5 after his own stint on the NBA’s COVID list. He continued to only play in road games until current NYC Mayor Eric Adams rolled back the mandate in late March. Before the mandate was rolled back, the Nets also further shook up the roster by trading fellow star James Harden to Philadelphia; Harden, once in Philadelphia, said Irving’s refusal to get vaccinated and unsettle the team was one of the reasons he requested a trade out of Brooklyn.
The day before the Nets’ elimination, Irving said part of the team’s struggles this season was because of not being able to play together on a consistent basis.
“We’re all just trying to jell,” Irving said. “… “I don’t want to be too cliché, but I don’t have a lot of answers from how you make up time from October until now when usually teams would be jelling and things would be feeling good. You could put it on me in terms of playing better, controlling the game better, controlling our possessions, being more in a stance, not turning the ball over as much — so you could put it on me more of just doing more. And holding the guys accountable, same way I’m held accountable.”
Acknowledging the inconsistent nature of the season while saying that it was because of his on-court performances, rather than the actual reason Irving was in and out of the lineup until right before the playoffs, was more than noticeable by NBA observers.
Nets coach Steve Nash said on Sunday that Irving’s unvaccinated status all season was not worth thinking about in retrospect, saying “it’s not a worthy exercise. We deal with what’s in front of us. We deal in reality.” But Irving, at least, conceded his absence’s role after the Nets were eliminated on Monday night.
“I think it was just really heavy emotionally this season,” he said. “I felt like I was letting the team down at a point where I wasn’t able to play. We were trying to exercise every option for me to play, but I never wanted it to just be about me. And I think it became a distraction at times. And as you see we just had some drastic changes.”
His most prominent teammate, Kevin Durant, backed up Irving after the game, telling Yahoo Sports that his friend’s refusal to get vaccinated was not a reason why the Nets underachieved and did not strain their relationship.
“I would love for him to play more,” Durant said, adding “Life is way more important to me than that. I can’t be pissed off. I can’t end the friendship based on something like that. Our friendship is based off who we are as human beings. The basketball adds to it. If we don’t get along on the basketball court, we can easily talk it out as friends.”
MLB: Why Canada’s Border Rules are Exposing Baseball’s Unvaccinated Players
Posted: Wednesday, April 20
A major storyline throughout this Major League Baseball season will be when teams have to head to Toronto and play the Blue Jays — and not only because of the star power that the team many consider a pennant contender.
Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated individuals are not permitted to enter Canada as the country’s protocols stand, meaning that any MLB team that heads to Toronto will have to put players on the league’s COVID list — and reveal a player’s unvaccinated status.
The Oakland Athletics had three players on the COVID list ahead of its trip to Toronto last week. And one of the Blue Jays’ rivals for the AL East title, the Boston Red Sox, will miss “multiple” players when it heads north of the border for a series starting Monday, manager Alex Cora said.

Red Sox right-handed starter Tanner Houck admitted to the Boston Globe that he will miss the trip and is unvaccinated, saying “I think it’s a personal choice for everyone whether they get it or not. So, that’s all I really got to say on it.”
Even before going to Toronto without several unvaccinated players, the Red Sox have dealt with COVID-related issues. Boston put catcher Christian Vazquez and infielder Jonathan Arauz on the COVID list Tuesday, joining catcher Kevin Plawecki, who was placed on the list Monday.
Two staff members have also tested positive. Cora said Vazquez and Arauz are vaccinated. Players are tested only when reporting symptoms this year. Players can return 10 days after a positive test or if they test negative on two PCR tests, provided they are not showing symptoms.
COVID-related issues for the Red Sox are not new during the pandemic. The team had a dozen players and two staffers test positive between August 27 and September 12 last season in the midst of a playoff race before the team rallied to reach the American League Championship Series. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal said the Red Sox had a low vaccination rate relative to the rest of the league last year.
“This is the world we live in. It’s a lot different than ’20 and last year,” Cora said. “I’ve been in a hotel for several days because one of my kids tested positive. We made some adjustments, like on the road, we’ll go from three buses to five buses. We want to protect our families, our organization and the group.”
MLB will postpone games “only if necessary to protect the health and safety of club personnel, players and umpires” in an attempt to encourage vaccination, although the percentage of players who are fully vaccinated is not known. Players ineligible to play in Toronto will not receive pay or accrue service time for games missed.
HOCKEY: AHL Preparing for first Calder Cup Playoffs since Pandemic
Posted: Monday, April 18
With all of the attention focused on professional sports leagues and getting through the past two years, as well as the collegiate scene, some levels may have been overlooked (yes, we include us in that critique).
One of the minor leagues that did play through the pandemic in the spring of 2021 was the American Hockey League and the ongoing season, with two weeks to go before the playoffs, has been a mix of optimism from opening faceoffs in October before the winter and omicron variant’s wave throughout hockey.
“It’s been one of peaks and valleys,” AHL President Scott Howson said during a recording of an upcoming SportsTravel Podcast. “October, the first part of November, we were sailing along. We had some cases, but not a lot of games are being canceled and not a lot of cases were being reported. … then U.S. Thanksgiving hit and the cases, they just exploded. And it seemed like every day we were dealing with a team that was in jeopardy of not being able to play, not being able to ice a competitive team. And that lasted about six or seven or eight weeks.”
Now, the league has two weeks left in the regular season — extended by a week because of the 86 games that were postponed but ultimately rescheduled.
“I think everybody was frustrated a little bit because it looked like we were in the clear and we weren’t,” Howson said. “I was proud of the way certainly our staff, our referees, our players, our coaches handled it and we all got through it working together.”
This year’s Calder Cup playoffs will also see the return of a true postseason for the AHL for the first time since the pandemic started. The 2019–2020 season was never finished because of COVID and last season was scheduled to start on time, then delayed multiple times before starting in February 2021 with three teams opting out and seven teams temporarily relocating to be closer to their NHL parent clubs.
The league gave each division the opportunity to hold its own postseason instead of the Calder Cup. The Pacific Division was the only team to do so as the league had an unbalanced schedule; none of the teams in the Atlantic Division played more than 25 games while each team in the Pacific played at least 34 with San Diego actually playing 44.
“It would have been impossible to play last year without the NHL,” Howson admitted. The AHL has 11 independent team owners with the others owned and operated by its NHL parent franchise and in spite of the financial issues — revenue dropped north of 75 percent — the games, as many as it could play, went on.
“The important thing was to get the players on the ice,” Howson said. “In 2020 minor league baseball, it didn’t have a season at all. So all those players lost a full year (of development). And it was really a commitment from our ownership and from the NHL, quite frankly, to make sure that we were going to be able to have some type of season.”

The AHL has grown to 31 teams — 32 starting next season with the addition of the Coachella Valley Firebirds — and this year’s Calder Cup will be the first with 23 teams in the playoffs. Next year will also see with 32 teams the standardization of the league’s schedule with all teams playing 72 games; the past several years had seen Pacific Division teams play 68 games with other teams playing up to 76 games.
The standardization is one of the changes in the future that will be implemented by Howson. After the big revenue drop of last season’s abbreviated campaign, he said revenue is only down 10-15 percent from when the AHL’s last full season was with plans to grow it further in the future. The league has had advertising on its jerseys for a while “so that will continue to be a source of revenue for our teams,” he said. “The gambling issue is intriguing. We have a partnership with a company called Genius Sports and they are quite a significant sponsor for us and they’re in the gambling industry. That’s a league-wide deal that we do and it doesn’t prevent our teams from doing more deals with other gambling partners.
“I always say to people that 5, 6, 7, 10 years ago, nobody even thought gambling was going to be a big revenue producer. Now look what’s happened; you’ve got to be ready. And there’s other things that are going to come along here now like NFTs, and we’ve got to be ready to take advantage of that and have a policy at least of how we’re going to operate.”
But first, there will be a Calder Cup to hand out this year — the first time since Howson became president two-plus years ago that he’ll be able to do the handoff.
“That’s going to be a great moment because we waited a long time,” he said. “We play to win a cup. And there was no opportunity to do that last year. And (players) understood that. … but you know, that’s the carrot at the end of the day that they all want. They want to win. And that’s going to be an exciting moment when we get to that moment and we’re able to hand out the cup to a champion. It’s been a long wait.”
NBA: Sixers’ Matisse Thybulle to miss parts of playoffs because of Canada’s vaccination mandate
Posted: Friday, April 15
While most of the NBA’s vaccination attention was focused on Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving and his refusal to get his shots — other than on the road, so to speak, until recently — there was always the looming issue of if any players would be kept out of Canada when his respective team would have to travel to face the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
That scenario will be true in the first round for one player on the Philadelphia 76ers, Matisse Thybulle. The team’s top defender and one of the best in the league, Thybulle revealed ahead of the regular-season finale that he is unvaccinated and now with his team matched up against the Raptors, he will miss at least two games and potentially three depending on how long the series lasts.
“I’m not fully vaccinated,” Thybulle said after his team’s regular-season finale against the Detroit Pistons on Sunday. “This was a decision I made a long time ago. I thought a lot about what I’d say here. Essentially, I made this choice and I thought I could keep it to myself, I could keep it private, but people are always going to wonder why.”

COVID has quickly become one of the dominant early storylines for the NBA playoffs. L.A. Clippers star Paul George will miss Friday’s play-in game against the New Orleans Pelicans after testing positive, with a spot in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs at stake. Lawrence Frank, a Clippers executive, said George did not feel well and “this is another challenge for our group.” Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan said lead assistant Chris Fleming and assistant Damian Cotter tested positive for COVID-19 and will not be on the bench when the team plays this weekend at the Milwaukee Bucks.
Thybulle revealed that he did get his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine last year but did not receive his second shot, saying “I was raised in a holistic household where ‘anti-vax’ is not a term that was ever used. It’s a weird term that has kind of been thrown around to just label people. But we grew up with Chinese medicine and naturopathic doctors. With that upbringing, coming into this situation I felt like I had a solid foundation of medical resources that could serve me beyond what this vaccine could do for me.”
Thybulle was thought to be fully vaccinated during the season even as he entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols in both November and January. He also played for Australia in the rescheduled Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo last summer; there was no vaccine mandate for athletes at those Games, unlike the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing where athletes who were not vaccinated had to go through an extensive quarantine process.
Two of his teammates on the Sixers, Danny Green and Georges Niang, weighed in on Thybulle’s decision not to get fully vaccinated this week on Green’s podcast.
“I gave him a heads up, maybe a couple months ago, ‘Hey Matisse, the playoffs are coming up. if we play Toronto, we’re going to need you.’ And I think in his mind there was a 20 percent chance that happens,” Green said. “… Given the fact that he didn’t predict that would happen, I think if he knew ahead of time, and he had more time, maybe his decision might’ve been different. … But we all respect his decision, we understand where he stands with this. … We’ve had guys out for COVID, guys out for injuries, and guys that were just out. We just have to adapt and adjust and figure out ways to get wins.”
“It’s unfortunate we’re going to miss Matisse in Toronto,” Niang added. “I’ll never out one of my teammates or make them feel uncomfortable for something that’s their personal decision that makes them feel comfortable… I respect Matisse’s decision, because it’s his decision, and me knowing him, I know he’s put a lot of time and thought into this decision.”
Thybulle added that knowing he would be ineligible to play against the Raptors, while discussing the issue with teammates, did not change his mind.
“Having had the stance I’ve had for almost a year now, I just felt like it couldn’t be something that I could be forced to do because of rules or regulation changes,” he said. “… And unfortunately, the repercussions of that are going to be me missing games and not being there for my teammates. Yeah, I’ve talked to them. Obviously from fans to coaches to front office (members) to teammates, there are people that are upset and people who don’t understand. But ultimately, I’ve been lucky enough to have them voice that they may disagree, but they still support me in my decision-making.”
While vaccination does not prevent getting COVID, it has shown to dramatically lessen its effects for those who have breakthrough positives. Thybulle said when he got his first dose, “I was under the impression that getting vaccinated meant that I could not get the disease and transmit it to other people. And I felt like if I’m going to be a part of society, in the position I’m in, I need to do what’s right for the greater good. That argument of the greater good held a lot of weight for me.”
As he saw that people could get COVID still — including two prominent teammates in Tobias Harris and Joel Embiid — Thybulle decided against a second dose.
Since January 15, athletes have needed to be fully vaccinated to enter Canada. While the National Hockey League has only one known unvaccinated player, the NBA has several more — the league’s vaccination rate is above 95 percent but not 100. Major League Baseball’s unvaccinated players will be revealed throughout the season as well once any team has to travel to play the Toronto Blue Jays; one of the team’s rivals in the AL East, the New York Yankees, will be able to have unvaccinated players participate in home games after Mayor Eric Adams recently lifted the private sector mandate for athletes but there remains questions about some Yankee players’ vaccination status, notably slugger Aaron Judge.
“I knew all year,” said 76ers coach Doc Rivers of Thybulle’s status. “I encouraged him all year, but as a coach, you gotta be a human, too. It just puts you in a tough spot. I gotta support the kid, and I told him I didn’t agree, but I told him I support him. I will and I’ll make sure as much as I can that his teammates support him. Tough spot for us to be in, but it is what it is.”
TENNIS: Djokovic Returns to Court Unvaccinated, Unrepentant
Updated: Tuesday, April 12
The return of one of men’s tennis’ greatest Grand Slam winners has officially begun with Novak Djokovic’s entry into the Monte Carlo Masters, his first tournament in months after being shut out of two major U.S. events due to his refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“I miss competition,” Djokovic said Sunday in Monaco. “I still feel motivation to be on the tour and compete … and try to challenge the best players in the world for the biggest titles.”

Djokovic’s return to the tour was short, however. He lost in three sets on Tuesday in his first match of the event to Davidovich Fokina.
Djokovic could not defend his Australian Open title in January after he was deported from the country for not being vaccinated against COVID-19 the day of the tournament’s start. He was forced to withdraw from a tournament in Indian Wells, California, and was not on the entry list for Miami because he couldn’t travel to the United States for the same reason.
He has declared that he would not get vaccinated to be able to compete. The French Open starts on May 22 in Paris and while at one time it looked like he would be barred from that event, French authorities have lifted most COVID-related restrictions including those for sporting events. Wimbledon in mid-summer does not have any restrictions while the U.S. Open, at this point, still would be out of Djokovic’s reach because of U.S. entry requirements.
“The last four, five months have been really challenging for me mentally and emotionally, but here I am and I try to leave all that behind and move on,” Djokovic said Sunday, adding “it will take some time, some matches, to really get in the groove.”
OLYMPIC SPORTS: World Games Still On in China But Some Withdraw
Posted: Monday, April 11
Only a few months after the entire Winter Olympic sports world went to Beijing, the World University Games — scheduled to be held this summer in Chengdu, China — will be held, organizers said last week, in spite of several countries pulling out.
Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Luxembourg have withdrawn due to COVID-19 concerns. Australia has also indicated it is withdrawing its swimmers, volleyball players, and track-and-field athletes.
“Athletics Australia continues to have many concerns around the event and its management of COVID protocols,” Athletics Australia said in a statement to the AP. “It is Athletics Australia’s view that it cannot endorse competition for Australian athletes in an environment that could put athletes at risk.”
A spokesman for the International University Sports Federation told AP that it has raised many concerns with Chinese authorities after Shanghai, with 26 million people, was put into lockdown because of COVID-19 cases recently.
The FISU said Chinese officials have reassured them that Chengdu will not face a lockdown. It’s expected that the World University Games will operate on a closed-loop system similar to one used in the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing, which kept athletes and officials walled off from residents in Beijing, required daily testing of all participants, extensive protocols to enter the country, and tracking by China-issued smart-phone apps.
Olivier Van Bogaert, a spokesman for FISU, said about 6,000 athletes from 90 delegations were expected to attend. The World University Games, delayed a year because of COVID and the resulting postponement of the Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in Tokyo to 2021, are scheduled to open on June 26.
NBA: Canada Vaccination Policy May Affect Eastern Conference Playoffs
Posted: Thursday, April 7
The Eastern Conference playoffs will be more competitive than in seasons past with the top six spots being shuffled on a near-nightly basis … and this year’s postseason could have an additional layer of intrigue for whoever will be matched up with the Toronto Raptors.
Because of Canada’s vaccination requirements to enter the country, any of the few remaining NBA players that are not vaccinated would not be able to play in Toronto should their team be matched up against the Raptors.
“We have no choice but to operate under the laws and jurisdictions in which we play,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday in a press conference. “In some cases, as we saw here in New York City, those are city ordinances. In other cases, they’re state. And in the case of Toronto, there are Canadian issues that we have to comply with. Those rules are well known to all players, and for any player who chooses not to get vaccinated, they know they are at risk of not being allowed to play in Toronto. That’s the facts that we’re all going to have to operate under.”
The most high-profile Eastern Conference player that is unvaccinated is Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, who only recently was allowed to play home games after New York City Mayor Eric Adams rescinded the part of the city’s private-sector vaccine mandate that deals with athletes and entertainers, allowing unvaccinated players such as Irving to play home games.
When that announcement was made by Adams, the NBA — which had put on some polite pressure, so to speak, on Adams — said the league was 97 percent vaccinated and 75 percent boosted as of March 24. The chances of the Raptors and Nets playing in the first round are slim at the moment, however.
The Raptors play host to the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday night and one Sixers player, Matisse Thybulle is listed as ineligible to play, an indication that he is unvaccinated. Thybulle played in the Sixers’ preseason opener at the Raptors on October 4 and in a December 28 regular season game before Canada’s restrictions were tightened in mid-January.
Thybulle has been placed in the league’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols twice this season; his absence as a defensive stopper would be keenly felt by the 76ers should they face Toronto in the first round and he miss multiple games — the Sixers and Raptors, entering Wednesday’s games, are in a potential Nos. 4 vs. 5 matchup.
Canada’s vaccination policies are a reminder that COVID, while mostly disappearing from the sports scene in recent weeks, is still an issue. The Miami Heat played in Toronto over the weekend in the return of ex-Raptors legend Kyle Lowry, but Miami coach Erik Spoelstra did not make the trip after entering the health and safety protocols, leaving assistant Chris Quinn to coach the Heat.
Lowry’s return to Toronto also showed how COVID has disrupted the sports world for so long. Lowry last played in Toronto on February 28, 2020, when the defending champion Raptors lost to Charlotte. Less than two weeks later, the NBA season was shut down by the pandemic, resuming in a bubble environment in Orlando, Florida.
With the Canadian border closed by COVID-19, the Raptors were forced to relocate to Tampa, Florida, for Lowry’s final season with the team in 2020-21, depriving Toronto fans of a proper goodbye. Miami earlier played at Toronto on February 1, but that game only had a few hundred fans in attendance because of Ontario government restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spring Training Attendance Decline is Steep After MLB Lockout
Posted: March 30, 2022
When Major League Baseball ended its lockout of players at the beginning of March and said that a full 162-game season would be salvaged, the league was widely seen as having to prepare for an exodus of fans for at least this season, potentially lonnger.
That seems to be the case already less than two weeks into spring training, and the delayed start and low attendance so far since MLB opened up for business has a big economic impact on communities throughout Arizona and Florida who rely on the seasonal tourism.

Cactus League attendance was 1.9 million in 2017 and spring training had an economic impact of $644.2 million in 2018, according to a report by Arizona State University. But last season’s COVID-enforced fan capacity restrictions resulted in attendance of only 446,905.
This year, according to the Arizona Republic, six of the 15 teams in the Cactus League averaged under 5,000 fans per game, a benchmark that no team was near before the pandemic.
“I think it’s over 60 percent of our people that attend spring training games are from out of the area,” said Surprise Mayor Skip Hall, whose city hosts spring training for the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals. “So it’s frustrating for all of us.”
Some of the traditional big-name teams are still drawing competitive numbers, with the Cubs and Giants leading the way (both are above 8,800 per game). The Dodgers are also drawing a competitive number with 7,465 through the first week but there are notable teams dragging the league’s overall average down — the Angels and hometown Diamondbacks are above 5,000 per game but the Padres, with one of the more exciting groups of players in MLB, are only averaging 4,195. And the Cleveland Guardians are drawing under 2,700 per game early on.
Spring training baseball can be one of the most enjoyable ways to enjoy the sport. While the big-name players are not going to be playing a full nine innings and you typically see players in the later innings of games wearing non-traditional numbers, the compact nature of Cactus and Grapefruit League ballparks make the setting more intimate than fans will ever get to experience during the regular season.
And with a lower cost than in the regular season, it is also the most economical way to watch a team during the year. Whether the attendance depression trend continues into the regular season will be a key indicator in how much the lockout turned off fans from baseball. And given the toxicity of the labor negotiations, it is not a surprise that fans are initially not ready to embrace the game just yet.
“We are excited to welcome baseball fans back to our 10 ballparks,” Cactus League Executive Director Bridget Binsbacher told the Republic last week. “Given the circumstances, it is not surprising that overall attendance is lighter than usual.”
Attendance Records Revive Debate: Should There be More Neutral Sites for the NCAA Women’s Tournament?
Updated: Monday, March 28
Throughout the first weekend at both the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Division I Tournaments, the repeated comments on television was about the atmosphere in the arenas after two years of disruptions — first a March without any Madness because of COVID, then last year with both tournaments being held in single-site formats.
Throughout the first weekend at both the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Division I Tournaments, the repeated comments on television was about the atmosphere in the arenas after two years of disruptions — first a March without any Madness because of COVID, then last year with both tournaments being held in single-site formats.
The women’s tournament in particular has hit new heights, with 216,890 attending the first two rounds — a NCAA record. Iowa’s second-round game against Creighton set a single-site crowd record with 14,382 as the Blue Jays upset the Hawkeyes.
“That was the most special environment I’ve ever played in, by far,” Creighton’s Payton Brotzki said. “It’s really, really special for the sport.”

For a traditional powerhouse like South Carolina, the 9,800 that showed up to Colonial Life Arena for a 49-33 win over Miami on Sunday was not out of the ordinary. The Gamecocks have led the nation in average attendance for seven straight years with sellouts becoming routine since Dawn Staley took over as coach in 2008.
“We’ve created an environment in which people want to come see us play,” Staley said. “People want to come downtown and have dinner and come to a game. It’s investing in women. It’s investing in women on our campus from the president to the AD. Everybody at South Carolina want our women’s programs to win.”
Investing in women, of course, is a prime emphasis for the NCAA after last year’s issues in San Antonio. With intense focus on making sure the tournament presentation is equitable this year, the ‘March Madness’ branding has been noticed at the sites.
“When you walked through the doors and you walked through the hallways you see the signage,” Staley said. “Then you look at the participants. I looked at Howard. I looked at Miami, South Florida, Incarnate Word, they all felt like they were in the NCAA Tournament because of all the hoopla, all the signage. That’s what you want to make everybody that participates in a tournament feel like. They’re something special. You don’t want it to feel like it’s a home game for South Carolina because we got to host.
“I think it’s a great start. It’s a really great start, but I’m eager to see what five years and ten years down the line, what that looks like and I hope it looks like what when they started investing in the men’s tournament what that looked like.”
The next question for the future of the women’s tournament is whether the opening round weekend will change. The tournament’s first two rounds from 1982 through 2022 were at top seeds before moving to a neutral site format in 2003, attendance dropped. The NCAA restored the current model in 2015.
The NCAA selection committee has not yet discussed moving first- and second-round games to neutral sites but may after the Final Four in Minneapolis. The regionals weekends this year have also been geographically influenced, with South Carolina advancing to the Final Four on Sunday in Greensboro, North Carolina, a relatively short distance from its home base. Stanford beat Texas in Spokane, Washington, home of two Cardinal starters. Monday’s game in the Bridgeport regional is essentially a home game for No. 2 Connecticut against No. 1 North Carolina State.
When the NCAA last month decided against having the Men’s and Women’s Final Fours at the same sites, which was recommended by its own gender equity review, several influential women’s basketball coaches actually were relieved that it was going to keep its own spotlight rather than being part of the men’s event. So it will be interesting to see if the NCAA listens to coaches again because two of them, Arizona’s Adia Barnes and North Carolina’s Courtney Banghart, both endorsed the status quo.
“I think that’s a terrible idea for our game,” Barnes said. “I think on the list of 100 things to change, to me, that’s 100. I think there’s so many things to change before that with equity and stuff that that’s not even a consideration for me or not even on the list.
“… I think it’s more valuable to play in McHale with 10,000 people than it is to go to San Antonio to a neutral site with 1,500 people,” Barnes continued. “I don’t think it generates any income, and I don’t think it’s good for our game where we are right now. … I think that’s an awful idea.”
Mind you, Barnes said this coming off a home loss, 63-45, to Banghart’s Tar Heels.
“I just want to make sure what doesn’t get lost is the moment of remembering how special the energy and excitement is,” Banghart said. “So I don’t know if we’re totally ready for that entirely yet but I think getting more games on TV and having these upsets are showing the quality of play.”
NYC Mandate Change Allows Unvaccinated Athletes like Kyrie Irving to play at home again
Posted: Thursday, March 24
Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving played the waiting game and won, with more than just a little assist from the impending start of Major League Baseball.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams will rescind the part of the city’s private-sector vaccine mandate that deals with athletes and entertainers, allowing unvaccinated players such as Irving and Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who has avoided questions about his vaccination status, to play home games.
“We were treating our performers differently because they lived and played for home teams,” Adams said, calling it “unacceptable” and tacitly agreeing with recent criticism from the NBA about the mandate and how it affected Irving.
Thursday’s announcement was made at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets — whose owner, Steve Cohen, donated more than $1 million to Adams’ mayoral campaign. The Yankees’ home opener is April 7, the NBA play-in tournament begins on April 12 — the Nets are outside of the Eastern Conference’s top six spots — and the Mets’ home opener is April 15.
The decision comes one week after Adams said he expected to eventually roll back the city’s mandates for all private-sector employers — but added there would not be special carveouts for athletes. Adams has in the past responded to questions about Irving’s status by urging him to get vaccinated; on Tuesday, he said “baseball, basketball, businesses … they have to wait” as he unveiled the latest rollback of COVID-related restrictions.
The private employer mandate as it relates to pro athletes has been an issue throughout the NBA season. Irving made it clear that he would not get vaccinated to play home games and the Nets, in response, kept him away from the team for road games to start the season. But once as the omicron variant swept throughout the country in the winter, timed with an injury crisis on the Nets roster, the team changed course and allowed Irving to play part-time.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Nets star Kevin Durant in recent weeks spotlighted the discrepancy in the mandate because while Irving was not allowed to play, unvaccinated visiting players were eligible. Until two weeks ago, proof of vaccination was also required for fans at Barclays Center.
After the fan mandate was lifted, Irving was a spectator, sitting across from the Nets bench for Brooklyn’s 110-107 victory over the New York Knicks on March 14. Durant spent a good chunk of his postgame interview after that game calling on Adams to change the mandate, calling it “ridiculous” that unvaccinated people could be in the arena but not play in it. Durant backtracked from those comments days later after layers of public criticism.
Still, the move — and setting for Thursday’s announcement — makes many observers believe that Adams’ decision is timed not for the end of the NBA regular season, but instead the MLB season. If there was any doubt as to what the main motivation behind Adams’ decision was, Thursday’s press conference was held with top leadership from the Mets and Yankees … but not the Nets.
The news temporarily took the spotlight off Irving and onto the Yankees and Mets. Judge talked around questions asking about his vaccination status after not getting vaccinated last season. The Mets were among six MLB teams last season that did not reach the 85 percent vaccination rate among on-field staff, including players, necessary for relaxed virus protocols under Major League Baseball’s 2021 health and safety plan.
Mets president Sandy Alderson said those who worked for the team had to get vaccinated or face termination but admitted there are still players who have not gotten their shots, saying it is because of the player unions, which protect athletes.
“Because of the player unions, they fall outside of our mandate,” Alderson said.
While any remaining unvaccinated Yankees players will not miss home games, there is one place they will not be allowed — Toronto, after the league and union agreed that Canadian entry rules would preclude them from playing there. The Yankees play 10 games at their division rival this season.
Yankees president Randy Levine said unvaccinated players will be unable to play games in Toronto and “it’s still a problem. We hope to get everyone vaccinated.”
Those rules in Canada also apply for visiting NBA players so while Irving will be free to play in Brooklyn, should the Nets have to play at the Raptors in the play-in tournament, he would remain ineligible.
MLB: Vaccination Remains Hot Topic Among American League East
Updated: Wednesday, March 23
While spring training was delayed because of a lockout by Major League Baseball’s owners, the games have now begun and in a change from last year, there are no restrictions on crowd sizes, no painted circles in the grass outfields to ensure social distancing and no teams worried about capacity caps for regular season games ahead of Opening Day.
But there will still be some signs of a COVID-affected season, notably in the American League East, which may be one of the most exciting divisions in MLB.
“Life is not back to normal yet,” Yankees reliever Zack Britton said last Wednesday after the Yankees and Mets were told by New York City the same private employer vaccine mandate that has sidelined NBA star Kyrie Irving for Brooklyn Nets’ home games also applies to the MLB teams.
New York Mayor Eric Adams reiterated Tuesday that “we’re going to follow the science” and no matter the public pressure by any of the city’s sports teams and athletes, he will not be rushed into a decision.
“Right now, we’re going to take some complaints,” Adams said. “But when this is all said and done, people are going to realize this is a thoughtful administration and we got it right. So baseball, basketball, businesses, all of those things, they have to wait until that layer comes.”

The Yankees’ home opener is April 7, with the Mets opening at home on April 15. All private-sector workers in New York City must show proof they have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
New York City’s infection rate has climbed 50 percent over the past week as the omicron variant has started to make its way stateside. NYC’s average of approximately 950 cases per day is similar to numbers in November before omicron overtook the region — and the country — in December.
Both teams could be affected by the mandate. Yankees star Aaron Judge talked around questions asking about his vaccination status; Judge was not vaccinated last season. The Mets were among six MLB teams last season that did not reach the 85 percent vaccination rate among on-field staff, including players, necessary for relaxed virus protocols under Major League Baseball’s health and safety plan.
“We knew just because the Irving stuff was going on,” said Britton, a member of the MLBPA executive subcommittee. “I think the indoor-outdoor venue was maybe like a little bit of a question mark on that. But I think it was something that we knew might be something we needed to tackle before the season starts.”
One year after barely missing the playoffs and stocking up in the offseason, the Toronto Blue Jays will also be in contention in the division. And because of Canada’s vaccine requirements for entry, MLB and the MLBPA agreed that unvaccinated players won’t receive pay or service time if they miss games in Toronto.
While Tampa Bay has little in the way of COVID regulations given its Florida location, both it and the Boston Red Sox will have to be prepared for games in Toronto. The Red Sox, another one of the teams that did not reach 85 percent vaccination last year and was hit hard by the virus late in the season, should be better prepared this season after several key players including Xander Bogaerts and Christian Arroyo said they were vaccinated this offseason. Boston ace left-hander Chris Sale did admit he remains unvaccinated.
After intake COVID-19 testing ahead of spring training, players will only be tested when showing signs or reporting symptoms. Players and team personnel only wear masks in clubhouses and other indoor areas if mandated by local regulations.
The league is also maintaining an ability to move games if the public health situation in an area deteriorates and will “postpone games only if necessary to protect the health and safety of club personnel, players and umpires.” The COVID-19 injured list remains, but players with a positive test can exit with two negative tests. The requirement for tracing wristbands that were used last year is omitted.
“I know it does help guys’ mentality throughout the year, where they can have family and they can go see family,” Oakland Athletics pitcher Daulton Jeffries said. “Just to give them a little bit of a break from the baseball grind.”
As Fields of 64 Tip Off, is a 351-Team NCAA Tournament Feasible?
Posted: Thursday, March 17
Thursday starts one of the biggest weekends in sports for basketball fans, alumni of the schools participating in the NCAA men’s and women’s tournament … and don’t forget the tournament pools and newfound openness throughout the United States in wagering on the results, too.
And two years after the NCAA cancelled both tournaments as well as all of its winter and spring championships because of the pandemic, in addition to the new constitution approved in February brings a potential flashpoint for the NCAA: Should the field be expanded beyond its current 68 teams in the future?
“Well, it used to be a 32-team tournament, and it was a 48-team tournament, and it was 64. And then it was 65. And now it’s 68,” Atlantic Sun Commissioner Ted Gumbart told The Associated Press. “So I don’t think there’s any magic number to say, hey, you can’t be 72 or 80. I think it’s healthy.”
The idea of expanding the tournament beyond 68 has been around for years although never seriously considered by the NCAA. While many fans may not remember, the NCAA Tournament did not expand to 64 teams until 1985 — a year in which one of the biggest title upsets ever occurred as Villanova, a team that may not have been part of the event if there had not been expansion to 64, upset Georgetown in the championship game. The field expanded to 68 teams with the ‘First Four’ in Dayton, Ohio, in 2011; the ACC proposed expansion to 72 teams with a second “Final Four” held in the Western U.S. in 2018 but the idea did not progress.
“You could have an all-comers tournament with just one more weekend,” Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. “I think it’s an idea that might have the nuggets of compromise that could be satisfactory.”

Expansion of the tournament, while sounding unwieldy, may have benefits. A bigger tournament would allow for more cities to have the NCAA Tournaments either visit more often or visit for the first time ever. While the TV ratings grow as the tournament field narrows, part of why the event is referred to as March Madness is because of the early-round upsets so famously recorded by teams as Princeton, UMBC, Oral Roberts and Florida Gulf Coast. Having everybody in the field would also end the ongoing debate of whether the selection committee is slanted toward power conferences; out of this year’s 36 at-large bids, 29 went to teams in the Power 5 conferences plus Big East.
“Should it be sort of more of a play-in where the lower seeds play each other and the better seeds come in later in the tournament? Maybe that’s the right model if the tournament is expanded,” Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman said.
A gigantic piece to the puzzle — and probably the key piece — would be the potential financial revenue for expanding the tournaments. The 2022 NCAA Division I revenue plan says $625.5 million will be distributed this year, an increase on the $613.4 million sent out last year. Front Office Sports reported this week that by 2032, the NCAA has budgeted $826.6 million for distribution. CBS and Turner’s original contract with the NCAA was for 14 years at $10.8 billion with an eight-year extension in 2016 that gives them the rights through 2032, and the per-year average will jump to $1.1 billion beginning in 2025.
Currently, each of 32 Division I conferences receives an automatic bid for its champion. The majority of those conferences, from the American East to Western Athletic, usually get just their automatic qualifier into the field, access that also comes with several million in revenue. Last year, one unit earned for making the NCAA men’s tournament was worth $2.02 million paid out over six years. Distribution is based on factors that include this year’s tournament as well as recent historical performance for each conference.
No system exists in the women’s tournament as looming ahead is a potential new deal for TV rights. ESPN’s rights to the women’s tournament are folded into a deal where the network is paying the NCAA $500 million for 24 Division I championships through the 2023–2024 school year, an amount that almost all television consultants believe devalues the women’s tournament to an extraordinary degree.
Reminders of last year’s NCAA Tournaments, in which the gaps between the experience for athletes between the men’s and women’s tournament was well-established and highlighted throughout March, will also be watched closely this year. Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney of New York, Jackie Speier of California and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey sent a letter this week to NCAA President Mark Emmert saying the organization was “violating the spirit of gender equity as codified in Title IX.”
The letter also notes the NCAA “failed to create or commit to creating a chief business officer role to oversee NCAA’s media partner relationships with CBS/Turner and ESPN, the Corporate Partner Program, and branding and marketing for all championships,” that Emmert has made no progress in changing the leadership structure that would have NCAA vice president of women’s basketball Lynn Holzman report directly to him instead of going through NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt and cited internal emails from the NCAA that highlighted some of last year’s disparities, including as NCAA staff declined offers from sponsors and non-sponsors to donate food or food gift cards when female players complained that their food was not equal to the amount given to the men.
One of those offers came from LA Sparks player Chiney Ogwumike, a former Stanford star who offered to donate $500 DoorDash gift cards to each of the 64 teams; the NCAA denied the offer because Uber Eats was an NCAA corporate sponsor. The NCAA has already made changes to this year, such as expanding the tournament to 68 teams and using the phrase “March Madness” — once limited to the men’s tourney — in branding for the women’s tournament.
NCAA Men’s Subregional Hosts
KeyBank Center, Buffalo, New York
Dickies Arena, Fort Worth, Texas
Bon Secours Wellness Arena, Greenville, South Carolina
Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana
Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Moda Center, Portland, Oregon
Viejas Arena, San Diego, California
NCAA Women’s Subregional Hosts
James Hilton Coliseum, Ames, Iowa
Crisler Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Frank Erwin Center, Austin, Texas
Pete Maravich Assembly Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Indiana
XFINITY Center, College Park, Maryland
Colonial Life Arena, Columbia, South Carolina
Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Iowa City, Iowa
Thompson-Boling Arena, Knoxville, Tennessee
KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, Kentucky
Lloyd Noble Center, Norman, Oklahoma
Reynolds Coliseum, Raleigh, North Carolina
Maples Pavilion, Stanford, California
Harry A. Gampel Pavilion, Storrs, Connecticut
McKale Center, Tucson, Arizona
Ferrell Center, Waco, Texas
Two Years Later, Sports Feel More Normal Than Any Other Time During Pandemic
Updated: Wednesday, March 16
The weekend was full of college basketball fans jumping to celebrate a basketball or yell at a referee. At game’s end, depending on the result for their team, maybe hugging some friends and family that came to the game with them — maybe even the person in the row below who was a stranger at tipoff and now feels like a friend.
Sunday came and went with the selection shows for both the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Division I Tournaments with cities throughout the country ready for an influx of fans streaming through airports, eating at the local restaurants and staying at the nearest hotel to the arena. It will was the start of spring training in cities throughout Arizona and Florida, seasonal workers who get the chance to check into the complex after a lockout delayed its opening, ready for the next few weeks’ worth of fans coming to sit in the sun, feel the warmth that has been absent in many parts of the country, and relax with a cold drink and a hot dog.
At moments like this, it’s also worth remembering when it all went away.
Two years ago last week, the Ivy League had postponed its conference tournaments and a Division III tournament game was played without fans. COVID had become part of the news — terrible images in Italy, news of cases starting to spread throughout the United States — but the idea that sports would stop seemed almost inconceivable. Leagues were starting to take precautions, shutting down locker rooms to the media. But until the Ivy League announced its decision — preceded two days before by the cancelling of the ATP and WTA Tour stop in Indian Wells, California, one of the biggest tennis tournaments in the world — COVID moved firmly into the discussion of how sports were going to be held.
“How do we handle it?” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said on March 6, 2020. “I don’t know yet.”

Then, it all happened. It started with crowd restrictions in Seattle and San Francisco. Within a four-hour span, the NCAA announced the men’s and women’s tournaments would be held without fans, then the first NBA game was cancelled after a player tested positive. At 9:30 p.m. ET on March 10, the NBA suspended its season indefinitely; within 24 hours, the entire sports world was shut down.
At that point, we all figured it would be just a pause in sports … and in life. We all figured within a few weeks, this ‘COVID thing’ would be done and over and normalcy would reign. How quaint it looks in retrospect.
Instead it was leagues that held bubble events in places ranging from Orlando to Utah to Canada because fans were too much of a risk. When fans were allowed back, it was mostly in certain geographic areas and even then, it was in severely curtailed numbers and with an atmosphere that seemed abnormal — because it was. ‘Social distancing’ became one of the top concerns for event organizers, followed in short order by hand sanitizer and masking. Events started to come back but in weird time frames — the Masters in the fall? The Olympic Summer Games, postponed? The World Series, held in a neutral site? With crowd restrictions keeping most fans at home, the conventional wisdom was all of these unique moments to watch on TV would lead to gigantic ratings. In fact, most ratings suffered historic lows (except, it must be said, for women’s sports, which are more popular than ever before).
Slowly, the games did return. But even a year ago when sports started feeling normal again, COVID was a part of the discussion. Football, both college and pro, were held as usual but without capacity crowds because of … well, you know by now. Then came winter, and a surge in cases. The NFL got its season finished and breathed a huge sigh of relief, saved perhaps more than anything because of its outdoor venues. Indoor winter sports such as the NBA, NHL and college basketball were full of disruptions. Fans got used to the idea of having to change plans on which game they would watch at a moment’s notice, because sometimes that’s how fast a game was postponed. The NCAA Tournament for men and women went off as single-site events with restricted attendance. Few if any NBA or NHL teams allowed sellout crowds.
Then came spring and while vaccinations a year ago were not widely available to the general public, the pandemic started to feel like it was ending. Soon there would be sellout crowds for NBA playoff games and the PGA Championship. Major League Baseball was a full capacity in every ballpark by July 4, and the most recent NFL and college football seasons had no attendance restrictions at all. Only during the height of omicron were there attendance restrictions in the NHL and NBA and even then, it was only for teams in Canada.
The road from even 2021 to 2022 has not been that smooth, however. The idea of vaccination and masking within the sports world has become a highly-charged debate just as everything else in the broader world became. Now, just a few NBA and NHL teams even have mask mandates for fans. We will wait to see what protocols are for Major League Baseball but given its outdoor atmosphere compared to the indoor winter sports, the lack of a fan masking or vaccination mandate seems likely — and even if there was a mandate, whether it’s been at NBA or NHL games or even the Super Bowl, any mandates in place have been almost completely ignored — and truth be told, seldom enforced.
The Winter Olympics went on without fans and those who were allowed in Beijing were highly restricted in their movements and China itself is starting to deal with additional breakouts throughout the country. There are still players in the NBA’s health and safety protocols. The NCAA Tournament selection shows also included a list of four teams that would be called into the field should any of the 68 men’s and 68 women’s teams have a sudden breakthough number of cases. The spring brings a decrease in cases but there are still tens of thousands of cases, and there are still deaths — 1,291 alone on Sunday, according to the New York Times, a number that sounds ‘low’ but maybe only perhaps because of how skewed our sense of reality has become in the past 24 months.
In New York City, where COVID hit the hardest at the beginning and where the scars of those early months run deep, debate now rages about Kyrie Irving, who has spent the season proudly unvaccinated while others campaign to have special circumstances created for him in a sport where the team supposedly outweighs the individual. Those debates will continue throughout the MLB season, given that players will be unable to go to Toronto if unvaccinated and play against a strong Blue Jays squad; the Mets and Yankees, much like its winter counterparts in the Nets, Rangers and Knicks, must be vaccinated to play in home games which leaves doubts over slugger Aaron Judge‘s eligibility given his reluctance to speak on the issue. Novak Djokovic‘s unvaccinated status has left him on the outside looking in at the Australian Open and major hard-court events in the United States, but the French Open has now said he would be allowed to participate after France lifted restrictions in almost all public spaces except hospitals, nursing homes and public transport, meaning the Roland Garros stadium should be operating at full capacity.
So does that mean COVID is over as far as the sports world goes? No. The way fans experience a game in person has changed, but the feeling that they get going to events has not. Fans should go to games and cheer and shout and clap. Those sounds are what makes the experience of being a fan so special and unique. It’s those experiences that were taken away from us two years ago, which we can now appreciate more than ever before.
TENNIS: Novak Djokovic’s Vaccination Saga Will Never End
Posted: Wednesday, March 9
One of Novak Djokovic’s strengths during his career and nearly two dozen Grand Slam championships is the ability to endure and wear out opponents, no matter how long the match takes.
It appears he’s taking that mentality off the court as well, continuing to refuse vaccination for COVID-19 and dragging on a saga that has seen him barred from entering the United States to compete in the biggest non-Grand Slam tournament of the season that starts on Thursday in Indian Wells, California.
Djokovic was announced in the draw for the BNP Paribas Open and was scheduled to play this weekend after a first-round bye. But he is not at the tournament site because U.S. rules for entry into the country state that visitors must be vaccinated. As a result, he was replaced in the draw on Wednesday afternoon.
Beyond the U.S. entry issue was that Indian Wells says all fans must show proof of full vaccination to attend and “no exceptions to the vaccination policy will be allowed. All tournament volunteers, staff, sponsors, media, and vendors will be fully vaccinated in accordance with this policy.”
The ATP and WTA Tours do not have vaccination policies and instead allow the host country for their tournaments make the rules. Reports have indicated that Djokovic is the only player in the ATP Tour’s Top 100 that is unvaccinated.
While Djokovic’s Australian saga garnered worldwide attention, it does appear that his chances of competing in the French Open have improved. Officials in France announced last week the country would no longer require visitors to show proof of vaccination to enter indoor establishments after March 14. The French Open starts May 22; Djokovic has won the tournament twice, including last year, and four times has been the runner-up.
After the French Open comes Wimbledon starting in late June. England’s relaxation of vaccination rules makes it likely that Djokovic, a six-time winner at the All England Club, would also be allowed to enter the country and defend his title.
Djokovic was deported from Australia moments before the Australian Open started in January after immigration officials ruled he was a danger to society because he could energize an anti-vaccination movement in that country. Djokovic had received an exemption to enter the country while unvaccinated because he produced a test showing he had recently recovered from COVID-19, an exemption that angered Australians and set off a court battle leading to his eventual deportation.
Talking to the BBC last month, Djokovic said vaccination — which Djokovic has received before in his life — was a personal choice and “the principles of decision making on my body are more important than any title or anything else.”
After Indian Wells is the Miami Open, another prominent event on the ATP and WTA Tour schedules. The majority of the post-Wimbledon summer schedule for the ATP Tour goes through the United States and Canada, another country that could be problematic for Djokovic to enter.
Djokovic confirmed last month that he was not expecting to play in the U.S., admitting “as of today, I’m not able to play, but let’s see what happens. I mean, maybe things change in the next few weeks.”
COLLEGE SPORTS: Mitigation Measures Worked to Prevent COVID Spread, Study Shows
Posted: Monday, March 7
A collegiate sports study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates mitigation measures taken the past two years by a dozen NCAA schools worked in limiting the spread of the virus.
The study, published by a group of Stanford researchers, found participation in college sports was not associated with increased test positivity in student-athletes and the majority of schools studied actually decreased test positivity among student-athletes. The paper is the first known study investigating the difference in COVID-19 test positivity between college athletes and nonathletes at schools across the country.
Dr. Calvin Hwang, clinical assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and team physician at Stanford, co-authored the study, which initially looked at available data from schools throughout the Power Five before settling on 12 schools with the most complete set of publicly available data. The Stanford study based its research on more than 4 million tests, including 555,372 from student-athletes, at Arkansas, California, Clemson, Illinois, Louisville, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State, Purdue, Stanford, UCLA and Virginia.

“We wanted to see across the country do athletes in general have higher test positivity rates compared to nonathletes, or are they actually potentially protected against infection based on some of the guidelines the NCAA has laid out to allow for the safe resumption of sport,” Hwang said.
The study found that student-athletes did not have increased risk of infection compared with other students. At nine schools — Arkansas, Minnesota, Penn State, Clemson, Louisville, Purdue, Michigan, Illinois and Virginia — student-athletes showed a decreased positivity compared with the general student population. Overall, there were 2,425 positive tests (0.44%) among student athletes and 30,567 positive tests (0.88%) among nonathlete students.
“This was a little bit surprising to us, but it really goes to show the likely protective effect the NCAA mitigation (guidance) in place last year had on preventing COVID infection within the student-athlete population,” Hwang said.
Compared with professional sports before vaccinations were widely available — the NBA, MLS and NHL famously conducted parts of its seasons within a bubble environment — collegiate sports were almost entirely held on campus, though both outdoor and indoor sports were held in front of restricted numbers of fans (or none at all). While there have not been any documented cases of COVID spreading during competition collegiately, “the specific risk of transmission within a collegiate athletic team setting including meals, practice, travel, competition, and communal housing with these various protocols is unknown,” the study said.
More on the report can be seen on the NCAA’s YouTube channel with researchers discussing the results.
The study’s release comes right as the NCAA has released its guidelines for the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments. Last year’s tournaments were held in Indianapolis for the men and San Antonio for the women in controlled environments, with fans in restricted numbers able to attend depending on the venue.
The NCAA will encourage indoor masking when Tier 1 individuals are not practicing and competing, in their hotel room, or eating and drinking. But it does allow individual teams to implement protocols “keeping with local public health authorities and the updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on COVID-19 Community Level and COVID-19 Prevention.”
On-site testing for asymptomatic individuals in Tier 1 will not be required, but those individuals before traveling to a championship site must be tested for COVID-19 or meet the requirements for exemption from testing. To be exempt from testing, a Tier 1 participant must be fully vaccinated or have documentation of a COVID-19 infection within the previous 90 days. All nonexempt individuals in a travel party must produce a negative COVID-19 test result before travel to a tournament site.
The NCAA Medical Advisory Group’s guidance also recommends that athletes and other Tier 1 individuals “should engage only in scheduled team activities when traveling or at a host/competition site.”
NFL: League Declares End to COVID Protocols
Posted: Thursday, March 3
The National Football League on Thursday was the first professional sports league in the U.S. to suspend all of its COVID-related protocols. The decision, made jointly with the NFL Players Association, was disclosed to NFL teams on Thursday as the combine is starting in Indianapolis.
“The NFL and NFLPA have agreed to suspend all aspects of the joint COVID-19 protocols, effective immediately,” the memo reads. “We will continue to prioritize the health and safety of players, coaches and staff, as we have throughout the pandemic. Should there be a reason to reimpose aspects of the Protocols or to take other measures, we will work closely with the clubs, NFLPA and our respective experts, and local, state and federal public health officials to continue to safeguard the health of the NFL community.”

Players and staffers will be able to go maskless inside team facilities without having to adhere to social distancing measures. The memo does remind clubs that they “are required to remain in compliance with state and local law and are free to continue reasonable measures to protect their staff and players.”
Teams will provide testing for anyone at a team facility who self-reports COVID symptoms but there will be no mandatory testing. Those who test positive will be required to isolate for five days.
The NFL, like every professional league, has been overwhelmingly vaccinated — 95 percent of players and almost 100 percent of team personnel — without the need for a mandate for players, although coaches and Tier 1 personnel did face a mandate. The league did still face a surge in cases in December as the omicron variant spread throughout the U.S., with more than 1,200 positive tests among players and staff from December 12 to January with multiple games near the end of the regular season postponed a few days without too much disruption to the schedule.
New CDC Guidelines a Game-Changer for Fan Protocols at Sports Events
Posted: Wednesday, March 2
Friday’s new guidelines for masking released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will continue to make the fan guidelines for sports a continuing development.
The CDC’s new framework is intended to move the country to a long-term strategy that allows lives to return to a “new normal.” The new system puts more than 70 percent of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Those are the people who can stop wearing masks, the agency said.
The recommendations do not change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation and indoors in airports, train stations and bus stations. Cities and institutions may still set their own rules, even in areas of low risk. And people with COVID-19 symptoms or who test positive shouldn’t stop wearing masks.

According to the New York Times, as of Friday the United States was 65 percent fully vaccinated and 76 percent of those eligible were at least partially vaccinated. After a gigantic surge in cases due to the omicron variant during late November and throughout December, the 14-day average of new cases in the U.S. is down 65 percent. However, only 28 percent of those who are eligible for a booster have received one, the Times database reported.
“Anybody is certainly welcome to wear a mask at any time if they feel safer wearing a mask,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday. “We want to make sure our hospitals are OK and people are not coming in with severe disease. … Anyone can go to the CDC website, find out the volume of disease in their community and make that decision.”
Regardless of Kyrie Irving’s saga in New York City, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver sounded like a man ready to start thinking of a non-pandemic future during the All-Star Weekend in Cleveland. Only the Toronto Raptors are currently under fan restrictions — those will be lifted within days — and a number of teams have relaxed their guidance on mask-wearing at games, guidance that was widely ignored anyway.
“In terms of a post-pandemic NBA, we’re looking for something very much closer to the normal that we are familiar with, and we are beginning to see that already,” Silver said in Cleveland. “The regulations vary from city to city, state to state, but the teams have all managed to work through those issues, and fans have been eager to come back.”
COVID-19 is still a storyline in the National Hockey League as well — L.A. Kings coach Todd McLellan entered protocols on Friday. But the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday became the third Canadian team to drop its mandate for fans to be vaccinated to attend home games, joining the Calgary Flames and Toronto Maple Leafs, in a shift of protocols north of the border.
The league also is still trying to get insurers to cover what it says is $1 billion in lost revenues because of the pandemic, a request that a California judge rejected last week. But Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Sunil Kulkarni indicated he was open to hearing more details of the NHL’s claim that the insurance policy had a communicable disease clause that might still lead to compensation. Factory Mutual insurance says the payout limit should be $1 million. The NHL and 20 of its teams sued Factory Mutual last year after the insure rejected claims for compensation.
Given what is widely known about COVID-19, the risk for fans is much less when outdoors compared to indoor venues. Major League Soccer started its 2022 season over the weekend with no attendance restrictions at any of its venues after the 2021 season saw some restrictions on the opening weekend.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber said the league is 97 percent vaccinated and that it will, similar to other leagues, only test vaccinated players if they show symptoms. Unvaccinated players will be tested “more frequently,” Garber said last week, adding an exact total will be determined within two weeks.
“We continue to evolve our medical health and safety protocols as the regulations come down from different states and different provinces,” Garber said. “And, clearly, we’re paying close attention to what the rules are going to be in Canada, and that’s work in progress.”
And as Silver added in Cleveland, planning for a sports world in a “post-pandemic” era does not mean that COVID disappears.
“I think, as I have said before, we all have to learn to live with this virus,” Silver said. “Based on what I have read and been told by our experts, it’s not likely to go anywhere. There will probably be other variants, at some point, but we now have tools to deal with those. Obviously, vaccines, boosters, anti-virals, et cetera, that didn’t exist when the pandemic started. So I feel that as a country, as a world we’re much better equipped to deal with it now.”
NBA: Kyrie Irving Will Get His Wish Should New York City Lift Vaccination Mandate
Posted: Friday, February 25
The NBA’s most famously unvaccinated player, Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, may soon get his wish with the expected lifting of New York City’s vaccine mandates — although the exact timetable does leave doubt as to whether it would be before the end of the regular season for the struggling team.
Irving has been unable to play in home games because of the city’s vaccination mandate, which Mayor Eric Adams said may be eventually phased out. Irving originally was told by the Nets to stay away from the team entirely at the start of the season before returning on a part-time basis as Brooklyn, a preseason contender for the NBA title, has struggled.
“It’s great, obviously,” Nets coach Steve Nash said. “It would be great for us to have Kyrie available for all our games. Having said that, it’s not really in our control, so we’ll leave it up to the mayor and wait patiently.”

The Nets entered the post-All-Star break in seventh place in the Eastern Conference. The team had 23 games remaining in the regular season entering Thursday night as the league resumed play after its All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.
“I can’t wait to get it done,” Adams said Wednesday. “I’m not going to get ahead of the science, because I’m ready to get ahead of all of this and get back to a level of normalcy. … But I look forward in the next few weeks of going through a real transformation … We’re going to get the city back up and operating. And we’re going to be rolling out some things in the next day or so on how we’re going to carry that out.”
Irving’s refusal to get vaccinated — making him stand out from nearly the rest of the league, which is more than 97 percent vaxxed — has been a major storyline this season. Irving tried to avoid the issue during training camp and the Nets’ first home game was a wild scene at the Barclays Center as anti-vaccine protesters tried to storm the facility.
Irving has danced around the vaccination issue since returning to the Nets, trying to frame it as a personal decision and saying that he is not opposed to vaccinations — just that he doesn’t want to take them. That framing has not worked to say the least with many anti-vaccination proponents adopting him as one of their own. When the Nets announced that Irving would be allowed to rejoin the team on a part-time basis, he landed on the NBA’s COVID list within 48 hours for being a close contact of somebody who had tested positive during the height of the omicron variant.
The current mandate in New York is that proof of full vaccination must be shown to enter indoor spaces like restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and sports venues such as the Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden. That the mandate applies only to New York City residents but not visiting players has become a greater source of contention within the NBA has case numbers have continually fallen in recent weeks
“This law in New York, the oddity of it to me is that it only applies to home players,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said last week on ESPN. “I think if ultimately that rule is about protecting people who are in the arena, it just doesn’t quite make sense to me that an away player who is unvaccinated can play in Barclays but the home player can’t. To me that’s a reason they should take a look at that ordinance.”
NFL Bursts Combine Bubble After Agent Opposition
Posted: Tuesday, February 22
As sports events navigate the next steps in the COVID-19 pandemic, each one is still finding its way through what participants expect and what the organizers would like to see happen. Case in point the change in policy that has taken place with the NFL Combine, an event that over time has grown into a weeklong spectacle in Indianapolis.
In advance of the event expected to start March 1, the NFL had set guidelines for participating athletes that would have had them confined to a bubble of sorts in an effort toward COVID mitigation. Athletes, in particular, were not allowed to leave the secured area to visit with their own personnel including physical therapists, massage therapists or athletic trainers, although one member of their medical support team would have been allowed in to a specified location.
That restriction, however, met a cold response from player agents who vowed in large numbers to keep their clients away from the event entirely if something didn’t change. The NFL Players Association, which does not yet represent any of the athletes until they join teams, also offered their support, issuing a statement that said, “We have spoken to several agents to reinforce our longstanding opposition to the NFL Scouting Combine and agree and support the decisions by those to not attend. The combination of the NFL’s proposed ‘bubble’ and fact that we still have an antiquated system of every team doctor examining players and having them perform yet again needs serious modification or elimination. While we do not represent these players we have advocated for their rights to fair treatment.”
And it didn’t take long for something to change. On Sunday night, in a memo obtained by several media outlets, the league softened its stance.
Masks will still be required for participating athletes during their travel to Indianapolis and during medical exams at the Combine. In all other circumstances, masks will now be recommended by not required. The memo also went on to encourage players to “remain within the secure Combine at all times for your safety.”
But several exemptions will now be allowed, including the ability for players to leave the bubble during any free time on their schedule. And most important for players, their own therapists and trainers will now be permitted within the secured areas of the Combine as well.
The Combine is set to take place March 1–7 with more than 300 players invited to participate.
If Mask Mandates Are Not Enforced, Why Do Sports Events Have Them?
Updated: February 21, 2022
Throughout Sunday’s Super Bowl there were a mix of celebrities in the ultra-exclusive areas and fans throughout the upper areas where prices — although exorbitant — were, by comparison, within the budget of a regular man or woman.
And seemingly nowhere was there a person wearing a mask, despite the venue’s mandate to do so during the Los Angeles Rams’ 23–20 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, which raises the question: With COVID cases nationally on a downturn, should any professional or collegiate sports venue still have a mask policy given that it has been shown to be unenforceable?
Los Angeles County officials held a press conference the week before the Super Bowl to encourage fans to follow health and safety protocols — including comments from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who on Sunday was seen without a mask almost the entirety of the game.

All attendees were to be given a KN95 mask upon entry and fans had to either show proof of full vaccination or a negative test up to 48 hours before a game. Fans were required to wear a mask at SoFi Stadium except when eating or drinking, regardless of vaccination status. But “you can’t force everybody to wear a mask all the time,” said James Butts, mayor of Inglewood, ahead of the game, admitting that enforcement would not be strict to say the least.
That ended up being the case as it was probably harder to find a person wearing one than not wearing one, especially among those in the celebrity suites. There was one group that strictly adhered to the venue’s rules; the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra performed with masks before the game.
“Businesses, schools, churches were fined or shut down for far less, and yet it seems like when we have something high-profile like the Super Bowl or the Emmys, the rules just don’t seem to matter anymore,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said Tuesday. “And I believe that our health orders are only effective if people believe in them, if they think they are fair and if they follow them. And keeping mandates in place that aren’t followed just erodes the credibility the public has in us as policymakers.”
The NBA has mandated that at every arena, regardless of other protocols, fans sitting within 15 feet of the court will have to wear masks at all times, except when eating or drinking. Judging by a random viewing of multiple NBA games on a given week, you would have to assume that there is a lot of eating and drinking going on with how many people don’t have masks on the entire game.
And what was nearly half the league mandating either vaccination or at least a negative test to attend games has slowly started to decline. The Utah Jazz announced on Tuesday that not only would it not ask fans for proof of a negative test at minimum to attend games, but it would no longer have a mask mandate for all fans — which, from first-hand experience, was never followed by 99 percent of the fans to begin with.
None of the NHL’s teams in Canada are allowed to have full capacity at the moment, a source of public irritation for Commissioner Gary Bettman. Only a handful of NFL teams required proof of vaccination for entry into their stadiums all season: Buffalo and Las Vegas mandated vaccination while Seattle and New Orleans (for part of the season) allowed fans to at least show proof of a negative test if they were unvaccinated. Los Angeles mandated either proof of vaccination or a negative test at SoFi Stadium along with mask wearing, although that was clearly not either adhered to or enforced.
So it goes back to the original question — if teams have a mask mandate and are not enforcing it, then why are the policies in place? Having one is disingenuous when it’s not enforced like on Sunday. There have been no documented sports events that have turned into super spreader events this year among fans for not being masked or vaccinated; there also is no contact tracing at any sporting events so we really will not ever know.
Los Angeles County, two days after the Super Bowl, ended its outdoor mask mandate for places such as SoFi Stadium and Dodger Stadium. It also said that it will keep in place a mandate on indoor masking, even though the rest of California lifted that provision on Wednesday. Whether that mandate will be enforced at home games for Los Angeles’ NHL and NBA teams is … well, you know the answer to that already.
As the Beijing Olympics Wind Down, so do Positive COVID Cases
Posted: Thursday, February 17
As the Olympic Winter Games finish off their final week in Beijing, organizers are reporting that the COVID-19 countermeasures put in place for all arriving participants and stakeholders appear to be having the intended effect. On February 16, the organizing committee reported that for the first time during the Games, there were no positive tests in the so-called closed loop that is governing the rules of engagement for all Olympic participants on site. The day before, only person — not an athlete — tested positive among stakeholders.
The milestone of no positive cases over the course of a single day came after 68,970 PCR tests just on February 16 alone, including 5,239 among athletes. The day before, organizers said they administered 69,786 PCR tests inside the closed loop, including 5,899 for athletes and team officials. The one person who tested positive registered their test at customs upon arrival in Beijing.

Overall, more than 400 people have tested positive during the Games, including more than 180 athletes, although the peak of those positive tests came February 2, just two days before the Opening Ceremony. Since then, numbers have been on a steady decline.
Huang Chun, the deputy director general for the Office of Pandemic Prevention and Control of the Beiing Organizing Committee, said the results show that the significant countermeasures put in place for the Games appear to be working.
“Every day we’re seeing very few number of confirmed positive cases,” he said. “We are taking very stringent COVID measures within the closed loop. It was not our target to have zero positive cases. Against the background of the global pandemic, we know for sure there will be imported cases. But the Games are going on. We are optimistic, but still need to be very careful. The success of the countermeasures means the success of the Games.”
IOC Spokesman Mark Adams also noted that the organizers will soon be shifting the majority of their attention to depature procedures, which will also require participants to register negative tests before leaving Beijing. “We sometimes forget we are in the middle of a global pandemic and we are hosting one of the most complex international competitions or events in the world very successfully,” he said. “We are not complacent. The Games are not over yet. We are making sure those who need to leave the country can do so safely. That is still a logistical challenge.”
February 21 is expected to the peak day for Olympic departures. The Games are scheduled to conclude on February 20 with the Closing Ceremony.
Novak Djokovic, Kyrie Irving Hold Firm on Anti-Vaccination Views
Posted: Tuesday, February 15
Two major stars in their field, seemingly gifted beyond belief and both this week vowed that their athletic achievements will suffer — willingly — because of their refusal to take the COVID vaccine.
Novak Djokovic, in his first interview since his deportation from Australia days before the Australian Open started, told the BBC that he would rather never play in a Grand Slam again if that meant he would have to get vaccinated.
“I have never said that I am part of that movement,” Djokovic said of the anti-vaxxer part of the world, admitting he was vaccinated as a child.
“I’m trying to be in tune with my body as much as I possibly can,” he said. “Based on all the information that I got, I decided not to take the vaccine, as of today.”

Djokovic, who has been skeptical of COVID since nearly the beginning of the pandemic, received a medical exemption to play in the Australian Open — saying he had COVID in December, which would have been the second time he had the virus. After his visa was revoked by the Australian government, Rafael Nadal won the Australian Open title and broke the tie he held with Djokovic and Roger Federer for most major titles by a male player.
“I understand that there is a lot of criticism, and I understand that people come out with different theories on how lucky I was or how convenient it is,” Djokovic said. “But no one is lucky and convenient of getting COVID. Millions of people have and are still struggling with COVID around the world. So I take this very seriously. I really don’t like someone thinking I’ve misused something or in my own favor, in order to, you know, get a positive PCR test and eventually go to Australia.”
Djokovic said he will play at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, in March. But while the ATP and WTA Tours do not have a vaccination mandate, non-US citizens must be fully vaccinated to travel to the United States by plane, according to the CDC. Fans attending the tournament in Indian Wells must also show proof of full vaccination.
Djokovic’s status for the French Open starting May 22 remains unclear. France currently has a vaccine requirement but may lift it before the tournament starts. As it stands, no one who is unvaccinated can enter sports venues unless they have proof they have had COVID within the previous four months; Djokovic’s positive test in December would fall outside of that guidance.
Beyond the French Open, Wimbledon has allowed COVID exemptions for visiting athletes in some cases. The U.S. Open in late summer is the final Grand Slam of the year and the United States Tennis Association has said it will follow government rules on COVD protocols.
While Djokovic’s chase for the all-time Grand Slam titles seems doubtful — on his own accord — the slumping Brooklyn Nets, who would love to have any type of boost to reverse its freefall down the Eastern Conference standings, will continue to play home games without one of its best players in Kyrie Irving.
Irving, who is not allowed to play home games because he is unvaccinated, insisted again this week that he would rather miss time — and potentially harm his team’s NBA title chances — rather than get vaccinated.
Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving remains hopeful that the New York City worker vaccination mandate will eventually get overturned and he will be able to participate in home games this season. Irving will not be able to play again with his team until February 26 in Milwaukee. The Nets have dropped 11 straight games after a 115-111 loss to the Heat on Saturday night.
“There’s no guilt that I feel,” Irving said. “I’m the only player that has to deal with this in New York City because I play there. If I was anywhere else in another city then it probably wouldn’t be the same circumstances. But because I’m there, we have [mayor] Eric Adams, we have the New York mandate, we have things going on that are real-life circumstances that are not just affecting me, bro. So you ask me these questions, I don’t feel guilt.”
Irving’s anti-vaccination stance comes under the increased spotlight because of the Nets’ trading James Harden for Ben Simmons, formerly of the Philadelphia 76ers. There were reports that one of the reasons for Harden’s unhappiness in Brooklyn was the half-in, half-out nature of Irving’s commitment to the team due to his anti-vaccination status.
Irving, meanwhile, continues to believe that eventually the New York City vaccination mandate will be eased or eliminated altogether and is willing to accept the consequences should it not happen — including the potential loss of his second NBA title.
“I’m just living my life as best I can just like everybody else that missed these last two years,” Irving said for his part. “I didn’t have a plan in place while all this was going on, didn’t know. The NBA and the NBPA made it very clear that there would be things that I would be able to do to work around this. And that’s off the table. So you tell me if I’m just alone out here or do I have support from everybody else that’s dealing with the same thing?”
OLYMPICS: Valieva’s Drug Test Saga Overshadows Figure Skating Competition
Posted: Monday, February 14
From an operational standpoint, the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing has seen a marked daily decline in COVID cases. But the operational standpoint when it comes to other, darker aspects of the Games has come under a harsh spotlight thanks to a repeat offender.
Fifteeen-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva looked to be one of the breakout stars of the Games when she landed the first quadruple jump by a woman at the Olympics and led the ROC to gold in the team competition. But her star turn turned into a spotlight that includes a positive drug test — recorded on Christmas Day during the Russian nationals — that only came to light in the past week.

And after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled overnight that she can continue to participate, and most likely end up with the women’s individual gold medal, Valieva’s presence will overshadow the rest of the figure skating competition with as much attention paid to off-ice events as on-ice performances.
CAS gave her a favorable decision in part because Valieva was a minor or “protected person” and was subject to different rules than an adult athlete. Athletes under 16 like Valieva typically are not held responsible for taking banned substances.
The CAS panel also cited that she tested clean in Beijing and “serious issues of untimely notification” of her positive test that a drug-testing lab in Sweden reported contained the heart medication trimetazidine, which is banned in international sports. Reasons for the six-week wait for a result from Sweden are unclear, though Russian officials have suggested it was partly because of a surge in COVID-19 cases, which affected staffing at the lab.
“The panel considered that preventing the athlete to compete at the Olympics would cause her irreparable harm in the circumstances,” CAS Director General Matthieu Reeb said.
The International Olympic Committee said “in the interest of fairness to all athletes,” there will be no medal ceremony if Valieva wins a medal and instead, “organize dignified medal ceremonies once the case of Ms. Valieva has been concluded.”
“It is the collective responsibility of the entire Olympic community to protect the integrity of sports and to hold our athletes, coaches and all involved to the highest of standards,” USOPC Chief Executive Officer Sarah Hirshland said in a statement. “Athletes have the right to know they are competing on a level playing field. Unfortunately, today that right is being denied. This appears to be another chapter in the systemic and pervasive disregard for clean sports by Russia.
“We know this case is not yet closed, and we call on everyone in the Olympic Movement to continue to fight for clean sport on behalf of athletes around the world.”
Russia’s anti-doping agency, known as RUSADA, gave Valieva a provisional suspension for the drug tests then lifted it a day later. That decision was appealed by the International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency and International Skating Union, leading to the overnight CAS ruling.
Operationally, why six weeks lapsed before Valieva’s positive test came back has led to questions that the IOC has continually dodged. That she is from Russia reminds anyone with knowledge of the Olympics about its continual issues with flouting anti-doping rules. Doping in Russian sport has been a major theme for a sixth straight Olympic Games, including the past three winter editions at Sochi, Russia; Pyeongchang, South Korea; and now Beijing.
Russia is not competing at the Olympics in name only. Athletes are competing under the acronym ROC, for Russian Olympic Committee, because of a state-sponsored doping operation dating to the 2014 Winter Games, which Russia hosted. Further exposing the ‘severity’ of the IOC’s ban of Russia is that as its athletes are competing in the Games, Vladimir Putin was at Opening Ceremony, waving from a luxury box to athletes.
The team competition gold medal, and any medal she wins in the individual competition, could still be taken from Valieva as part of a longer-term investigation — ensuring that this story will only continue to linger in the months ahead.
Big Parties, Sellout Crowd, No Positive Tests: The Super Bowl has Moved Past COVID
Posted: Friday, February 11
It says something about the state of COVID within the National Football League that during his state of the league address on Wednesday in Los Angeles, Commissioner Roger Goodell was not asked once about the pandemic that the league was again able to play through this regular season — though not without some late-season stress.
Last season, COVID dominated the off-field discussion — some teams did not have fans all season long at home games, nearly every team had some type of capacity restriction and more than a dozen games were rescheduled as the season went along.

This year thanks to the availability of vaccines, the season started out with capacity crowds everywhere and beginning with the start of training camp, NFL teams averaged 28 positive tests per week. But with the omicron variant spread throughout the country, the NFL was not immune.
The week of Christmas, the NFL recorded 347 player positives and three games were postponed. The following week had 411 positive results, but no changes to the schedule. And since then, it has been smooth sailing for the league.
Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, said this week 95 percent of players and almost all staff received at least two doses of the vaccine. Those numbers far outpace the general U.S. population, but NFL players have lagged behind the rest of the U.S. and NFL community in getting a booster; Sills said only 10 percent of players so far had received one.
“The rollout of boosters came at a challenging time for players,” Sills said. “We all know that during the season players don’t want to do anything that might detract from their performance or cause them to miss time.”
While Sills said it’s “absolutely possible” that players from the Rams and Bengals could still miss the Super Bowl, that would require an extraordinary set of circumstances over the coming days; the league stopped regular testing midway through the playoffs and now only tests players if they have symptoms of COVID and self-report them.
“Let’s understand that there’s a culture of recognition within the team,” Sills said. “If there’s a player within the team environment or coach or staff member displaying obvious symptoms, no one wants that individual to spread that around the team. Particularly this week.”
Yet another sign of increasingly normalcy throughout the country; a Seton Hall Sports Poll conducted February 4–7 showed 36 percent of those watching say they will do so with people that include individuals outside of their immediate families, up 11 percent from last year.
“The impact of COVID-19 on the economy has been unprecedented and the multi-billion dollar sports industry and its ancillary business have not been immune,” said Seton Hall Marketing Professor and Poll Methodologist Daniel Ladik. “Everyone from parking attendants at the games to the local deli preparing cheese platters and six-foot sandwiches for a Super Bowl party has been impacted. Perhaps these numbers are a harbinger of a step toward normalcy.”
This year’s Super Bowl is the first time that the game has been in Los Angeles since 1993 but Goodell believes Los Angeles will be a “regular Super Bowl stop” because of SoFi Stadium, which opened last year without fans in attendance.
“I’d be hard-pressed to think that it won’t be at the top of everybody’s list, every opportunity we can,” Goodell said.
The next three Super Bowls will be played in Arizona, Las Vegas and New Orleans with the game in February 2026 the next one available. Which city will host in 2026 will be intriguing given that several cities that could host the game are also in the running to host games for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which could be an organizational nightmare.
So who could host in 2026? If you think outside the box a little bit, you could take the game far away — to London, more precisely. The Daily Mail reported this week the Premier League’s Tottenham Hotspur, which hosts two NFL games each regular season, is interested in hosting the game.
Tottenham Hotspur stadium’s costs were in part offset by the NFL, who contributed $13.5 million to the venue which has an artificial NFL regulation field underneath a retractable grass soccer field. London is five hours ahead of East Coast time; with Sunday’s kickoff at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, that means any future Hotspur-hosted Super Bowls would have to start near midnight in London.
NHL: Instead of heading to Beijing Games, regular season resumes
Posted: Thursday, February 10
Right as the NHL All-Star Game finished Saturday afternoon in Las Vegas, if it hadn’t hit players or fans before then, it did now — what was expected to happen next has changed dramatically.
After all, Las Vegas was picked to host this year’s All-Star Weekend because with its West Coast location, players would be able to leave immediately for the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. But after a first half of the season in which the league had to postpone 105 games with more than half of the league’s teams having to go on COVID-enforced pauses, the league instead will resume play this week and skip the Games.

“It’s disappointing, because you realize you never know when you’re going to get an opportunity to go to the Olympics,” said Pittsburgh Penguins forward Jake Guentzel, a probable member of the U.S. team. “It’s something you dream about and it’s disappointing that it didn’t happen.”
The NHL has tried to thread the needle on its Olympic decision. While going to Beijing was a high priority for players in the last collective bargaining negotiations, the league has been historically ambivalent about it. The league has been disappointed, to say the league, between not having the rights to show video highlights of players. While the best-on-best Olympic competitions have brought in traditionally strong TV ratings, it also has tended to overshadow the NHL’s regular seasons when the Games are held.
What the NHL prefers to the Olympics is the World Cup of Hockey, which the league has full control of and can market to its own financial benefit. The tournament was last held in 2016 and the league has discussed its return as soon as 2024.
“(The Olympics is) something that a lot of guys were really looking forward to,” said Toronto star Auston Matthews, who would have made his first appearance for the U.S. team. “I know I definitely was. It’s too bad. It’s just the circumstance we’re in. Hopefully we’re able to get a best-on-best tournament at some point here, just because there’s so many good young players, and the league is in such a good place right now with the amount of talent and skill that’s in it.”
For his part, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman seemed to be anything but disappointed not to have players heading to Beijing: “In the absence of that roughly three-week period, I’m not sure how we would’ve been able to finish the season on any rational or irrational basis,” he said Friday.
Bettman was in a pugnacious mood in Las Vegas, repeatedly taking aim at Canada’s COVID restrictions for crowds. He said the league would move the June draft out of Montreal unless it was able to sell tickets at full capacity and hinted games would be moved out of Canada unless its teams were able to sell tickets at arenas to full capacity. Currently none of the NHL’s Canadian teams can do so.
“That’s how devastating and troublesome it has been for [those] clubs,” Bettman said. “All the clubs that can’t play at full capacity are losing lots of money. I don’t have concerns about a club going out of business, but it’s not unlike what we’ve been through for the last couple of years. It costs a lot of money. On average they’ve lost up to $50 million each. Some more, some less. Adding this on top of that for some clubs isn’t great.”
It was curious, then, how Bettman was critical of Canadian crowd capacities but then seemed nonplussed about the news that the Arizona Coyotes may have to start next year playing in a small 5,000-seat hockey arena on Arizona State University’s campus. Instead, Bettman took shots at the city of Glendale, Arizona, which is booting the team from Gila River Arena, and criticized the Phoenix Suns for not sharing the downtown Footprint Center.
The league also received another reminder that the season will still be affected by COVID; New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes, Vancouver winger Quinn Hughes and Pittsburgh Penguins star Evgeni Malkin were each placed on the NHL’s protocol list since the All-Star Game.
OLYMPICS: Covid Remains Dominant Storyline for Beijing Games
Posted: Tuesday, February 8
U.S. men’s figure skater Vincent Zhou, less than 24 hours after winning a silver medal in the team figure skating competition, announced that he will miss the singles competition after testing positive for COVID-19 at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
Zhou was often in tears during his Instagram video announcement. He had tested positive as part of a routine COVID-19 screening before additional testing. The 21-year-old had struggled through a poor free skate during the team event.

“I have tested positive for COVID-19 and unfortunately I will have to withdraw from the individual event starting tomorrow,” said Zhou. “It seems pretty unreal that of all the people it would happen to myself, and that’s not just because I’m still processing this turn of events but also because I have been doing everything in my power to stay free of COVID since the start of the pandemic. I’ve taken all the precautions I can. I’ve isolated myself so much that the loneliness I felt in the last month or two has been crushing at times.”
Zhou’s positive test comes days after bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor was forced to skip the Opening Ceremony, having been elected as one of the two U.S. flag bearers, for her own positive test. Meyers Taylor was released from isolation on Monday and will be able to compete.
U.S. speedskater Casey Dawson, meanwhile, is hoping to compete after arriving in Beijing from Salt Lake City after testing requirements kept him in Utah last week. Having tested positive for COVID three weeks ago, Dawson thought he would need two consecutive negative tests to begin his journey to Beijing before he found out that he needed four consecutive negative tests. He missed the 5,000-meters and landed just hours before the 1,500-meter event. Dawson will also compete in the men’s speedskating team pursuit beginning February 13 with Emery Lehman and Joey Mantia, reuniting the trio that broke the world record in December.
COVID, regardless of the IOC’s and Beijing’s wishes, has remained the dominant storyline in the opening days of these Games. A sample of the issues since Friday’s Opening Ceremony include:
- Sunday’s women’s hockey game between Russia and Canada was delayed for an hour because Canada refused to take the ice until Russian COVID test results were processed. The International Ice Hockey Federation reached a compromise to have players from both teams wear masks. The Russians, in the midst of a 6-1 loss, were allowed to remove their masks at the start of the third period after test results showed no one was positive. Finland’s players also wore face masks during its game on Tuesday against Russia, which had forward Polina Bolgareva test positive the day after playing against Canada.
- Polish speedskater Natalia Maliszewska, who was forced to miss the 500 meters short track event on Saturday, said “I cry until I have no more tears” while in an isolation ward after testing positive for COVID. Maliszewska tested positive for coronavirus on January then was released from isolation on the eve of the 500, only to test positive a few hours before it started and was put back into quarantine. The next day, she was released after again testing negative. “People got me out of my room at 3am,” she said on social media. “This night was a horror, I slept in my clothes in my bed because I was afraid that at any moment someone would take me back to isolation. Then a message that unfortunately they were mistaken, that I am a threat, and should not have been released from isolation. … To me this is a big joke, I hope whoever is managing this has a lot of fun. My heart and my mind can’t take this anymore.”
- Finland men’s ice hockey player Marko Anttila has been confined to his room for two weeks after testing positive upon arrival to Beijing. Reuters reported that Anttila tested negative before leaving to the Games but more sensitive tests used by Chinese health authorities have produced positive tests. Finland coach Jukka Jalonena said Anttila was “not getting good food” and was suffering with mental stress. “We know he’s fully healthy and ready to go and that’s why we think that China, for some reason, they won’t respect his human rights,” Jalonena added.
- Russian biathlete Valeria Vasnetsova posted on Instagram from a quarantine hotel: “My stomach hurts, I’m very pale and I have huge black circles around my eyes. I want all this to end. I cry every day. I’m very tired.” She posted a picture of what she said was “breakfast, lunch and dinner for five days already,” a tray with plain pasta, an orange sauce, charred meat and a few potatoes. Vasnetsova’s post was deleted after it circulated in Russian and international media; Russian team spokesperson Sergei Averyanov later shared a photo of a new meal given to Vasnetsova, with salmon, cucumbers, sausages and yogurt.
For its part, the International Olympic Committee has said the issues have been addressed. IOC Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi said Sunday. “It’s a duty, a responsibility we have, to make sure that the expectations are met. … the situation has been addressed. The conditions were not good enough that night and it should not happen. We want to make sure that it does not.”
Beijing organizers were more succinct: “We of course pay very close attention to these issues and will respond quickly and effectively and address all these problems,” BOCOG Vice President and Secretary General Han Zirong said. “That concludes my remark.”
Dr. Brian McCloskey, chair of the Beijing 2022 Medical Expert Panel, said Tuesday morning that the number of cases within the closed loop system is doing down and “the situation inside the closed loop is extremely safe and there is no signs of infection spreading.” He added that the average length of isolation for positive individuals has been just under seven days.
In regard to Russian and Canadian women’s hockey players wearing masks, McCloskey said “the medical evidence of the risk of infection on the field of play is such that masks are not necessary and probably will not help. But wearing them is an individual choice.”
NFL: Politicians Emphasize SoFi Stadium Mask Mandate, Which Many of Them Ignored
Posted: Friday, February 4
Los Angeles County officials held a press conference this week to try and encourage fans to follow health and safety protocols at SoFi Stadium during next week’s Super Bowl — protocols that were widely ignored during the NFC Championship game, including by some of the politicians making the case on Wednesday.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed were all photographed without masks at the game, won by the Los Angeles Rams over in-state rival San Francisco. Newsom and Garcetti both said they only briefly took off their masks during the game.

When taking a photograph, “I’m holding my breath literally for two seconds,” Garcetti said. “There is a zero percent chance of infection from that. I put my mask right back on … to make sure that there is no spread. And I think that we should all follow that advice until we’re out of this period.”
Fans are required to always wear a mask at SoFi Stadium except when eating or drinking, regardless of vaccination status. But officials acknowledge there is no way to police 70,000 people.
“You can’t force everybody to wear a mask all the time,” said James Butts, mayor of Inglewood. “In the end, it’s the responsibility of the people to take care of themselves, their families and their friends. And that’s the simplest way I can put it.”
All attendees will be given a KN95 mask upon entry to the Super Bowl and attendees ages 5 and up must either show proof of full vaccination or a negative test up to 48 hours before a game — and if a fan is not vaccinated but has a negative test, it must be from a lab or official clinic with at-home tests not accepted. SoFi Stadium has an on-site clinic where you can get test results within 30 minutes the day before the game for $59.
Slipping off a mask to take a bite of a snack “doesn’t mean buy a bucket of popcorn and eat it for two hours,” said Russ Simons, senior adviser of facilities at the stadium. “The staff is on hand to remind people to mask up.”
But as social media showed, reminding fans of the rules and enforcing them are two different things. Given the number of fans who ignored the mask mandate at SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger this week called for a reassessment of the mandate, saying “they don’t make a difference when they’re not consistently followed or enforced.”
Los Angeles County has some of the most restrictive pandemic rules in the nation, yet it also has seen among the highest rates for infections and deaths in the state of 40 million. Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer did not rule out the possibility that the county could drop or amend mask rules ahead of the Super Bowl but “transmission is super high here. And we’ve got to get to lower rates before it makes sense to be taking off our masks.”
OLYMPICS: Chief of Beijing Medical Panel Details Olympic Testing Protocols
Posted: Thursday, February 3
Dr. Brian McCloskey, chief of the Beijing 2022 Medical Expert Panel, said a day before the 2022 Olympic Winter Games officially open that “there are very few places in the world where the risk of COVID-19 is as low as it is in here.”
A total of 200 positive tests have been recorded at the Olympics since January 23 through Monday. Sixty-seven were athletes and officials with “stakeholders,” a group that includes workers and media, making up a majority of the numbers. The positive test rate so far is 4.2 percent for athletes and officials compared with 0.66 percent for stakeholders.
McCloskey said in a media briefing the numbers are “the sort of level of positive tests we would expect to get. They’re being managed, so the risk has been reduced, so the risk within the closed loop is very low.”

McCloskey’s briefing came on the same day that Belgian skeleton racer Kim Meylemans was permitted to enter the Olympic village after she tearfully posted on social media about being in isolation over coronavirus concerns.
Meylemans tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival, which meant she had to enter isolation and return several negative tests before being cleared to move into the Yanqing Olympic Village. She thought that was happening Wednesday and boarded an ambulance for what she thought was a ride to that village.
“But the ambulance went to another facility,” Meylemans said in an Instagram post.
Belgian Olympic officials and the International Olympic Committee intervened and Meylemans was brought to the Yanqing Village, where she will be in an isolated room and still needs seven days of testing before she can be released.
“Our main goal was to get Kim to the Olympic Village in Yanqing as quickly as possible,” Belgian Olympic delegation leader Olav Spahl said. “We are therefore very pleased that this has now been successfully achieved. We understand that the COVID measures are necessary to safeguard the safety and health of participants in the Games, but we believe that the athlete should always be at the center of such an approach.”
IOC President Thomas Bach said “We have a lot of sympathy for all the people who are affected and in isolation, or direct contact persons. … The other day we had a meeting with the Athletes Commission. The IOC executive board and commission said maybe it should be considered that in such cases one should not wait until an athlete is calling for help. For the athletes, it’s terrible. I do not want to ignore it, or if it’s happening to somebody from the media, from the IOC or from the federation or to everybody. But for the athletes, it’s really the worst.”
Beijing’s closed-loop system was designed to lessen the risk of transmission of the coronavirus — although critics of Beijing’s hosting of the Games would hint that there are other reasons for the restricted movements. Once inside the “closed loop” system, no one will be able to leave a network of official venues.
“I’ve learned over the past few years with the pandemic never to relax around COVID-19 completely because it always has the capacity to surprise,” McCloskey said. “But so far, we are seeing that the system is working and the system is doing what it should do.”
McCloskey said there were not many changes made in Beijing’s protocols even after the omicron variant began spreading around the world because of the implementation of all the basic public health measures associated with COVID were already in place. “But it does mean we are more vigilant because omicron can come in more quickly,” he said. “And therefore it is even more important that the vaccination rate — because the vaccination does work against omicron — is higher than we had in Tokyo, which is an advantage for us.”
Vaccination rates ahead of these Games are significantly higher than for the 2021 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in Tokyo not only because of the increased availability worldwide of vaccines, but also because of Beijng’s mandate that any unvaccinated attendee for the Games would have to quarantine 21 days.
Regardless of vaccination status, all athletes, team officials and journalists need to provide two recent negative tests before heading to China. They will be tested at the airport upon arrival and everyone will get daily throat swabs for PCR lab tests, with results coming back within a day.
If anybody tests positive during the Games, there will be a confirmatory test. Should that test also be positive, anyone who has symptoms will go to a hospital while those without symptoms go to a hotel for isolation. To get out of isolation, people will need two consecutive days of negative tests and no symptoms.
“The reality is there is very little evidence in the scientific literature around the world of the spread of COVID-19 on the field of play for any sport,” McCloskey said. “An individual freestyle skier, for example, who could be brought to the start, can ski down the course entirely on their own and brought away at the finish is much less of a risk of spreading infection than ice hockey, where the team has to get together and train together, two teams to compete together. So the risk of something spreading is, theoretically at least, higher for those who have team sports than for the individual.
“The challenge is not to make sure we keep the participants safe from being infected in China — it’s that we keep them safe from infecting each other, that we stop them infecting the Chinese population,” McCloskey added. “So those two things are why we do the closed loop and the testing so much.”
OLYMPICS: U.S. Star Elana Meyers Taylor Out of Opening Ceremony with COVID
Posted: Wednesday, February 2
The COVID health and safety protocols at the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing are already being implemented as organizers said Tuesday that athletes and team officials who come to China are testing positive for COVID-19 at much higher rates than other people arriving for the Games.
Beijing organizers claim that 16 athletes and officials tested positive on Monday out of 379 screened. All of those who tested positive have been taken into isolation hotels to limit the spread of the infection.

One of the most notable athletes to go public with their positive test is U.S. World Cup champion Elana Meyers Taylor, the only woman to win three Olympic bobsled medals for the U.S. “After arriving to Beijing on January 27, on January 29 I tested positive for Covid-19,” Meyers Taylor wrote on social media. “I am asymptomatic and currently at an isolation hotel- and yes I am completely isolated.”
Meyers Taylor was planning to stay in a hotel and not the Olympic village, since she is traveling with her young son.
“This is just the latest obstacle that my family and I have faced on this journey, so I’m remaining optimistic that I’ll be able to recover quickly and still have the opportunity to compete,” Meyers Taylor wrote.
USA Bobsled and Skeleton remains hopeful that Meyers Taylor will be able to compete at the Games since bobsled does not begin until February 13 with the monobob. The two-person event starts February 18. Josh Williamson, a push athlete who was picked for his first Olympic team, revealed last week that he tested positive at a team camp in Chula Vista, California.
One moment Meyers Taylor will miss is the Opening Ceremony — for which she and curler John Shuster were selected by their fellow U.S. athletes to be the flag bearers of.
Shuster is a defending gold medalist and five-time Olympian. He will lead the U.S. delegation on Friday with speedskater Brittany Bowe, a three-time Olympian who was the first runner-up and will walk in place of Meyers Taylor.
The announcement of the flag bearers came shortly after competition at the Beijing Olympics began Wednesday with the opening games of mixed doubles curling at the Ice Cube, a reconfigured venue where Michael Phelps won a record eight swimming gold medals at the Summer Olympics 14 years ago.
A total of 200 positive tests for COVID-19 have been recorded at the Olympics since January 23. Sixty-seven were athletes and officials with “stakeholders,” a group which includes workers and media, making up the majority of the numbers. The positive test rate so far is 4.2 percent for athletes and officials compared to 0.66 percent for stakeholders. On Monday, the rate of infection from tests of those inside the closed loop system was 100 times higher for athletes and officials compared to workers.
All athletes, team officials and journalists need to provide two recent negative tests before heading to China. They will be tested again at the airport upon arrival and everyone will get daily throat swabs for PCR lab tests, with results coming back within a day. If anybody tests positive, there will be a confirmatory test. Should that test also be positive, anyone who has symptoms will go to a hospital while those without symptoms go to a hotel for isolation. To get out of isolation, people will need two consecutive days of negative tests and no symptoms.
COVID-19 is not the only controversy ongoing at the Games. The FBI this week issued a warning for U.S. athletes traveling to Beijing use burner phones and not bring their personal devices.
Nearly everyone attending this year’s games are required to download the My 2022 app to track their health while in Beijing. The FBI’s notice comes on the heels of last month’s report by the Citizen Lab, a group based at the University of Toronto, which found the app could be easily hacked with sensitive information of the users stolen.
“The FBI urges all athletes to keep their personal cell phones at home and use a temporary phone while at the Games,” said a notice by the agency. “While there were no major cyber disruptions, the most popular attack methods used were malware, email spoofing, phishing and the use of fake websites and streaming services designed to look like official Olympic service providers.”
The FBI said during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, there were more than 450 million attempted cyber-related incidents and that in Beijing, the use of digital wallets and mobile vaccination cards “could also increase the opportunity for cyber actors to steal personal information or install tracking tools, malicious code or malware.”
The FBI also revealed in its note that during the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeonchang, South Korea, that Russian cyber actors “conducted a destructive cyberattack against the Opening Ceremony, enabled through spear phishing campaigns and malicious mobile applications.”
While the controversy over China’s hosting of the Games continues to be a subplot of the event, Olympic officials in Taiwan announced that it had reversed a decision to skip Friday’s opening ceremony of the Beijing Games, saying they were pressured to do so by the IOC.
Taiwanese athletes compete as Chinese Taipei at the Olympics as part of a decades-old agreement with China brokered by the International Olympic Committee. The IOC said Tuesday “the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee has confirmed its participation” in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies; officials in Taiwan said the country would “adjust” its plan not to attend.
One more note: Japan, which hosted the delayed Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in summer 2021 in Tokyo, will now host the swimming world championships in 2023 after the event was postponed for a second time. FINA, the world governing body for the sport, said the event will be July 2023 in a third attempt to have the Japanese city host the event, which was scheduled for July 2021 until that was pushed back 10 months to make space for the Tokyo Games.
Fukuoka first hosted the world swim championships in 2001, and the original date was meant to celebrate the 20th-year anniversary. FINA said as part of the adjustments that the 2023 worlds, originally scheduled for Qatar, will be in January 2024 — putting two world championships plus the 2024 Paris Olympics within a 12-month span.
AUTO RACING: Formula 1 Mandates Vaccination to Avoid Djokovic-Esque Drama
Posted: Tuesday, February 1
On the heels of tennis’ drama over Novak Djokovic trying to get a medical exemption to the Australian Open — a request that was granted before the country’s immigration authorities revoked his visa and dramatically deported the star ahead of the tournament — another worldwide sports league is getting ahead of any potential drama by mandating full vaccination with no exemptions.
Formula One’s regulations going forward will apply to drivers, teams, media and hospitality guests, multiple reports said on Monday. The Guardian and Reuters said the series’ current roster of drivers are all vaccinated already.
“Formula One management will require all travelling personnel to be fully vaccinated and will not request exemptions,” an F1 spokesperson told The Guardian.

The series is going into the 2022 season with a surge of popularity, especially in the United States, thanks to its hit Netflix series. The dramatic end to last season, in which Max Verstappen passed Lewis Hamilton on the final lap of the final race to win the championship.
F1 was the first global sport to restart following the pandemic, completing a 17-race calendar in 2020 almost exclusively in Europe before last year’s 22 race schedule, which included more events outside of Europe including in Austin. This year’s 23-race season is scheduled to start on March 20 in Bahrain and last nine months with four races in North America, including a return to Austin plus a new race in Miami and the first Canadian Grand Prix since before the pandemic.
“Formula One has done an outstanding job in getting these races in and bringing fans back,” said the McLaren Chief Executive Zak Brown told The Guardian. “We have a challenge, unlike most other sports, where we go to lots of different countries. What works in England might not work in France, and might not work in Singapore, for example. We have to continue to be flexible and adaptable and open up responsibly as the world opens up.”
The issue of a vaccine mandate is centered in Formula 1 around FIA’s medical car driver, Alan van der Merwe, who is not vaccinated and has been on social media debating the merits of vaccination. Van der Merwe is well-known throughout Formula 1 for saving Romain Grosjean when his car burst into flames at the Sakhir Grand Prix in 2020. The FIA did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment about the vaccine mandate or Van der Merwe’s future.
FOOTBALL: Why the NFL is No Longer Testing for COVID
Updated: Monday, January 31
The NFL will almost assuredly not have any issues with Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals being disrupted by COVID-19 because once the playoffs came around, the league almost completely stopped testing for the virus even among unvaccinated players.
The change, made before the divisional round, means that unless a player exhibits symptoms of COVID, they will not be tested. In a memo, the NFL wrote: “This comprehensive, symptom-based approach to testing reflects our recent experience with the omicron variant and conforms to current public health recommendations and best practices employed in healthcare, and offers the best opportunity for identifying and treating cases promptly and avoiding spread within the facility.”

That will be good news for the Bengals and home team Rams ahead of the game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The Rams were one of three teams that had to have a game postponed in December, with a Sunday night game against the Seattle Seahawks moved to Tuesday and forcing the team to play two games in six days. At one point, the Rams had 27 players on the NFL’s reserve/COVID list.
The Bengals meanwhile did not have many COVID-related issues this season. Quarterback Joe Burrow even took a mild shot at his home city during the NFL’s surge, saying the Bengals stayed clear of major issues because “fortunately, there’s not a ton to do in Cincinnati, so nobody’s going out to clubs and bars and getting COVID every weekend.”
The league changed course for multiple reasons — partially because of a rapid decrease in the number of players testing positive after an end of regular season surge, and partially because the percentage of vaccinated players on the remaining teams was high enough to give the league and union comfort in changing its protocols.
Between December 12 and January 8 this season, 756 players and 478 staff members tested positive. A majority of them were asymptomatic, according to the league, but three games near the end of the regular season were postponed multiple days.
Two fans of the Buffalo Bills, meanwhile, have more pressing issues than overcoming their sorrow at losing last weekend to the Kansas City Chiefs in a dramatic divisional playoff game.
Amber and Michael Naab, 37 and 34, were charged with one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument this week in Orchard Park Town Court after posting on social media how they were able to attend Bills home games this season with fake vaccination cards.
Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said he would not send the couple to prison even though it is a Class D felony thanks to a state law signed in December.
“I readily admit this is not the crime of the century,” Flynn said Wednesday. “I hate to be the guy that says, ‘I need to send a message.’ I don’t like being that guy, but you can’t do this. There’s a law. We’ve got laws on the books.”
Flynn said the team learned got an anonymous tip from someone who saw the couple bragging on social media about using fake cards to attend Bills games. They were removed from their seats in the second half during Buffalo’s playoff home win against the New England Patriots.
The Bills required proof of vaccination at home games this season; the Erie County Department of Health said in October that at least 250 people were denied entry on the first weekend the mandate went into effect.
Even if the Bills had been able to win and eventually reach the Super Bowl, those fans would have had issues getting into many of the events planned in Los Angeles ahead of the title game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
Fans attending the game need to show proof of vaccination or have a negative test. Fans attending Super Bowl LVI will be issued with KN95 masks, the Los Angeles County Department of Health said this week. Free COVID-19 rapid tests and vaccinations will be offered at the Super Bowl Experience attraction at the Los Angeles Convention Center ahead of the game on February 13.
That the Rams were playing at home two weeks ahead of the Super Bowl did not mean that Sunday’s game served as an operational test run for February 13 — in fact, in many ways it was the opposite. Multiple SoFi parking lots were closed and crews have been building Super Bowl-related infrastructure around the stadium, which for some fans going to Sunday’s game may have meant having to leave for the game even earlier than usual.
And for the NFL, The Athletic reported, what would be a five-week build around the venue and surrounding area now will have to be compressed.
“We have been continually adjusting schedules and coordinating on a daily, even hourly basis, as the team advanced in the playoffs,” said Katie Keenan, the NFL’s senior director of live event operations. “Now we are consolidating our schedules, adding crews and working with the Rams to make sure we are ready for Super Bowl Sunday.”
OLYMPICS: How U.S. Ski & Snowboard is Trying to Keep Athletes Healthy Before Arriving at the Beijing Winter Olympics
Updated: Thursday, January 27
The Beijing 2002 Olympic Villages have officially opened with approximately 2,900 athletes are expected to arrive in the next week.
The Beijing Olympic Village is located in the Chaoyang district of the city, close to the Olympic Park. It will predominantly house athletes competing in the ice sports at Beijing 2022. In Zhangjiakou, the Olympic Village will accommodate 2,640 athletes and team officials taking part in freestyle skiing, snowboarding, biathlon, ski jumping and cross-country skiing. The third Olympic Village, in Yanqing, accommodate 1,430 athletes and team officials who will be taking part in alpine skiing, luge, bobsleigh and skeleton.
The accomodations are open — but getting there is still a challenge when it comes to making sure you can avoid the omicron variant of COVID-19, given what is at stake for Olympians.
Two-time Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin leads the 17-member U.S. ski team while snowboard Chloe Kim is one of the most high-profile American winter sports athletes. Typically, all the Olympians and staffers representing the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association would gather and leave for a Winter Olympic Games destination together.

This year is no typical Games. Between the strict entry requirements into Beijing and fears over the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19, extraordinary precautions are being taken to get Olympians into China.
“There are certainly plenty of logistical hurdles,” U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and Chief Executive Officer Sophie Goldschmidt told the SportsTravel Podcast this week. “We’ll have athletes leaving from various locations. Many of them are training and competing in Europe at the moment and probably would come back before heading to an Olympics, but we want to minimize unnecessary travel as much as possible, so they’re going to stay there and jump on flights from Europe straight to Beijing. Others are in the U.S. and will be leaving from various destinations.
“It’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle,” Goldschmidt described it. “With the protocols and amount of testing you have to do in the days leading up, there’s a lot to juggle and manage. But we’ve got a great team who are on top of every detail. Changes are happening in real time so we just have to stay on top of it.”
Organizers in Beijing have eased the COVID-19 requirements for participants, which could lead to fewer athletes tripped up by positive tests. The International Olympic Committee said the changes include easing the threshold for being designated positive for COVID-19 from PCR tests and reducing to seven days from 14 days the period for which a person is deemed a close contact.
The changes, which take effect immediately and apply retrospectively, “have been developed in order to further adapt to the reality of the current environment and support the Games participants,” the IOC said in a statement.
The viral load detected in PCR tests has been a source of contention among those in the medical community as to whether a person is still contagious. Shiffrin herself tested positive earlier this season but was cleared to ski eight days later on the World Cup circuit.
“We’ve been managing the process and had very strict protocols that we communicate very regularly to all of our athletes, coaches and staff,” Goldschmidt said. “We’re just reviewing (events) constantly — what are we learning, can we change different protocols, how can we make sure we’re communicating the right way. There’s a challenge that this has been around so long it can be white noise and people think because (omicron is) not so serious, ‘OK you don’t have to take the protocols so seriously.’ It’s just not the case. A positive case is a positive case.”
The Alpine schedule in Beijing starts February 6 with the men’s downhill, followed by the women’s giant slalom on February 7.
Organizers began reporting data on positive COVID-19 tests among Games-related personnel, with 177 confirmed cases found among 3,115 international arrivals from January 4 to January 23, according to Beijing 2022 data released Sunday and Monday.
The first athletes to have publicly been ruled out of the Olympics were revealed on Tuesday as Russian figure skater Mikhail Kolyada after testing positive ahead of traveling to a pre-Olympic training camp. He has been replaced by Evgeni Semenenko on the team; Kolyada was the only member of Russia’s men’s team who had previously competed at the Olympics.
“Several days ago Mikhail Kolyada started feeling unwell,” the federation said. “For all this time the skater has not been training.”
Two-time ski jumping gold medalist Andreas Wellinger will also miss the Games because he tested positive one day before the German team was selected.
“The risk for him and for the team is too high,” team spokesman Ralph Eder said Tuesday.
Two members of Norway’s women’s cross-country ski team also tested positive on Wednesday. Heidi Weng, a two-time overall World Cup champion, and Anne Kjersti Kalvå are now isolating and Norwegian cross-country manager Espen Bjervig said their participation in the Olympics was uncertain. The entire men’s team is also in isolation in Seiser Alm after head coach Arild Monsen tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to Norway on Monday. Two Swiss women’s hockey players, two Russian bobsledders and two German skeleton sliders are among other would-be Olympians facing a nervous wait.
China mandates 21 days of quarantine for people arriving from abroad but waived that for those coming for the Olympics on condition they test negative for the virus. Those conditions served as a ‘special’ enhancement for athletes to get vaccinated, although multiple delegations including the United States mandated vaccination for athletes and team officials.
One country that did not have a mandate was Switzerland and snowboarder Patrizia Kummer, who won a gold medal at the 2014 Sochi Olympics in the parallel slalom, is almost done finishing her isolation before competing. Kummer declined to discuss her “personal reasons” for refusing a vaccine, telling The Associated Press “I had a bunch of reasons for the vaccine and a bunch of reasons against the vaccine, and in the end, it was like, ‘No, I can’t do it.’”
Kummer is staying in a Holiday Inn in Beijing where food is brought to her door three times a day. She has a stationary bike for exercise and she brought a yoga mat, weights and fitness equipment.
“I’m a minimalist, so I don’t need much to have a good living. I don’t need much to be happy. So that’s no problem,” Kummer said. “And I actually enjoy being by myself.”
Kummer’s friend, Austrian snowboarder Claudia Riegler, is also unvaccinated. Austria has threatened to leave Riegler off the team if she does not at least get her first shot by Sunday; Austrian news agency APA reported that Riegler does not want to be vaccinated after having contracted the virus over the Christmas period.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL: After Gonzaga Tickets are Revoked, John Stockton’s Wild COVID Comments Draw Widespread Criticism
Posted: Tuesday, January 25
For decades even before it became a college basketball powerhouse, John Stockton’s shadow loomed over Gonzaga.
One could make the case that he is still the most famous basketball player from the school, given his Hall of Fame enshrinement and multiple NBA all-time records held. Since his retirement from the Utah Jazz, Stockton’s family has remained in Spokane and has been a visible part of the Zags program with two of his six children, David and Laura, both playing for the university’s men’s and women’s nationally-ranked basketball teams.
That makes the news over the weekend all the more stunning and concerning as to Stockton’s beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic while revealing that his season tickets for Gonzaga home games have been suspended over his refusal to comply with the university’s mask mandate.
“Basically, it came down to, they were asking me to wear a mask to the games and being a public figure, someone a little bit more visible, I stuck out in the crowd a little bit,” Stockton said to the Spokesman-Review. “And therefore they received complaints and felt like from whatever the higher-ups — those weren’t discussed, but from whatever it was higher up — they were going to have to either ask me to wear a mask or they were going to suspend my tickets.”

Stockton’s interview with the Spokane Spokesman-Review contained a series of his beliefs about the pandemic that are — to be blunt — not even remotely true. Comments about athletes dying because of being vaccinated have been widely ridiculed throughout the NBA and beyond. Former NBA player Detlef Schrempf called Stockton’s comments “Bat s–t crazy.”
Stockton has opposed mask mandates, shutdowns and vaccines while promoting debunked conspiracy theories relating to COVID-19 over the past year. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told CNN that Stockton’s beliefs are “not based on reality or facts” and “I think statements like that make the public look upon athletes basically as dumb jocks, for trying to explain away something that is obviously a pandemic.”
“Gonzaga University continues to work hard to implement and enforce the health and safety protocols mandated by the State and by University policy, including reinforcing the indoor masking requirement,” the school said on Sunday. “Attendees at basketball games are required to wear face masks at all times,” the school’s statement continued. “We will not speak to specific actions taken with any specific individuals. We take enforcement of COVID-19 health and safety protocols seriously and will continue to evaluate how we can best mitigate the risks posed by COVID-19 with appropriate measures. The recent decision to suspend concessions in McCarthey Athletic Center is an example of this approach. Gonzaga University places the highest priority on protecting the health and safety of students, employees and the community.”
Stockton was drafted out of Gonzaga in the 1984 NBA draft by the Jazz and played 19 seasons. Stockton, whose 15,806 career assists and 3,265 career steals are NBA records, was part of the 1992 USA “Dream Team” that won gold, and he won gold again at the Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta.
While Stockton is no longer welcome at Gonzaga games, he could still attend Utah Jazz games. The team allows unvaccinated fans to attend games as long as they have proof of a negative test within 48 hours of a game and a mask mandate instituted in Salt Lake County two weeks ago was struck down by the state legislature.
TENNIS: Vaccine Mandate Debated After Djokovic Drama
Posted: Monday, January 24
The eruption over Novak Djokovic’s vaccination status that led to him being deported ahead of the Australian Open has raised the issue of whether the ATP and WTA Tour will institute vaccination mandates among players as they travel around the world.
Worldwide sports such as tennis and golf face a complicated road ahead when it comes to traveling. Whether it’s from one country to another during the tournament schedule or for a player who takes a break and goes home before heading back on tour, the myriad policies around the world on people entering a country with or without proof of vaccination makes for a jigsaw puzzle that at this point the ATP and WTA Tour have yet to piece together.
Two-time Australian Open winner Victoria Azarenka last week became the first member of the WTA players’ council to call for a mandate.
“From my standpoint it has been very clear,” she said after a second-round win at the Australian Open. “I believe in science. I believe in getting vaccinated. That is what I did for myself. I don’t want to push my beliefs onto everybody else. However, we are playing a global sport. … On certain things I think [a] black-and-white approach is necessary, and, in my opinion, this should be the case.”
Given the amount of worldwide attention focused on the Australian Open’s vaccine mandate, the next Grand Slam is sure to follow — and the French government has recently passed a law declaring that unvaccinated players will not be allowed to play in events held within its borders, highlighted by the French Open. While Wimbledon and the British government do not have any mandate or seemingly plans to implement one, there is considerable debate on whether Djokovic would be allowed to enter the U.S. as an unvaccinated foreigner and compete in any event throughout the country, let alone major spring tournaments in Indian Wells, California or Miami before the summer hard-court season that culminates with the U.S. Open in New York City.
Rafael Nadal, Djokovic’s rival and a member of the ATP player council, has continually endorsed vaccination but stopped short of calling for a mandate when asked about the issue. The ATP Tour said last week that 97 of the top 100 players are vaccinated after pre-U.S. Open reports last August of that number being around 50 percent.
“I think if he wanted, he would be playing here in Australia [at the Australian Open] without a problem,” Nadal said of Djokovic before the tournament. “He made his own decisions, and everybody is free to take their own decisions, but then there are some consequences. Of course I don’t like the situation that is happening. In some way I feel sorry for him. But at the same time, he knew the conditions since a lot of months ago, so he makes his own decision.”
While Djokovic drew all the attention for his anti-vaccination stand, there were two other players in the ATP Tour’s Top 100 who did not bother applying for an exemption and skipped the event including U.S. player Tennys Sandgren, twice a quarterfinalist at the Australian Open. Sandgren is openly anti-vaccination and his other fringe stances have drawn criticism within the tennis world, notably Serena Williams.
During tennis’ ongoing vaccination debate, the ruling to revoke Djokovic’s visa was released with a panel of three judges agreeing on the authority of the country’s immigration minister. The ruling was released by the Federal Court of Australia.
“An iconic world tennis star may influence people of all ages, young or old, but perhaps especially the young and the impressionable, to emulate him,” the panel of three judges found. “This is not fanciful; it does not need evidence.”
Australia’s immigration minister, Alex Hawke, was within his rights to cancel Mr. Djokovic’s visa on the grounds of “health and good order,” the judges ruled.
Djokovic’s case will bear watching in the coming months should he try to play events in the U.S. and France. Before the final ruling and deportation from Australian, Srdjan Djokovic, Novak’s father, described his son as the “symbol and the leader of the free world,” and “Spartacus” of a new world – one that “does not tolerate injustice, colonialism and hypocrisy” … which is certainly one way of putting it.
OLYMPICS: Olympic Ban Disappoints Chinese Fans as Fears Over Omicron Continue
Posted: Friday, January 21
Given the zero tolerance for speaking out, there was expected resignation but acceptance among Chinese sports fans upon hearing this week’s decision that they, like the rest of the world, will be shut out of attending events at the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing.
Organizers announced Monday that only selected spectators will be allowed. Access to the famed National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, and indoor venues have been sealed off as the omicron variant has heightened concerns about outbreaks; Beijing reported one new case Wednesday. Around 20 million people around China are under some form of lockdown and mass testing has been ordered in entire cities where cases have been discovered.
“It’s a pity that I won’t be able to watch the Games this time during the Winter Olympics,” Chen Lin told The Associated Press. “Of course, we can still watch the Games with live broadcast on TV and live streaming online, but it doesn’t provide as strong a sense of engagement as watching the Games on the spot.”
Chen said the level of excitement in China was far below that of 2008, when the Summer Games brought an outpouring of national pride. “On the one hand, the Winter Olympics don’t get as much attention as the Summer Olympics. On the other hand, there is also the pandemic. Both of them are the reasons,” he said.

Olympic athletes, media and workers will be cut off from the outside world during the Games, with the only places they can go being competition venues, their accommodations and transportation between the two. China plans to isolate anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 for at least two days, pending a negative result. The country also has a mandatory 21-day isolation period for anyone entering the country who is not vaccinated.
USOPC Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Finnoff said every U.S. athlete heading to Beijing is fully vaccinated with no medical exemption requests.
“Vaccination is sort of the foundation of our COVID mitigation protocol,” Finnoff said Thursday.
While fans in China are disappointed to be missing out on seeing events in person, one athlete who publicly said she was contemplating skipping the Games because of the conditions in Beijing has decided she will compete after all.
Germany’s four-time luge gold medalist Natalie Geisenberger will compete after last month saying she was undecided because treatment from organizers at a test event in November. Geisenberger was quarantined after being deemed a close contact of somebody on the flight to Beijing who later tested positive. She also said that the food and conditions for athletes were not up to the standards expected by elite athletes.
“I tried to address everything that went so badly at our test event directly to the IOC,” Geisenberger wrote in a post on Instagram. “Much has been assured and promised to me. I hope that this will now be implemented. … Now I have to hope for the best and I like to be positively surprised.”
The protocols for anybody, athlete or otherwise, testing positive in Beijing are strict enough that NBC will not be sending its announcers and most hosts to China.
It will be the second straight Games for which the broadcast teams will work mostly out of NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, rather than the host city. The marquee sports of track and field, swimming and gymnastics had announcers in Tokyo. USA Today was first to report on NBC’s decision for Beijing.
“With COVID’s changing conditions and China’s zero-tolerance policy, it’s just added a layer of complexity to all of this, so we need to make sure we can provide the same quality experience to the American viewers,” said Molly Solomon, the head of NBC’s Olympics production unit. “That’s why we are split between the two cities.”
NBC Sports spokesman Greg Hughes told The Associated Press announcing teams for Alpine skiing, figure skating and snowboarding will be working remotely. NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel is one of 250 people the network already has in Beijing. Most of those are technical staff.
Prime-time host Mike Tirico will anchor coverage from Beijing from February 3–10 before flying to Los Angeles to host the next three days and the network’s coverage of the Super Bowl. NBC said it would determine over Super Bowl weekend where Tirico would be based for the final week of the Games.
“Our plans will continue to evolve based on the conditions, and we’re going to stay flexible as we move through this,” Hughes said.
Most expect the amount of time NBC devotes to human rights issues in China to be next to nothing — if not entirely nothing. On Tuesday, athletes were urged by human rights activists to avoid criticizing China because they could be prosecuted. The International Olympic Committee has said athletes will have freedom of speech when speaking to journalists or posting on social media. However, the Olympic Charter rule that prohibits political protests at medal ceremonies also requires “applicable public law” to be followed.
Asked about free speech at the Olympics, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Wednesday that China understood the IOC banned athletes from political protests.
“I would like to reiterate that China welcomes athletes from all countries to participate in the Beijing Winter Olympic Games and will ensure their safety and convenience,” Zhao said.
USOPC Chief Executive Officer Sarah Hirshland told The Associated Press on Thursday that it is holding informational meetings with athletes over the next week to reiterate the requirement of athletes to adhere to the host country’s laws when considering any type of protest or demonstration.
“Certainly, the culture and laws of China are distinct from ours,” Hirshland said. “And we have a duty and an obligation to make sure that they’re well informed. At the same time we need to assure them that they’ve got a robust support team behind them along the way.”
NHL: League Resets Schedule, Still Plans to Finish Season on Time
Posted: Thursday, January 20
The league that has been most affected by omicron has released an ambitious attempt to finish its regular season on time, as the National Hockey League has rescheduled all 98 games postponed so far this season because of COVID-19.
The league says that all 32 teams will finish a full 82-game schedule by April 29, the original final day of the regular season. Along with the 98 games that had been postponed, there are 23 games that will have new dates from the original slate.
“We are profoundly grateful to our fans for their support and understanding during a challenging time and to our Clubs, the NHL Players’ Association and the Players for their cooperation in a rescheduling of unprecedented logistical complexity,” said NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly.

The highlight is 95 games scheduled for the 16-day window from February 7 through February 22, designated previously as a pause to accommodate NHL Player participation in the Olympic Games. Games are scheduled on all 16 dates after the league and NHL Players Association agreed to not have players go to the Olympic Winter Games next month in Beijing.
The NHL will also change up its testing protocols. Players and staffers who exhibit COVID-like symptoms will still be tested, as well as everybody whenever a team crosses the border to and from Canada while asymptomatic players will not be tested. The change in protocol, announced Tuesday, has been desired by players for several weeks after daily testing was introduced in December; the NHL has since had to pause the season during the week of Christmas as dozens of games were postponed.
The league also continued to postpone games that were scheduled to be played in Canada because of attendance restrictions in a bid to save gameday revenue decreases. The league, which has one unvaccinated player, has had 73 percent of its players test positive this season according to NHL data.
“We’ve got guys vaccinated, double vaccinated,” St. Louis Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly said in December. “Some guys aren’t showing any symptoms and they’re popping in COVID protocol. I think I’d like to see testing if you have symptoms but it’s not up to me. It’s a league and players’ decision.”
The NHL still plans to have All-Star Weekend starting February 4 in Las Vegas and daily testing until then. While the Olympic break was scheduled to start after then and last for nearly all month, plans for rescheduled games during that break have not yet been announced.
After the all-star break, the league says there will be a “single test upon re-entry to Club facilities post-All-Star, after which there will no longer be asymptomatic testing, or testing of Fully Vaccinated close contacts. Thereafter, testing will continue only on a limited “for cause” basis in Fully Vaccinated Players and Staff who develop symptoms or require testing for cross-border travel.”
NBA: Kyrie Irving refuses vaccination as Nets need him more than ever
Posted: Wednesday, January 19
The Brooklyn Nets have had to deal with a COVID outbreak, star James Harden reporting to the team at the start of the season in what most would charitably say was not “ideal” shape and now they have the biggest star on the team, Kevin Durant, out for a month or more with a sprained ligament in his knee right as the second half of the NBA season starts to heat up.
What will not happen for the Nets during Durant’s absence is having his teammate, the unvaccinated Kyrie Irving, change his mind on the subject. The only shots Irving will be getting this season will be on road games — since Irving is barred from playing in home games because of a vaccine mandate in New York City.

“Kev’s going to heal, Kev’s going to be OK, and we’re going to have to deal with that as his teammates,” Irving said Monday following Brooklyn’s 114-107 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. “But in terms of where I am with my life outside of this, I stay rooted in my decision. And that’s just what it is. It’s not going to be swayed just because of one thing in this NBA life. … I respect everyone else’s decision, I’m not going to ever try to convince anyone of anything or any of that, I’m just standing rooted in what I believe in. Though we’re dealing with this right now with Kev, I just know that I’m protected by the organization, I’m protected by my teammates, I’m protected by all the doctors I’ve talked to. And I just stand rooted.”
The Nets decided before the regular season began that they would not accommodate Irving as a part-time member of the roster but reversed course last month after a COVID-19 outbreak decimated the roster. Irving was immediately placed into COVID protocols and has played in four road games so far this season.
Irving’s refusal to get vaccinated will have competitive repercussions for the Nets in the postseason especially as a potential NBA title contender in the Eastern Conference. The Nets are one of six teams separated by just 2.5 games at the top of the East; his participation in the playoffs only in road games would have increased emphasis if the Nets are the top seed and therefore would miss Irving for most of each series.
“You’re bringing my vaccination status into a basketball game, and I live my life, the majority of the time, when I’m away from this,” Irving said during an extended back-and-forth with reporters after Monday’s loss. “So when I say I’m not getting vaccinated and I’m making a choice with my life, somehow it gets mixed into, ‘Well, what about the basketball?’ When it’s like no, bro. We live in a real world. It’s great to be able to do this. I’m grateful for the opportunity. I love being with my teammates. I love playing on the Nets, but I’ve already been away enough time to think about this, to process it, to be able to make this decision … I’m not just a basketball player, bro. Millions of fans. I appreciate all of it, but it’s not just about the game.”
While Irving’s anti-vaccination stance remains intractable, the National Hockey League is changing one part of its testing protocol with asymptomatic players and staffers no longer having to undergo daily testing.
Players and staffers who exhibit COVID-like symptoms will still be tested, as well as everybody whenever a team crosses the border to and from Canada. The change in protocol, announced on Tuesday, has been desired by players for several weeks after daily testing was introduced in December; the NHL has since had to pause the season during the week of Christmas as dozens of games were postponed.
“We’ve got guys vaccinated, double vaccinated,” St. Louis Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly said in December. “Some guys aren’t showing any symptoms and they’re popping in COVID protocol. I think I’d like to see testing if you have symptoms but it’s not up to me. It’s a league and players’ decision.”
The league also continued to postpone games that were scheduled to be played in Canada because of attendance restrictions in a bid to save gameday revenue decreases. The league and NHL Players Association also agreed to not have players go to the Olympic Winter Games next month in Beijing. The league, which has one unvaccinated player, has had 73 percent of its players test positive this season according to NHL data.
The NHL still plans to have All-Star Weekend starting February 4 in Las Vegas and daily testing until then. While the Olympic break was scheduled to start after then and last for nearly all month, plans for rescheduled games during that break have not yet been announced. After the all-star break, the league says there will be a “single test upon re-entry to Club facilities post-All-Star, after which there will no longer be asymptomatic testing, or testing of Fully Vaccinated close contacts. Thereafter, testing will continue only on a limited “for cause” basis in Fully Vaccinated Players and Staff who develop symptoms or require testing for cross-border travel.”
TENNIS: Djokovic’s Anti-Vaccine Saga Not Over This Year
Posted: Tuesday, January 18
No matter how the tournament plays on after the first two days of competition, this year’s Australian Open will always be remembered for the Novak Djokovic “will he or won’t he” drama that ended over the weekend with his deportation from the country because of his refusal to be vaccinated.
But those who think the story is over are very much mistaken.
The next Grand Slam will be May at the French Open in Paris, where a new law to spur vaccination includes barring those who have not received the shot from stadiums and public places. A member of the French Parliament, Christophe Castaner, said the law will apply to anyone who wants to play in the French Open.
“To do your job, to come for pleasure or leisure, to practice a sport, it will be necessary to present a vaccine,” Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu told BFM television on Monday. “This will be valid for people who live in France but also for foreigners who come to our country for vacation or for a major sports competition.”
Djokovic is also the defending champion at Wimbledon, which begins in late June. England has allowed exemptions from COVID restrictions for visiting athletes, if they remain at their accommodation when not competing or training. The U.S. Tennis Association, which runs the U.S. Open, has said it will follow government rules on vaccination status. Non-U.S. citizens are required to be fully vaccinated to enter the country, which would in theory also complicate Djokovic’s chances of playing in any U.S. events.
Being barred from playing in any Grand Slam would keep Djokovic from having a chance to break the current all-time record for most men’s Grand Slam titles, which he shares at 20 with current rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Nadal is in the Australian Open while Federer is recovering from an injury and skipped the event.
Drama started building in the leadup to the tournament given that Djokovic has been steadfast in his refusal to be vaccinated. His actions in the beginning of the pandemic were widely criticized when he held a mini-tournament in his hometown and invited several other ATP Tour pros; Djokovic and several others later shortly after tested positive for COVID.
Australia’s vaccine mandate meant extra attention would be focused on Djokovic, so when he announced that he had been given a medical exemption to compete, it sparked widespread anger in Australia, where managing the pandemic has been among the best in the world in part because of strict lockdowns for citizens.
Upon arrival the week before the tournament, border officials said Djokovic’s exemption was not valid and moved to deport him. After Djokovic won an appeal, Australian authorities eventually revoked Djokovic’s visa again and a second appeal was denied.
As the legal battle played out, Djokovic acknowledged he had attended a youth tennis event and an interview with French journalists in the days after testing positive for the coronavirus. He later described this as “an error” of judgment.
Djokovic returned home after deportation to a hero’s welcome in Serbia, whose president had called the court hearing in Australia “a farce with a lot of lies.” Asked if Djokovic would face any penalties for flouting his isolation while being infected when he returns to Serbia, Serbian officials said he would not because the country is not in a state of emergency.
OLYMPICS: Beijing 2022 Stops Ticket Sales, Allows Limited Number of Spectators
Posted: Monday, January 17
Select and limited groups of Chinese spectators will be allowed to attend the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing, but organizers announced Monday they would no longer sell tickets to the event. The decision follows a move in September that already prevented foreign spectators from attending the Games.
In the announcement on the latest limitation, organizers said they would enact “an adapted program that will invite groups of spectators to be present on site during the Games.” Those spectators will be expected to abide by the COVID-19 countermeasures before, during and after each event to create the safest environment for athletes.
“Given the difficult and complicated work of controlling the epidemic, and to protect the health and safety of those involved with the Games, the original plan of offering tickets to the general public has been altered toward spectators from selected groups,” the statement said.

The Olympic Games open on February 4 with the Paralympic Games set to start March 4.
Organizers in Beijing have been working to limit the spread of COVID-19, adopting a “closed-loop” system that is aimed at limiting interactions between Olympics stakeholders and the general public. China has largely avoided major virus outbreaks with a regimen of lockdowns, mass testing for COVID-19 and travel restrictions, although it continues to fight surges in several cities, including the port of Tianjin, about an hour from Beijing. The capital itself confirmed over the weekend that a 26-year-old woman had contracted the omicron variant of the virus and has tested more than 13,000 people in search of cases of cross transmission.
The move to limit mainland spectators is similar to practices put in place for the recent Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in Tokyo, where all spectators were prevented from attending those Games.
NFL: No, the Super Bowl is not moving to Dallas from Los Angeles
Posted: Friday, December 14
Social media was ablaze this month at the news that the NFL explored using the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium in Arlington as a backup site for the Super Bowl. The NFL confirmed that it finds backup sites for the Super Bowl every year, and it had no serious concerns about holding the game in Inglewood.
And the league reinforced this week that in no way, shape or form will one of the world’s biggest sporting events leave the Los Angeles area on February 13.
“All of our plans for Super Bowl week remain fully in place for a month from today,” Katie Keenan, the NFL’s senior director of event operations, told The Associated Press. “We’re working along with everyone here, with the LA County Health Department, to make sure all of our events are being held safely.”

Attention was also sparked by UCLA and USC having a few basketball games held without fans in attendance but at no point have SoFi Stadium games been held with any type of attendance restrictions. Under the current LA County public health order, fans ages 5 and over must provide proof of either vaccination or a negative test result taken within 48 hours of kickoff.
“I don’t think anybody has ever wavered on being able to play this game here and play it safely,” said Kevin Demoff, the Rams’ chief operating officer. “We’ve had an amazing, safe environment all year. We are fortunate this is an outdoor facility where the air gets in. We feel this building is very safe. People who come to our games have learned to be safe, and we are doing everything we can to be safe.”
The proof of vaccination or negative test protocol extends to Monday night’s home game for the Rams against the Arizona Cardinals. The other NFL playoff game with COVID fan protocols will be Saturday when the Buffalo Bills, who require proof of vaccination for fans to attend, host the New England Patriots.
The first Super Bowl was held at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum in January 1967; the game returned to that venue in 1973 and has been at the Rose Bowl five times as well, the last time in 1993. Next month will be the first time the game is at SoFi Stadium, which opened last year with fans not allowed at home games because of the pandemic.
The chance for fans to attend Rams and Chargers games in Los Angeles, as well as Raiders fans to be at Allegiant Stadium for the first time, allowed the NFL to register a 0.9 percent increase in announced attendance for games this season — a number that is strong compared decreases for the NBA and NHL from its last pre-pandemic seasons, but also a number that can be explained and debated in several directions.
The miniscule increase comes after three years of declining NFL attendance numbers and is almost entirely because of the new venues in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It is instructive to note that paid and actual attendance are different things and it wasn’t hard to watch games on TV this season and see gaps in the stands at games where sellouts were announced.
Even so, Sports Business Journal reported that 19 teams saw declines this year compared to 2019. The question is which of those numbers are because of potential fan reluctance to be at mass gatherings, even with vaccinations readily available — and which of those decreases, such as in Washington (19.4 down), Detroit (16 down) and the New York Jets (8.7 down) is because of consistently losing franchises.
The leadup to this weekend’s expanded slate of playoff games has been mostly without COVID-related drama, although ESPN reported on Thursday there may be some of that brewing in Dallas where Cowboys wide receiver Amari Cooper has been fined by attending a Dallas Mavericks game without wearing a mask.
Cooper is unvaccinated and missed two games in the regular season after testing positive. Cooper would not fall in the daily testing protocol through Super Bowl LVI, per the league’s health and safety protocols, since he had COVID while in-season.
“You don’t want to get sick. This is the tournament. We train so hard in the offseason, OTAs, camp, to get to this point. We accomplished that goal thus far,” Cooper said after Dallas’ win over Philadelphia last weekend. “We’re going to do everything we can do to not get sick. If that means isolation, then that’s what that means. Hopefully we can isolate enough to not catch it.”
NFL Schedule
All Times Eastern
Saturday’s Games
Las Vegas at Cincinnati, 2:30 p.m.
New England at Buffalo, 6:15 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination to attend)
Sunday’s Games
Philadelphia at Tampa Bay, 11 a.m.
San Francisco at Dallas, 2:30 p.m.
Pittsburgh at Kansas City, 6:15 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Arizona at L.A. Rams, 6:15 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination or negative test to attend)
TENNIS: Djokovic’s Excuses Piling Up in Australia
Updated: Friday, January 14
The Australian government revoked the visa for Novak Djokovic overnight for the second time in two weeks, setting up a weekend courtroom showdown that will determine if the world’s top-ranked player will be able to compete at the Australian Open while being unvaccinated.
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said he canceled the visa on “health and good order grounds, on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so.” His statement added that Prime Minister Scott Morrison‘s government “is firmly committed to protecting Australia’s borders, particularly in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Hawke’s decision comes three days before play begins at the year’s first Grand Slam with Djokovic still in the draw that was made on Thursday. Djokovic’s lawyer, Nick Wood, told Australian judge Anthony Kelly that he wanted an appeal to be heard on Sunday in the hopes that Djokovic would have his visa reinstated in time for Monday’s first round.
Kelly ruled in favor of Djokovic earlier this week on procedural grounds after his visa was first canceled when he landed at a Melbourne airport.
Djokovic admitted on Wednesday that after his positive COVID test last month, he went unmasked to a youth tennis awards show and a newspaper interview and photo shoot. He also traveled throughout Serbia, despite the country’s mandate to isolate upon testing positive, and also traveled to Spain, a trip that is reportedly under investigation by that country’s government.
Serbia has strongly backed Djokovic throughout the entire visa saga but softened its stance on Wednesday after he admitted to breaking the country’s rules. Serbia requires individuals to isolate for 14 days after a positive test.
“If you’re positive you have to be in isolation,” Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić told the BBC, adding if Djokovic went out knowing he had a positive result, it would be a “clear breach” of the rules. Lawyers in Serbia told national media that if found guilty, Djokovic would be subject to a fine or prison sentence although community service was more likely.
All of this was “an error of judgement,” Djokovic said on social media. He also blamed “human error” by his agent for putting on his visa application that Djokovic had been isolating, which social media clearly shows was untrue.
In an affidavit to the court to stay in Australia and not be deported ahead of the tournament, Djokovic said he was “tested and diagnosed” as positive for COVID on December 16. But social media clearly shows Djokovic being at a youth tennis camp on December 17 and then at an interview and photo shoot for the French newspaper L’Equipe on December 18.
Djokovic in his Wednesday statement said he did not know that he was positive until after he attended the youth event. He did not explain why he went to an interview and photo shoot.
The initial news that Djokovic was granted an exemption to Australia’s strict vaccination rules provoked an outcry. Australia reported 130,000 new cases, including nearly 35,000 in Victoria, almost entirely of the omicron variant. Victoria went through hundreds of days of lockdowns in the past two years and there is a vaccination rate among adults of more than 90 percent. Everyone at the Australian Open is required to be vaccinated for COVID-19 unless given a medical exemption.
The stakes are high because Djokovic will be a heavy favorite to win the year’s first Grand Slam, having done so nine times before. A title would break the record he currently holds with rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer for the men’s Grand Slam singles titles in a career.
Nadal has pointed out that Djokovic’s drama would easily be resolved by getting vaccinated. Most players have stayed away from the topic of Djokovic leading to the Grand Slam other than veteran João Sousa, who said “I understand that it’s what he believes in, but it’s a little selfish towards his colleagues in the profession because many of us – not me – didn’t want to get vaccinated and we had to do it in order to play. It was the rules. It turns out to be a rule that Djokovic managed to get around.”
Stefanos Tsitsipas before Hawke’s decision said Djokovic was “playing by his own rules” and making vaccinated players “look like fools.”
While this is all going on, the Australian Open also announced that because of a rise in COVID cases, ticket sales at Rod Laver Arena will be paused at 50 percent of capacity if a session has not already sold to that level. All tickets purchased before Wednesday will still be honored with face masks mandatory except when eating or drinking.
OLYMPICS: No Decision Yet on Spectators at Olympic Games
Posted: Wednesday, January 12
Three weeks out from the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games, no decision has been made yet on whether domestic spectators will be allowed at the venues, the International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday. But IOC officials said the “closed loop” system of testing and keeping Olympic athletes and officials isolated from the Chinese population appears to be off to a strong start.
The question of spectators is one of the last unknowns for the Games that will begin February 4 in Beijing. All spectators were banned from the Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo and foreign spectators have already been ruled out for Beijing. But no final decision has been made yet on what might happen with domestic spectators, said Pierre Ducrey, the Olympic Games operations director, who deferred the question to the Beijing Organizing Committee during a briefing covering logistics on the ground in China.

Regardless of how the spectator issue gets resolved, there will be significant differences in protocols for athletes, coaches, Olympic officials and media that will be traveling to Beijing compared to their experience in Tokyo this past summer, where they also faced limits designed to counteract the threat of COVID-19. Olympic stakeholders in Beijing will be tested every day during their stay, with some clarity provided Wednesday on what happens should they test positive. In Tokyo, only athletes and certain officials were tested daily, while others were on a modified testing schedule dependent on how close they had contact with athletes. All participants coming to Beijing also must be vaccinated, something that was merely a recommendation for participants in Tokyo.
The so-called “closed loop” system being implemented by the IOC and the Beijing Organizing Committee is also being designed to isolate Olympic participants from the Chinese population, where recent outbreaks have caused several major cities to go into lockdown. Ducrey said the IOC is not concerned about any transmission from the general public into the Olympic zone, or the other way around, based on the strict limits that will be placed on how Olympic visitors will be allowed to move about the city.
“When it comes to outbreaks in China and the closed-loop approach, it is called a closed loop for that very reason,” he said. “There will be no contact between those outside the loop and inside the loop. It has been built to help protect the inside from the outside and the outside from the inside. There is no concern from this perspective that this could influence the Games.”
“There will be no contact between those outside the loop and inside the loop. It has been built to help protect the inside from the outside and the outside from the inside.”
—Pierre Ducrey, IOC
Nonetheless, the IOC has developed specific rules for anyone within the loop who does test positive on the daily PCR tests that will be administered in the Athlete’s Village or at approved hotels for other Olympic participants. People who test positive but are asymptomatic will be sent to a designated hotel to be monitored for symptoms. If after three days of isolation they test negative on two consecutive days, they will be allowed to return to the closed loop. Ducrey said a 3- or 4-star hotel will be designated for those purposes with those isolated being granted access to Wi-Fi and meals, as well as deliveries from other members of their team. “You could be out as quickly as you produce two negative tests,” he said.
Anyone who is symptomatic will be sent to a hospital or other medical facility where they will need to stay until their symptoms improve and they also receive negative tests for two consecutive days. If someone continues to test positive for two weeks, there will be a medical panel that will review their situation before determining the next steps or decide whether those individuals can eventually return to the closed-loop system.
Those deemed close contacts during the course of the Games will not have to quarantine themselves but will be subject to two daily PCR tests for seven days in an effort to monitor their status.
Meanwhile, the IOC is reporting that the process upon arrival at the airport in Beijing has been smooth for participants, an improvement over what was in some cases up to 10 hours of testing and waiting for participants in Tokyo. The Beijing Organizing Committee has said that those arriving can expect to be processed in under six hours, although Ducrey said some people are moving their way through in about an hour. Those arriving are subject to a PCR test upon arrival and sent straight to their designated hotel or the Athletes’ Village. They cannot leave those accommodations until their negative results are returned. “The arrival and departure process is working extremely well,” Ducrey said.
TENNIS: Djokovic’s Visa Drama in Australia Continues
Posted: Tuesday, January 11
Novak Djokovic, known for some of the most drama-filled matches in modern Australian Open history, brought that drama off the court this week ahead of the first Grand Slam of 2022.
Djokovic won a court battle to stay in Australia — it seems — to play in the Australian Open despite being unvaccinated against COVID-19. Federal Circuit Court Judge Anthony Kelly reinstated Djokovic’s visa, canceled upon his arrival into Australia last week after officials decided he did not meet the criteria to enter the country despite a medical exemption from the state of Victoria because the country requires all non-citizens be fully vaccinated.
Kelly ordered Djokovic to be released from a Melbourne quarantine hotel where he had been staying since being detained. Later in the day, Djokovic tweeted a photo of him and his coaches at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne saying, “I’m pleased and grateful that the Judge overturned my visa cancellation.”

The story is not done, though. Court documents from Djokovic’s appeal to stay in the country admitted that Djokovic, a longtime vaccine skeptic, is not vaccinated. Government lawyer Christopher Tran told the judge that the minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alex Hawke, “will consider whether to exercise a personal power of cancellation.” If Hawke uses that power, the nine-time Australian Open winner would still face deportation.
Rafael Nadal, who last week pointed out the drama would all be avoided if Djokovic got vaccinated, called the controversy “a circus” and “there’s no question that justice has spoken and has said that he has the right to take part in the Australian Open.”
Circus is certainly one way of putting the past week. To wit:
- Kelly said during the hearing that Djokovic provided airport officials with a medical exemption given to him by Tennis Australia and two medical panels.
- Djokovic said the medical exemption was because he had tested positive for COVID in December; there is a temporary exemption to Australia’s vaccination rules for people who have had COVID within six months.
- Djokovic’s positive date is dated December 16 — six days after the deadline to apply for a medical exemption to play in the Australian Open.
- The test has a QR code with it; depending on who has checked the code out, it says ‘positive’ or in some cases that Djokovic tested negative.
- Djokovic is seen on social media the day after the alleged positive test at a youth tennis event without a mask on. Two days after he allegedly tested positive, Djokovic did an interview and photo shoot for the French newspaper L’Equipe without a mask on.
- Journalist Ben Rothenberg reported on Monday night that Djokovic told Australian border patrol that he had not traveled in 14 days priors to his arrival when social media shows that he had, in fact, visited Spain.
The Australian Open is not only one of Djokovic’s most successful events, a win this year would break the tie with Roger Federer and Nadal for the most Grand Slam singles titles in men’s history. But Djokovic’s mother, Dijana, called Monday’s court hearing “the biggest victory” of his career during a family press conference — an event that was immediately ended after a reporter pointed out Djokovic was seen in public after a positive test without a mask on.
Regardless of what happens in Australia, Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated will follow him throughout the world. The United States requires visitors be fully vaccinated to enter the country by plane unless they are U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents or traveling on a U.S. immigrant visa. Not only would that leave in doubt Djokovic’s entry into the late-summer U.S. Open, but it would affect major events in Indian Wells, California, and Miami, both scheduled in March.
The French Open begins in May and sports minister Roxana Maracineanu said last week that she expected Djokovic would be allowed to enter the country … then said any athlete would be required to show proof of vaccination to have access to sports training facilities.
SPORTS: Omicron Continues to Affect Pro Sports, College Basketball
Posted: Monday, January 10
No matter that the calendar has turned from 2021 to 2022, things often feel like the sports world is caught in a time loop:
- In addition to several Ivy League schools, the Pac-12’s Stanford, USC and UCLA are going without fans at indoor events for at least the next week’s games.
- Wake Forest, Michigan State, Maryland, Rutgers and Michigan will require either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test for fans to be at indoor events while Ohio State has closed concessions at games.
- The NCAA updated its guidance for winter sports, saying a “fully vaccinated” Tier 1 individual (which pertains notably to coaches) must have gotten both a COVID vaccine but also a booster shot.
- The NHL continues to postpone games, mostly in Canada but a few that involve U.S.-based teams. And with players not heading to the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, the pre-scheduled break after the All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas will not only be full with rescheduled games, there remains a chance the league still adds a week to the regular season to ensure everybody plays its full schedule.
- The NBA has rescheduled all 11 games postponed in December for virus-related reasons with seven teams that have at least one stint of playing four games in five nights: Chicago, Toronto, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Miami, New Orleans and Denver. The original schedule had no such stretches.
The NHL went on an extended pause during the Christmas holiday but still the league has been postponing games — including two games scheduled for Monday night after the Edmonton Oilers had eight players and the New Jersey Devils had seven players apiece going into the league’s health and safety protocols.
The league has postponed close to 100 games and while a majority of those have been because of COVID-related issues. While the league has not made its intentions for the now-cancelled break, there is the assumption that the league will play as many games as possible during that stretch of time — and it may still not be enough to get the regular season done on time.
Then there are the dozens of games postponed because of attendance restrictions at various places in Canada. None of the teams are currently allowed to have sellout crowds. The Winnipeg Jets, currently restricted to 250 people, asked fans how they would feel about moving home games to Saskatchewan, where there is no restriction on attendance. To no one’s surprise, the response was negative.
And playing games with no fans in attendance is a non-starter for the NHL in Canada — there is money to be made up from the first shutdown, of course.
“Certainly for the fans of those teams who want to attend those games and who have bought tickets, it’d be a shame for them to miss those games,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic in November. “Obviously, it’s important from a revenue perspective, an HRR (hockey related revenue) perspective, to play before fans and to generate gate revenue.”
The NBA is not immune by any stretch. There have also been more than a dozen of the league’s coaches missing time, with daily testing extended through the end of the week. The league’s total of players in protocols at any point this season is over 300; as part of the rescheduled games, Brooklyn played Sunday against San Antonio at home — then flew across the country ahead of Monday’s rescheduled game at Portland. The Nets then come back East and visit Chicago on Wednesday.
“The main reason to release these now is because we wanted to make sure that teams had at least one week’s notice on any postponements, from a travel perspective, basketball planning, business, ticket sales, all those things,” said Evan Wasch, an NBA vice president who helps oversee the league’s scheduling. “It made sense to do it now.”
Financial sense, of course.
The question with all these games is whether the seats for them will be full. NBA attendance from the 2019–2020 season compared to this season has gone down 5.7 percent and NHL attendance is down even further, 7.9 percent. And with omicron’s numbers still increasing, it is worth examining a pre-Christmas survey done by Morning Consult in which 44% of fans said they would be comfortable at an indoor event, down nine percent from July.
Part of it is the push and pull between franchises that need fans to be in the stands and spend money at games after losing hundreds of millions in revenue from the pandemic, contrasted to fans who because of the pandemic may not have as much disposable income to spend on tickets or the gameday experience. While the NBA has a policy that fans within 15 feet of the court must wear masks except when actively eating or drinking, at nearly every game this season that policy has been ignored by a majority of attendees.
Whether that continues or should arenas start enforcing the rules more strictly will be something to watch. It is unlikely that any U.S. arena will start to restrict capacity like places have done in Canada; whether fans fill those seats over the next weeks is still an open-ended question.
NFL: League on Downswing of Omicron Surge
Posted: Friday, December 7
The NFL looks at first glance to be on the downswing when it comes to players testing positive and going onto the league’s COVID-19 list. Still, there are teams that have been affected this week.
One day after clinching a playoff berth, the Philadelphia Eagles put 12 players on the COVID list. But the Eagles have been an outlier overall, given that there were nearly 600 positives among players and league personnel from December 12–25.
This all sounds encouraging but there still are risks that teams must address. The Sunday night game between the Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers is a playoffs-or-bust finale, making both teams ensure usage of masks and large meeting rooms — even virtual position-group gatherings remain vigilant so that players do not miss the key contest.

The league and players’ union in the past two weeks have agreed to ease return-to-play guidelines to encourage vaccine booster shots. The agreement came after there were three games this season, all in Week 15, that needed rescheduling, including two games moved to a Tuesday.
“We wanted to go where the science was going, and I will say that that five-day period sort of mirrors the data we have been seeing in our own NFL testing data throughout the year,” Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, told the NFL Network. “So, it really wasn’t about player availability or roster numbers. It was, ‘What is the science telling us?’”
Those changes allowed unvaccinated quarterback Carson Wentz of Indianapolis to avoid becoming the latest starting quarterback to miss a game. The Colts lost to the Raiders anyway and need a Week 18 victory over two-win Jacksonville to make the playoffs. Kirk Cousins, also unvaccinated, and Minnesota weren’t so lucky. He was out against Green Bay on Sunday, and the Vikings lost 37-10 to be eliminated from playoff contention.
New Orleans lost to Miami two weeks ago after a COVID-19 outbreak decimated the roster before the NFL’s changes. Still, the Saints can advance if they beat Atlanta and San Francisco loses to the Los Angeles Rams.
“I think the players and staff here handled a lot of challenging things not always perfectly, but we have managed to keep our head above water, keep grinding and keep fighting,” said Saints coach Sean Payton. “You’re just looking at the number one goal, outside of winning the division, is making it to the postseason. We have the opportunity to do that this weekend. You just want to find a way to get into the tournament.”
Concerns over omicron and local regulations as they develop have led the NFL to reportedly make backup plans for the Super Bowl, scheduled for February 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Reports indicated that there were preliminary discussions about AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, serving as an emergency site.
“We plan on playing Super Bowl LVI as scheduled at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 13,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told The Associated Press. “As part of our standard contingency planning process that we conduct for all regular and postseason games, we have contacted several clubs to inquire about stadium availability in the event we cannot play the Super Bowl as scheduled due to weather-related issues or unforeseen circumstances. Our planning process for the Super Bowl in Los Angeles is ahead of schedule and we look forward to hosting the Super Bowl there to culminate another fantastic NFL season for our fans and clubs.”
For its part, “we are working closely with the NFL to welcome the Super Bowl to L.A. County,” the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Thursday told Yahoo Sports. “And while we cannot provide certainty for the future, we do not anticipate capacity limits at sporting events.”
Now, the NFL just has to get to that game safely.
Saturday’s Games
All Times Eastern
Kansas City at Denver, 4:30 p.m.
Dallas at Philadelphia, 8:15 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Pittsburgh at Baltimore, 1 p.m.
Cincinnati at Cleveland, 1 p.m.
Green Bay at Detroit, 1 p.m.
Tennessee at Houston, 1 p.m.
Indianapolis at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.
Chicago at Minnesota, 1 p.m. (fans must wear masks except when eating or drinking)
Washington at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m.
Seattle at Arizona, 4:25 p.m.
New Orleans at Atlanta, 4:25 p.m.
N.Y. Jets at Buffalo, 4:25 p.m. (fans must show proof of full vaccination to attend)
San Francisco at L.A. Rams, 4:25 p.m. (fans must show proof of full vaccination to attend)
New England at Miami, 4:25 p.m.
Carolina at Tampa Bay, 4:25 p.m.
L.A. Chargers at Las Vegas, 8:20 p.m. (fans must show proof of full vaccination to attend)
OLYMPICS: IOC Confirms Beijing Games Will Not Be Postponed
Posted: Thursday, January 6
After two countries earlier this week raised the issue of whether the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing would be postponed, the International Olympic Committee, has made it clear that the Games will go on as scheduled.
The Swiss Olympic committee said the IOC, during a video conference call on Wednesday, gave assurances about Beijing going ahead as scheduled. The IOC also promised case-by-case assessments of athletes who recover after testing positive for COVID-19 ahead of traveling to China, the Swiss team said in a statement.
The IOC’s comments to the Swiss team come a day after Swiss team leader Ralph Stöckli asked for talks as omicron has surged throughout the world.
“We must really discuss the possibility of a postponement of the Games,” Stöckli told French-language state broadcaster RTS on Tuesday. “If we don’t have the best athletes there, that’s going to be very, very difficult.”
But after talking with the IOC, “the issue of a postponement is no longer relevant to all of us,” Stöckli said.

The comments from Switzerland came after Canadian Olympic Committee Chief Executive Officer David Shoemaker told the CBC over the weekend “we’re confident that these Games can still be scheduled safely. But we’re taking it day by day and wake up every morning to make sure that is how we still feel about it.”
The Tokyo Summer Games, originally scheduled to be held in 2020, were postponed one year in a decision that was made four months before the scheduled opening ceremony. The Beijing Games are less than one month away.
Beijing organizers and the IOC are creating a “closed loop” system for the Olympics with strict testing and limits on travel and movement than were enforced at last year’s Tokyo Games. The rules include a 21-day quarantine for athletes, officials and workers not fully vaccinated, daily testing for all attendees and local staff required to stay within the bubble. International fans are banned, though tickets to attend events in stadiums will be sold to people living in China.
The Swiss team said it also asked the IOC about waiting times before an athlete could enter China after recovering from COVID-19. The IOC and Chinese organizers announced that a panel of international experts will evaluate individual cases and handle the issue in a “more flexible manner,” the Swiss team said.
“It’s a positive signal,” Stöckli said, otherwise given the high current case rates “we would have had to assume many athletes, no longer presenting any risk of infection, would have been deprived of their dream of participating in the Olympic Games.” But Stöckli acknowledged “there will probably be disappointments” for athletes who end up being unable to compete.
For national governing bodies throughout the United States, protocols vary by location for pre-Games events. The U.S. Figure Skating Championships will be held in Nashville at Bridgestone Arena. Those who have credentials for the event must sign a waiver, show their vaccination card, have proof of a negative test taken within 72 hours of receiving credentials and agree to test again four days after arrival.
“I know U.S. Figure Skating is doing everything it can to keep all the skaters and everyone protected,” said figure skater Karen Chen, a member of the 2018 team for the Pyeongchang Games. “All the skaters are vaccinated. We need a PCR test that’s negative before we get a credential. At least the people around me should be good and COVID-free.”
The U.S. Olympic long-track speedskating trials will be held without fans at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee.
“It’s vital that we continue to keep a strong focus on the health and welfare of our athletes,” said Ted Morris, executive director of U.S. Speedskating. “Our ability to create a competition bubble provides us with the best situation to protect our athletes while providing them with the opportunity to qualify for the Beijing team at the Olympic trials.”
TENNIS: Novak Djokovic denied visa to play in Australian Open after vaccination uproar
Posted: Wednesday, January 5
Two of the most prominent anti-vaccination athletes in the world are back in the spotlight, if you would even say that they left.
But for Novak Djokovic, the spotlight within 24 hours turned dramatically upside down in the Land Down Under.
Djokovic’s visa to enter Australia ahead of the tennis season’s first Grand Slam was rejected and he was told to leave the country, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reported. The report was confirmed by Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who tweeted “Mr Djokovic’s visa has been cancelled. Rules are rules, especially when it comes to our borders. No one is above these rules. Our strong border policies have been critical to Australia having one of the lowest death rates in the world from COVID, we are continuing to be vigilant.”
Djokovic posted on Instagram on Tuesday morning that he was heading to Australia, announcing he received a medical exemption to play in the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam, with a chance to break the all-time singles title record. Shortly after Djokovic’s post, tournament organizers issued a statement saying “Djokovic applied for a medical exemption which was granted following a rigorous review process involving two separate independent panels of medical experts. One of those was the Independent Medical Exemption Review Panel appointed by the Victorian Department of Health. They assessed all applications to see if they met the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation guidelines.”
The Victoria government mandated players, staff and fans must be fully vaccinated unless there is a genuine reason why an exemption should be granted. The news that Djokovic had been granted an exemption was met with widespread negativity as Jaala Pulford, acting Victorian sports minister, said on Twitter, “We will not be providing Novak Djokovic with individual visa application support to participate in the 2022 Australian Open Grand Slam,” following with “We’ve always been clear on two points: visa approvals are a matter for the Federal Government, and medical exemptions are a matter for doctors.”
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Instagram that he has spoken to Djokovic and added Serbian authorities are taking measures “so the harassment of the best tennis player in the world be stopped in the shortest possible time.”
The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reported Wednesday that sources at Tennis Australia claimed the move by government authorities to deny Djokovic entry was a “publicity stunt that solely targeted Djokovic and not other players who had already entered with the same exemption.” The tournament starts January 17 with the Australian public still getting over months of lockdowns and severe travel restrictions, leading to anger about Djokovic’s exemption.
Australian Open Tournament Director Craig Tiley said there was no special treatment for Djokovic ahead of his exemption and “I would encourage him to talk to the community about it. We have been through a very tough period over the last two years.”
Djokovic has won the Australian Open nine times and a 10th victory would break the tie he has with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal for most men’s Grand Slam singles titles all-time. Should Djokovic not be allowed to compete, the next chance to break the record will be at the French Open in Paris; French President Emmanuel Macron this week said he planned to make life difficult for unvaccinated people throughout the country with a law currently debated over whether tobar unvaccinated people from much of public life in France.
Djokovic finished one win short of a calendar-year Grand Slam in 2021 when he lost the U.S. Open final to Daniil Medvedev. A longtime skeptic of vaccination, Djokovic tested positive for the coronavirus in 2020 after he played in a series of exhibition matches that he organized in Serbia and Croatia without social distancing amid the pandemic.
Irving missed the first 35 games this season after the Nets decided that Irving would sit out until either the mandate changed or Irving changed his mind about getting vaccinated. Anti-vaccination advocates even tried to enter the Barclays Center for the Nets’ home opener protesting the city mandate and the team’s approach to Irving’s decision.
But as cases piled up on Brooklyn’s roster with the omicron surge, the team changed its mind in mid-December and said Irving was allowed back — Irving then tested positive the next day and had to isolate from teammates for 10 days. Nets coach Steve Nash said last week that Irving would need “a week or two” to ramp up to playing. Irving will remain away from the team during home games for the Nets as well as games scheduled in Toronto, where a similar mandate to New York City exists.
OLYMPICS: Canadian Olympic Committee CEO Worried About Games in Beijing
The chief executive officer of the Canadian Olympic Committee has sounded alarms about the feasibility of holding the Olympic Winter Games as omicron continues to surge throughout the world on the heels of several prominent sport events being postponed over the past month while several major stars have also missed events after testing positive for COVID-19.
“We’re worried,” David Shoemaker told the CBC over the weekend. “We’re confident that these Games can still be scheduled safely. But we’re taking it day by day and wake up every morning to make sure that is how we still feel about it.”

China on Tuesday opened its bubble ahead of the Games but this week has also seen omicron seep into several cities in the country, forcing widespread lockdowns.
China announced 95 new covid cases on Tuesday in Xi’an city, the capital Shaanxi province, taking Xi’an’s total to over 1,600 cases in the past month. Xi’an has been locked down since December 13 with residents all but completely confined to their homes. The city of Yuzhou in the Henan province went into lockdown on Monday after three asymptomatic cases in three days.
U.S. skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin tested positive for COVID last week before announcing on Monday that she had been cleared to resume racing. More than a dozen athletes and staff members from Canada’s bobsled team were placed in protocols last week.
The men’s hockey competition will be not nearly as interesting now that the NHL will not have players heading to Beijing. Other winter sports including alpine skiing, bobsled and curling have experienced disruptions. The Games itself will be the first time that foreign visitors enter China without having to endure a mandatory hotel quarantine.
There also came Monday’s news that the U.S. long-track speedskating trials in Milwaukee will be held without fans in attendance after “early results from its testing of athletes and the high COVID infection rates in Milwaukee,” the Pettit Center said in an email.
Shoemaker told the CBC that Canada would pull its team from Beijing if it believes athlete safety is compromised. Canada made the same announcement in March 2020 before the International Olympic Committee eventually postponed the Summer Games in Tokyo to 2021.
“We have yet to have a conversation with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) about postponement but we’re having conversations on a very frequent basis with the participating winter sport nations and it may well come up,” said Shoemaker.
So much of the talk about the potential postponement for Beijing brings Groundhog Day-style memories of the pre-Tokyo talk leading to the IOC’s eventual postponement from 2020 to 2021. But there are a few significant differences between the two Games.
There is a difference between the transmissibility of the omicron variant, especially indoors in Beijing compared to outdoor venues at Tokyo. There is also the IOC’s financial motivations in making sure that the Games go on rather than have it postponed on a shorter notice than the decision it made for Tokyo.
But the biggest difference may be the will of Beijing to get the Games on as scheduled compared to Tokyo. Longtime IOC member Dick Pound of Canada told USA Today on Monday chances of the Games being postponed or canceled are “very slim. … It’s a possibility that can’t be wholly discounted but it’s not at the level of whole countries saying we should not be going there at all. … I don’t think these things are postponeable.”
What could develop over the next month, depending on the pressure that is placed on the local organizers, is the potential for breakthrough positives within Beijing’s closed-loop system. To enter China, all participants must twice test negative within 96 hours of leaving for Beijing regardless of if they have recently tested positive but since recovered from COVID.
“Medical experts agree, and the consensus point of view is that it may well be that the safest place from Omicron in February will be the Olympic bubble in Beijing,” said Shoemaker. “The real challenge for us over the next 30 days is how do we make sure that Canadian participants can get to Beijing without contracting the virus and therefore become able to test negative to get into that scenario.”
OLYMPICS: U.S. Speedskating Trials Going Without Fans
Posted: Monday, January 3
The U.S. Olympic Team Trials for long-track speedskating, starting this week in Milwaukee, will be held without fans in attendance after “early results from its testing of athletes and the high COVID infection rates in Milwaukee,” the host venue said in an email on Sunday.
“All of us, including ticket holders and Pettit staff, who have worked tirelessly to prepare the venue, plus volunteers, are very disappointed with this change but respect right of USOPC and US Speedskating to make such a decision in order to give the best chance for athletes to compete safely in the Trials and fulfill their dreams to compete for a spot on the 2022 U.S. Olympic Team,” the Pettit Center said in an email published Sunday afternoon.

“It’s vital that we continue to keep a strong focus on the health and welfare of our athletes,” said US Speedskating Executive Director Ted Morris on Monday. “Our ability to create a competition bubble provides us with the best situation to protect our athletes while providing them with the opportunity to qualify for the Beijing team at the Olympic Trials. We appreciate the understanding of parents, fans and media so that we can provide the best environment possible for our athletes.”
The venue said those who have already bought tickets will be processed refunds. “An alternative is to ask you to make your ticket purchase a charitable donation to Pettit Center to help offset the costs we have incurred,” said Randy Dean, executive director of the Pettit Center. “We would be grateful for such consideration.”
The short-track trials were held recently at the Olympic Oval in Salt Lake City, Utah, with fans in attendance.
“On behalf of the Pettit Center, I thank you for your understanding and special consideration,” Dean said. “This is the most difficult action I have had to take in my thirteen years as Executive Director.”
The Beijing Olympics open February 4. While the CDC said last week that the isolation period for those who have tested positive for COVID but are asymptomatic should be shortened to five days from 10, the Beijing organizers have so far not changed its policy.
To enter China, all participants must twice test negative within 96 hours of leaving for Beijing regardless of if they have recently tested positive but since recovered from COVID. In Beijing’s playbook for athletes, for a question if one of two pre-departure tests comes back positive and the other negative, organizers write: “Any positive PCR test of COVID-19 within 96 hours of the departure of your flight to China will prevent you from traveling to China.”
Unless Beijing organizers modify its policy, any athlete who contracts COVID between now and the start of the Games could be at risk of not being allowed in China, a scenario that USOPC Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Finnoff told the Wall Street Journal could happen.
Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, told the Journal in the same story that “I do think China needs to revisit its COVID-zero policy because that’s not a sustainable approach. It’s one that’s going to be overcome by events pretty quickly.”
The Deputy Director of Epidemic Prevention and Control Office of Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, Huang Chun, said before Christmas that China is prepared for possible COVID inside the Games’ bubble, admitting the Games could bring “COVID-19 cases or small clusters of infections.”
Huang said should somebody test positive, they would be sent to either a hospital or isolation facility depending on if a person has symptoms. For those with symptoms, they would be released after testing negative twice within a 24-hour period along with having a normal body temperature and breathing pattern. Asymptomatic patients would be tested every 24 hours in an isolation facility and released if they present negative results twice within 24 hours.
SWIMMING: Opening USA Swimming Event of Year Postponed
Posted: Monday, January 3
USA Swimming has announced that it will cancel its first TYR Pro Swim Series event of the year scheduled for Knoxville, Tennessee, from January 12-15.
“With the new Olympic quadrennial only just beginning and the current COVID-19 conditions across the country, USA Swimming, with the support of event host Tennessee Aquatics and Visit Knoxville, made the decision to prioritize the health and safety of the athletes, staff and event volunteers,” the NGB said in a statement on Monday.
The start to the national-level season will now begin in March with the currently scheduled TYR Pro Swim Series in Des Moines, Iowa.
TENNIS: Djokovic still uncertain over Australian Open
Posted: Monday, January 3
Novak Djokovic may still skip the first Grand Slam of the season — and a chance to break the all-time Grand Slam singles record — over his lack of being vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Australian Open mandates vaccination for all competing players, although Australian Open chief Craig Tiley said several unvaccinated players have been granted exemptions to play so far. He did not comment on if Djokovic has asked for an exemption, with Djokovic repeatedly refusing to reveal his vaccination status after months of avoiding the questions and being known to have an anti-vaccine stance.
“Every athlete coming into Australia has to be vaccinated and show proof of that, or has to have made application from a medical exemption,” Tiley told Australian media over the weekend. “In the case of tennis players, that’s far more rigorous than anyone coming into Australia applying for a medical exemption. There are two medical panels that assess any application, and they assess it in a blind way. They don’t know who the applicant is. Against the guidelines, an exemption gets granted or not. The reason for granting the exemption remains private, between the panel and the applicant.”
Tiley added “Novak’s made it clear that he wouldn’t disclose his medical conditions, or whether or not he’s vaccinated. It’s his choice to do that. There’s quite a bit to play out and it will play out in the coming days.”
All spectators will have to show proof of being fully vaccinated at the first Grand Slam of the season as well.
NFL: Wentz, Cousins Show Dangers of Being Unvaccinated
Posted: Friday, December 31
While the NFL has decided to reduce the isolation time for asymptomatic players, teams around the league are taking different approaches to finish the regular season without any expanded outbreaks to go with the hundreds of players who have already tested positive for COVID-19 this month.
Green Bay, Washington, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago and New Orleans have played without starting quarterbacks due to COVID-19 this season. The New York Jets and Cleveland Browns have both played games without their head coaches as well.
The NFL has not canceled games during the pandemic but has rescheduled multiple games, including three games two weeks ago. The league has had 521 players go onto the COVID list this month; it had 428 players all of last season.

With that as the backdrop, the league and NFL Players Association revised protocols on Tuesday, reducing isolation time for players who test positive and are asymptomatic, including unvaccinated players, to five days. The league also implemented restrictions on players eating together, limited number of occupants in the weight room to 15, and is requiring masks be worn by all players and staff indoors.
The Denver Broncos, who started a wide receiver at quarterback last season due to COVID-19, are isolating practice squad quarterback Anthony Gordon. The Philadelphia Eagles, in the midst of a playoff race, have taken the step of having quarterbacks in separate rooms while meeting virtually in the team facility to keep from having anybody go on the COVID list.
“We’re going to definitely make even more adjustments than what we need to just keep everybody safe,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “The quarterbacks will be in separate rooms. We’re going to be even more safe with them being in separate rooms.”
Jalen Hurts has been the Eagles’ starter for most of the season but Gardner Minshew has played in three games as well.
“I definitely think there’s a point where as a leader you want to try and keep things together as much as you can,” Hurts said. “You understand you have a group full of grown men who make grown-men decisions, but I definitely encourage everybody to stay safe, be responsible and take precautions in this thing. You can live with it and be OK if you knew you took precaution and did everything you could.”
Hurts took over as the starting QB this season for good after the Eagles traded Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts. Wentz missed part of the preseason as a close contact who tested positive and this week went back on the COVID list after testing positive himself. Wentz, who is unvaccinated, could still play on Sunday thanks to the new CDC guidelines should he prove he is asymptomatic or demonstrates his symptoms are improving under the new protocols.
If Wentz can’t play, rookie Sam Ehlinger will start against the Raiders. Wentz was activated from the COVID list on Saturday morning.
“It’s a personal decision for me and my family,” Wentz said in September. “I respect everybody else’s decision, and I just ask that everybody does the same for me. … That’s just where I’m at on it and with the protocols and everything the way they are, really for us, it’s about understanding them clearly and making sure that we are dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s.”
The Colts, winners of eight of their past 10 games, can lock up a playoff spot with a victory over the Raiders on Sunday. Only one game separates the fifth and 11th seed in the AFC.
“This is what we prepare for, for hitting adversity like this, things you don’t expect but this is probably in the category of something that we could expect and that it would just be a matter of time before it was going to hit us,” Colts coach Frank Reich said.
And then Friday morning brought the news of another starting quarterback who will miss a game this weekend after testing positive: Minnesota’s Kirk Cousins, also famously unvaccinated and having missed part of the preseason. Cousins also bizarrely suggested the Vikings quarterbacks would have position meetings outside all season — the current temperature on Friday morning in Minneapolis was near zero and Saturday’s high is scheduled to be 1 degree.
NFL Schedule
All Times Eastern
Sunday’s Games
L.A. Rams at Baltimore, 1 p.m.
Atlanta at Buffalo, 1 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination to attend)
N.Y. Giants at Chicago, 1 p.m.
Kansas City at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.
Las Vegas at Indianapolis, 1 p.m.
Jacksonville at New England, 1 p.m.
Tampa Bay at N.Y. Jets, 1 p.m.
Miami at Tennessee, 1 p.m.
Philadelphia at Washington, 1 p.m.
Denver at L.A. Chargers, 4:05 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination or negative test to attend)
Houston at San Francisco, 4:05 p.m.
Arizona at Dallas, 4:25 p.m.
Carolina at New Orleans, 4:25 p.m.
Detroit at Seattle, 4:25 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination or negative test to attend)
Minnesota at Green Bay, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Cleveland at Pittsburgh, 8:15 p.m.
SPORTS: Raptors, Maple Leafs Go Without Home Fans
The Toronto Raptors and Toronto Maple Leafs will play without home fans for at least the next three weeks after the province of Ontario announced indoor crowd restrictions.
The province announced indoor capacity on Thursday for venues including Scotiabank Arena to either 1,000 people or 50 percent capacity, depending on which one was lower.
The last Montreal Canadiens home game before the NHL paused its season on the week of Christmas was held without home fans. The NHL has since resumed its season but has postponed four Montreal home games as well as two Winnipeg home games and one home game for Toronto, Ottawa and Calgray because of COVID-19 attendance restrictions in those cities.
The league says the home games will be moved to yet-to-be-determined dates later this season when “restrictions may be eased or lifted.”
NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic on Thursday that “it’s important from a revenue perspective, an HRR (hockey related revenue) perspective, to play before fans and to generate gate revenue.” But Daly admitted should restrictions continue long term, “there’s no way we can make up all those games or move or shift all those games. Like everything else, it’ll be a balancing act. As I said, the league and the other league partners are willing to be as cooperative as we can possibly be.”
COLLEGE BASKETBALL: NCAA Says No Bubbles in March
Posted: Thursday, December 30
The NCAA Men’s and Women’s Tournaments will be held as planned in March and there are no intentions of going to a bubble environment like this past March in Indianapolis or San Antonio, the organization said on Wednesday afternoon.
Dan Gavitt, NCAA senior vice president in charge of basketball, said there has been no discussion of bubble environments to hold March Madness compared to the 2021 events because of mitigation aspects to combat the COVID-19, highlighted by vaccines and boosters.
The men’s Final Four is scheduled to be held in New Orleans while the women’s Final Four is slated for Minneapolis.

“At this point, we are continuing the planning for the NCAA basketball championships with the normal format, schedule and multiple host sites,’’ said Gavitt. “We are certainly closely monitoring the unfortunate and sudden COVID spike and will consider any adjustments as necessary for the health, safety and success of the championships. However, despite the current challenges we’re experiencing in college basketball, the solutions to these problems during this phase of the pandemic are likely quite different than the dramatic championship format changes we had to adopt last year.”
The NCAA said that it will discuss later in January at the NCAA Convention in Indianapolis about whether the minimum number of games for a team to be eligible for this season’s tournament should change. Last year, the number was changed to 13; most teams have reached that number or are near that number as conference play approaches.
“I feel badly for the many teams that have been impacted with a pause and disrupted games so suddenly in just the last two weeks, yet the health and safety of student-athletes and coaches is rightly the primary concern,’’ Gavitt said. “It seems likely that we will continue to experience game postponements for the next couple of weeks due to the Omicron variant. The conferences and institutions are exercising their authority over the management of the regular season, which largely consists of conference games.
“The silver lining in the timing of this spike is that the vast majority of the non-conference schedule has concluded and teams on average have played 12 Division I games to date,’’ said Gavitt. “The championship and oversight committees are monitoring the ramifications of games lost to cancellation in the context of championship eligibility, which is within their authority and will be discussed during their January meetings.”
SPORTS: Westminster Dog Show Postponed
Posted: Thursday, December 30
The Westminster Kennel Club annual dog show has been postponed to a later date, the latest event to be postponed or canceled in New York City. The postponement comes less than two weeks after more than 8,500 canines, owners and handlers met for the American Kennel Club National Championship in Orlando, Florida.
“The health and safety of all participants in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show are paramount,” the club’s board of governors said in a statement. “We appreciate the community’s continued interest and support as we delay the show to a time when we can safely convene.”
The Westminster dog show attracts thousands of competitors and is normally held in February, with semifinal and final rounds at Madison Square Garden. Last year, it was moved to June and held outdoors in suburban Tarrytown with no fans.
HOCKEY: World Junior Event Canceled
Posted: Wednesday, January 29
The World Junior Hockey Championship for boys was canceled on Wednesday less than a week into group play because of a rising number of COVID-19 cases among players.
The International Ice Hockey Federation made the announcement after a Tuesday forfeit by the United States after two players tested positive, followed by forfeits on Wednesday by the Czech Republic and Russia. While the tournament took steps to keep players in a bubble-like atmosphere, teams in Red Deer shared the hotel with the general public, including a large wedding party with unmasked people in the lobby checking in throughout the tournament’s first week.
IIHF President Luc Tardif said the tournament could resume this summer. That the tournament was ongoing at all was a source of controvery after the IIHF went ahead with the boys event but canceled the girls event.
NBA: Protocols Change with Shorter Quarantine Periods
Posted: Tuesday, December 28
With an increasing number of players testing positive for COVID-19 every day, the NBA has adjusted its health and safety protocols with those who test positive able to return after six days.
Players and coaches could miss up to 10 days under the old rules once they tested positive. The league has more than 170 players and coaches in protocols over the past two-plus weeks; Portland’s Chauncey Billups and Phoenix’s Monty Williams were put in protocols on Monday, increasing the number of coaches in protocols to four; six coaches and 205 players have been in protocols over the whole season.

The NBA’s policy was followed hours later by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending COVID-19 quarantine be cut to five days from 10 days for asymptomatic individuals. After last night’s games, there have been 541 players who have been in at least one game this season, the most ever.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN before Christmas that the league will not pause the season, compared to the NHL. He added that at that point, around 90 percent of the cases in the league were the omicron variant but that they did not allow asymptomatic players to play.
“We looked at the options and, quite frankly, we’re struggling to come up with the logic to pause,” said Silver, not following up with the obvious reason for not to pause the season — the league, having lost hundreds of millions already in the pandemic with not having full crowds at the start of last season, cannot afford to lose more games this season.
The league could reasonably expect for the numbers to only increase given that daily testing will be implemented for all teams after Christmas. Monday saw stars including Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Phoenix’s DeAndre Ayton went into the protocols after testing positive. Christmas Day’s games already had stars missing such as Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant and James Harden, plus Dallas’ Luka Doncic.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Bowl Cancellations Continue to Rise
Posted: Monday, December 27
The college football bowl season, a year after more than a dozen games were cancelled because of COVID-19, has seen this year’s number of cancellations rise over the weekend with one game trying to find an opponent on short notice.
The Sun Bowl, scheduled for New Year’s Eve in El Paso, Texas, lost the University of Miami on Sunday afternoon because of an outbreak of breakthrough positives among the Hurricanes program. The team had reportedly had several positives last week but admitted on Sunday that the number had increased.

“We are extremely disappointed that our football team will be unable to participate in the 2021 Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl,” Miami Athletic Director Jennifer Strawley said in a statement. “This team worked hard all season to earn a bowl invitation and my heart goes out to our student-athletes, especially our seniors. … We regret the impact this has on the Washington State program and their postseason experience.”
Speaking of the Cougars, shortly after Miami’s withdrawl, WSU coach Jake Dickert went on Twitter and offered to play “any opponent” while Washington State announced it was working with the Pac-12 and the Sun Bowl Association to find an opponent. Washington State late Monday announced it would play in the Sun Bowl against Central Michigan after CMU’s game, the Arizona Bowl, was canceled because of an outbreak on the Boise State roster.
Miami’s withdrawl came less than 24 hours after two other bowls scheduled for this week were canceled, the Military Bowl and Fenway Bowl. Both were canceled last year as well; the Fenway Bowl is still waiting for its inaugural game to take place. And the Hawaii Bowl was canceled the night before Christmas as Hawaii did not have enough players to play Memphis.
Boston College had to withdraw from the Military Bowl instead of playing East Carolina while Virginia had to withdrawal from its Fenway Bowl matchup with SMU.
“We want to thank the Fenway Bowl and its staff for their preparation to host the game and for their communication with us over the past few days,” Virginia Athletic Director Carla Williams said. “We appreciate all of the hard work by our team and coaching staff. They earned this bowl invitation, and it is unfortunate they will not be able to compete in the game to complete the season. We regret how this also impacts our fans who were planning on attending the game as well as the SMU program and its fans.”
COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Duke Postpones Two Games
Posted: Monday, December 27
The ACC has postponed the next two scheduled Duke men’s basketball games because of COVID-19 issues within the Blue Devils program. The team, ranked No. 2 last week, was scheduled to play against Clemson and Notre Dame.
Duke is 11-1 in Mike Krzyzewski’s final season highlighted by a win over then-No. 1 Gonzaga in November. Duke’s next scheduled game is January 4 against Georgia Tech. Krzyzewski said last week that he supported a return to daily testing among the protocols for this season with the spread of the omicron variant.
The ACC changed its policies last week as a result of omicron and reverted to last season’s protocols with games postponed instead of immediately considered forfeits. If a new date cannot be found for Duke’s two games, they will be considered no contests.
NFL, in bid to continue season, changes COVID testing protocols
Posted: Friday, December 24
The National Football League, dealing with more than 300 positive cases of COVID-19 among players within the past two weeks that has endangered games and with multiple weeks of the expanded regular season still to get played on time, has changed its policies including an end to testing vaccinated players who may be asymptomatic and would not know if they have contracted COVID.
NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills said the league’s data shows asymptomatic individuals are not spreading the disease and the league is focusing on “symptom recognition and prompt testing.”
“I think all of our concern about [asymptomatic spread] has been going down based on what we’ve been seeing throughout the past several months,” Sills told ESPN on Thursday. “We’ve got our hands full with symptomatic people. Can I tell you tonight that there has never been a case when someone without symptoms passed it on to someone else? No, of course I can’t say that. But what I can say to you is that I think it’s a very, very tiny fraction of the overall problem, if it exists at all.”

Sills comments is a departure from the stance of public health authorities for much of the pandemic when it comes to the ability of asymptomatic individuals transmitting COVID to others. The belief that players would self-report symptoms and potentially miss games has drawn criticism from some, pointing out self-reporting injuries is not common throughout the league; that criticism then drew criticism that there is a difference between reporting an injury (which does not spread) to reporting symptoms of an infectious disease (which does).
“If omicron is borne out to be much more transmissible but less severe, that’s a win-win for everyone,” Asaf Bitton, executive director of Ariadne Labs and associate professor of health-care policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told the Washington Post about the change in testing strategy. “In the short term, that’s a lot of ifs and this strategy carries a risk of unintended consequences in the short term, even if it’s in the right direction long term.”
While the league says that 94 percent of its players are fully vaccinated — far outperforming the country in vaccination rates — there have been 154 positive tests this week and more than 300 in the past two weeks, showing the ease in which omicron is transmitted even among vaccinated individuals. Unvaccinated players must isolate for 10 days after a positive test; the new protocols give vaccinated players a chance to return to sooner based on a combination of negative tests and control threshold readings which would show the level of virus load they have and could potentially transmit to teammates.
The modified protocols come after the NFL came closer to canceling games than perhaps it ever did last season in the heart of the pandemic and before vaccines became widely available. NFLPA President JC Tretter, a center for the Browns, said the NFL wanted to cancel three games last week involving his team, Washington and the Los Angeles Rams.
The Raiders at Browns game was moved from Saturday to Monday. Seattle at the Rams and Washington at the Eagles went from Sunday to Tuesday night. The Rams were the only team that had their game moved and were able to win on the rescheduled date.
Two Raiders players before the game hinted on Twitter that their game against Cleveland was moved because Tretter is the NFLPA president rather than concerns over the Browns’ COVID status. Tretter — who tested positive on Thursday and will miss this weekend’s game — said he was focused on the NFL’s announcement before the season that should games be canceled, players would not be paid.
“The NFL’s position last week was that those three games were going to be canceled,” Tretter said Wednesday. “They weren’t going to be played, and if they weren’t played then nobody on either team was going to be paid. That’s obviously an issue for us as a union. Over 18 percent of our player population was at risk of not getting paid last week. Our position was we need to make sure all games are played in order for our guys to get paid.”
Last year there were 15 rescheduled games in the NFL season but no cancellations. There has been no talk of games this weekend being canceled and the NFL is determined to push ahead with the regular season as scheduled no matter the number of cases among teams, with several still having close to or over 20 players on the COVID list.
There is no denying that playing the rest of the season with the number of COVID-positive players rising is not ideal from a competitive standpoint. The New Orleans Saints, in the heart of the NFC wild-card race, will be starting rookie quarterback Ian Book because its top two QBs have tested positive; the New York Jets, in the midst of a race to be the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft, may “have” an advantage with 20 players out, including two starting lineman and coach Robert Salah.
The Baltimore Ravens, in the heart of a tight AFC Central race, had only 13 healthy defensive players at practice on Thursday. And you have outliers in the league such as the Cincinnati Bengals with only one player on the COVID list (cornerback Chidobe Awuzie), leading quarterback Joe Burrow to half-jokingly say the team benefits from “there’s not a ton to do in Cincinnati. Nobody is going out to clubs and bars and getting COVID every weekend.”
Then there is the case of Buffalo’s Cole Beasley, who has fought seemingly anybody and everybody, including his own teammates, on social media about COVID testing all season and once said he would buy tickets for unvaccinated fans at road games because of Erie County’s policy of mandating vaccinations for entry to Bills games. Beasley, regardless of the NFL’s modified policies, is in the midst of a 10-day isolation after testing positive this week. He is, to no one’s surprise, unvaccinated.
NFL Schedule
All Times Eastern
Thursday’s Game
San Francisco at Tennessee, 8:20 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
Cleveland at Green Bay, 4:30 p.m.
Indianapolis at Arizona, 8:15 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Detroit at Atlanta, 1 p.m.
Baltimore at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.
L.A. Rams at Minnesota, 1 p.m.
Buffalo at New England, 1 p.m.
Jacksonville at N.Y. Jets,1 p.m.
N.Y. Giants at Philadelphia, 1 p.m.
Tampa Bay at Carolina, 1 p.m.
L.A. Chargers at Houston, 1 p.m.
Chicago at Seattle, 4:05 p.m. (proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required to attend)
Pittsburgh at Kansas City, 4:25 p.m.
Denver at Las Vegas, 4:25 p.m. (proof of vaccination required to attend)
Washington at Dallas, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Miami at New Orleans, 8:15 p.m.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: CFP Released Outbreak Guidelines for Teams
Posted: Thursday, December 23
College football’s national champion could be decided away from the playing field if COVID has anything to do with it.
Ahead of the College Football Playoff semifinals on New Year’s Eve, the CFP management committee released its guidelines for this year’s event as the omicron variant continues surging throughout the country. The new policy allows for the chance that a team could win the national championship by default — as well as the potential for no champion to be recognized.
Under the guidelines, should one team not be able to play in its semifinal game, its opponent would win by forfeit. If two teams are unable to play, the two who are eligible will play for the national championship. And should a team reach the national championship and are unable to play on the original or a rescheduled date, its opponent would win the title by default.

No. 1 Alabama faces No. 4 Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl while No. 2 Michigan plays No. 3 Georgia in the Orange Bowl on December 31. The January 10 national championship game in Indianapolis could be pushed back no later than January 14. If both teams can’t play on the original or rescheduled title game date, the national championship will be vacated.
Before the CFP could even announce its guidelines, Alabama announced that two of its offensive coaches, coordinator Bill O’Brien and line coach Doug Marrone, had tested positive. The Crimson Tide’s roster is more than 90 percent fully vaccinated, head coach Nick Saban said this week. Cincinnati, Michigan and Georgia’s rosters are all at least 90 percent fully vaccinated.
“As we prepare for the playoff, it’s wise and necessary to put into place additional precautions to protect those who will play and coach the games,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said in a statement. “These policies will better protect our students and staffs while providing clarity in the event worst-case scenarios result.”
The news for the CFP guidelines comes on the same day that the first team had to withdraw from a bowl game. Texas A&M, scheduled to play Wake Forest in the Gator Bowl, announced it would not be able to play in the game on December 31 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Texas A&M Athletic Director Ross Bjork told ESPN the Aggies were down to 38 scholarship position players, of which 20 were offensive and defensive linemen. Sixteen bowl games weren’t played as scheduled after the 2020 season because of COVID-19. The Gator Bowl is searching for a replacement opponent, with multiple reports indicating that either Rutgers or Illinois may fill in for the Aggies.
HOCKEY: NHL Withdraws From Beijing Olympics
Posted: Wednesday, December 22
What was expected to be one of the spotlight events of the Olympic Winter Games will still take place but with a lot less star power, as the National Hockey League and players union have agreed to withdraw from its planned participation in Beijing.
The official announcement came Wednesday as NHL has dealt with a surge of breakthrough positive COVID-19 cases that has forced more than a quarter of the teams to pause their seasons in the past two weeks alone. Just over 16 percent of the league’s players are in health protocols as of Monday.

“The National Hockey League respects and admires the desire of NHL Players to represent their countries and participate in a ‘best on best’ tournament. Accordingly, we have waited as long as possible to make this decision while exploring every available option to enable our Players to participate in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “Unfortunately, given the profound disruption to the NHL’s regular-season schedule caused by recent COVID-related events — 50 games already have been postponed through Dec. 23 — Olympic participation is no longer feasible. We certainly acknowledge and appreciate the efforts made by the International Olympic Committee, the International Ice Hockey Federation and the Beijing Organizing Committee to host NHL Players but current circumstances have made it impossible for us to proceed despite everyone’s best efforts. We look forward to Olympic participation in 2026.”
The NHL, with only one unvaccinated player at the start of the season, was cruising through its schedule until mid-December; there were two teams put on pauses, the Ottawa Senators and New York Islanders, but the five games that were postponed had been rescheduled. But as the omicron variant began spreading throughout the world, the league in quick succession had to put the Colorado Avalanche, Florida Panthers, Calgary Flames, Nashville Predators, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and Columbus Blue Jackets on pause.
Cross-border games between Canadian and U.S. teams were also paused for nearly a full week. The league and union also announced the resumption of daily testing and other enhanced protocols through New Year’s Day. Heading into the Christmas break, the league’s number of postponed games had risen to 42, 37 of those in the past week.
ESPN reported that an issue with rescheduling currently postponed games or moving up games that are scheduled for later in the season is that many buildings that are home to NHL teams already have booked concerts and other events during the planned Olympic break in an attempt to make up for lost revenue from 2020 and early 2021.
The NHL planned to take a three-week break after All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas for players to participate in the Olympics, which was agreed to as part of the latest collective bargaining agreement. The league had a withdrawal deadline of January 10 without financial penalty after negotiations with the International Ice Hockey Federation and International Olympic Committee.
The rising cases are the main driver behind the decision to withdraw but another key factor was the realization that — according to China’s latest edition of the Games playbooks — anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 in China could be forced to quarantine for up to five weeks. The belief that China would not give any exemptions to the NHL got the attention of players who, this season, will not be paid for any games missed because of a positive test.
“Obviously, it’s unsettling if that were to be the case when you go over there.” Edmonton Oilers and Canadian superstar Connor McDavid said last week. “I’m still a guy that’s wanting to go play in the Olympics. But we also want to make sure it’s safe for everybody. For all the athletes, not just for hockey players.”
While multiple players had said they wanted more answers about protocols, only two players — Vegas Golden Knights goalie Robin Lehner and San Jose defenseman Erik Karlsson —said they would not go to Beijing.
“I think it’ll be good to have some clarity on the COVID protocols over there,” Chicago Blackhawks goalie Marc-Andre Fleury told NBCSN Chicago earlier this month. “If you go to the tournament and stay between four walls for 4-5 weeks by yourself over there, not come back to your team, not play for a month or so and not see your family, too, I think it’s something you have to take into consideration.”
Players also will miss out on the chance to broaden their name recognition. While they have had successful careers, players such as since-retired Ryan Miller and T.J. Oshie are best known for their Olympic accomplishments rather than what they have achieved in the NHL.
“I think everyone looks at the Olympics as a best-on-best tournament,” Oshie said during an Olympic media summit earlier in the season. “To have the NHL players have the chance to get back in the Olympics, I think is so important for our game. For a lot of young players that might not had the chance to play at the last Olympics, I think it’s very important that they get an opportunity to do that, to represent their country and see what it feels like to have the honor of doing that.”
“You grow up as a kid and you want to play in the NHL, but I think the Olympics is the biggest stage, with the best hockey players in the world playing against each other,” Chicago’s Seth Jones added. “I know the guys weren’t happy in ’18 not being able to compete, so I’m sure everyone is ecstatic that we would be able to go to Beijing this year.”
For the powerhouse Canada team, while Sidney Crosby has multiple Stanley Cups to his name, his legend is burnished by his gold-medal winning overtime goal in the 2010 Games in Vancouver to beat the United States.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of two [Olympics],” Crosby said. “I definitely feel for the guys who have missed numerous opportunities. It’s not something where it’s the next year or you push it a couple of months. These are experiences of a lifetime that you don’t get very many of as an athlete.”
And while the NHL would not have been able to do things such as use Olympic highlights because of copyright issues — a sore spot for Bettman, who kept players from competing at the 2018 Games in South Korea — the league also now will miss on the chance to make a mark in one of the biggest foreign markets in the world and get casual sports fans watching hockey.
“When you have 300 million people at your back, cheering for you and watching you, instead of certain cities around the league, it really brings the best out of you, and obviously is such a good way to grow the game,” Chicago’s Patrick Kane said in October. “It’s great for hockey in the United States, great for hockey around the world and especially going to a market like China, it’s a great way to grow the game.”
COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Dozens of Programs on Pause With Outbreaks
Posted: Tuesday, December 21
While professional sports leagues have been working to postpone games, rather than cancel or award forfeits, there have been forfeits creeping into the college basketball season with more than three dozen programs now on pause because of COVID-19 positives.
Seton Hall and DePaul in the Big East Conference have had to take forfeit losses in the past week, joining Washington, which forfeited a game to UCLA earlier in December. And Tuesday morning came the first ACC cancellation of the season with Wake Forest awarded a forfeit win because of issues in Boston College’s program with COVID ahead of a game scheduled for Wednesday. While noted in the conference standings, the NCAA Tournament selection committee will not officially recognize the games as forfeits so when evaluating teams for potential at-large bids, those games will not show up on their team sheets.
Most college basketball conferences set up policies instituting forfeits in the preseason, thinking that it would be incentivize teams to become fully vaccinated. But the spread of omicron may give some leagues pause or make them re-consider those decisions given the spate of cancellations and postponements over the past week.
More than 50 games have been impacted in the first six weeks this season with overtones of last season, including games being scheduled on few hours’ notice. A showcase doubleheader in Las Vegas scheduled for this past Saturday with North Carolina against UCLA and Ohio State against Kentucky was adjusted when both UCLA and Ohio State had to pause action; instead, the Tar Heels and Wildcats played on national television.
Kentucky’s biggest rivalry game, against Louisville and scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed. Should the teams not be able to find a rescheduled date, it would be the first time in 40 years that the teams did not tip off.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, in his final season, said Saturday ahead of ACC play that he believes mandatory testing should return to league schools. Duke played Elon on Saturday, winning by 31 points, after two previous matchups against Cleveland State and Loyola (Maryland) fell through because those schools paused play.
“I don’t know why we can’t do that,” Krzyzewski said after the game, adding “I don’t like the forfeit thing and I don’t like the fact that the two teams are not tested the day before, the night before like we did last year.”
Last year’s college basketball season finished in an Indianapolis bubble environment and while nobody this season has suggested that plans be brought back for a repeat, some have already expressed concern about the current NCAA rules that require teams to play 25 games to be eligible for the postseason — a mark that few hit because of the limits on non-conference play.
NCAA Executive Vice President Dan Gavitt told The Athletic over the weekend that should circumstances worsen as the season goes on, the rule could be modified. Last year’s minimum games played was 13.
“It’s not something we need to do right now but if we get into mid to late January and it’s an ongoing problem, it’s something we might have to look into,” Gavitt said.
NHL: League Plans Pause over Christmas Period
Posted: Monday, December 20
The National Hockey League will start its Christmas break two days earlier with the league being shut down Wednesday as more than 15 percent of league’s players are in COVID protocols and more than one quarter of the league’s teams already shut down.
Players will report back to their clubs on December 26 for testing, practice and/or travel only. Upon return to team facilities, no individual in the team’s traveling party shall enter the facility other than for testing purposes until they have a negative test result. The season will resume on December 27.
Players are set to report back December 26 with games resuming December 27. Only two games will be played on Tuesday; even before the pause, the Wednesday schedule was entirely wiped out by team pauses.
The league has already enhanced its protocols in a return to last season’s measures, including daily testing, and postponed all games through Christmas that involved cross-border travel between Canada and the U.S. The league and players association have recommended that players get a COVID booster but it is not mandated; vaccination was not mandated this season but only one player, Detroit’s Tyler Bertuzzi, has not gotten his shots.
With nearly 50 games postponed so far this season, the majority of those this week, the probability of the NHL taking a three-week break for players to go to Beijing and compete in the Olympic Winter Games decreases by the day. The NHL and NHLPA said it will announce a decision in the coming days on participation in the Games, which begin February 4; the league can withdraw without financial penalty no later than January 10, a scenario that looks more likely with each passing day.
Even before the postponements, given the strict protocols that China has said it will enforce for all athletes who test positive while in Beijing, there was a growing sense of unease among NHL players. An athlete who tests positive for COVID-19 in Beijing will need to produce two negative results 24 hours apart or face a quarantine period that could last up to five weeks.
“Obviously, it’s unsettling if that were to be the case when you go over there.” Edmonton Oilers and Canadian superstar Connor McDavid said last week. “I’m still a guy that’s wanting to go play in the Olympics. But we also want to make sure it’s safe for everybody. For all the athletes, not just for hockey players.”
NBA: League Plans to Play Through Outbreaks
Posted: Monday, December 20
As its biggest day of the season approaches on Christmas, the NBA has soaring numbers of players in health and safety protocols with five games scheduled for this week postponed as multiple teams have had as many as 10 players test positive for COVID-19.
Three Sunday games were called off: Cleveland at Atlanta, Denver at Brooklyn and New Orleans at Philadelphia. Also shelved were Orlando’s game at Toronto on Monday and Washington’s game at Brooklyn on Tuesday. In the past week alone, stars including Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Atlanta’s Trae Young, Brooklyn’s Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant and Lakers coach Frank Vogel have tested positive. Through Sunday, there were 68 players in protocols throughout the league; the NBPA says that 97 percent of its players are vaccinated and 60 percent have received boosters as of last week.
The numbers have been shocking in the past week as omicron has surged throughout the country. The Cavaliers had five players test positive on Sunday; the Chicago Bulls just returned to action after having two games postponed with 10 players in protocols; Brooklyn currently has 10 players in protocols including Durant and Irving, who is famously unvaccinated and went into protocols less than 24 hours after the Nets announced they changed their minds and would let him join the team on a part-time basis.
Irving has not played this season because as he is unvaccinated, he does not comply with New York City’s mandate that all workers in the city have gotten their shots. Brooklyn opted to play without him to start the season instead of allowing him to take part in practices and road games — except for Toronto. The Nets announced on Friday that as its number of players testing positive was starting to rise, it would allow Irving to return on a part-time basis given that the roster was so depleted. But within 48 hours he had landed in protocols — along with Durant, one of the league’s top superstars and leading scorers this season.
The NBA has shown no signs of putting its season on a pause especially with the marquee Christmas schedule looming. ESPN reported the league and players union agreed Sunday night to new rules that allow teams to sign a replacement player for each positive COVID-19 case on its roster with that replacement player’s salary not counting toward the salary cap or a team’s luxury tax payment. The league will also allow for players on two-way contracts between the NBA and G League to play an unlimited number of NBA games; the cap entering the season had been 50 games in the NBA, at which point a player’s contract would have to be guaranteed.
NFL: Omicron Spread Puts League on Edge
Updated: Saturday, December 18
The NFL and players union have increased health and safety protocols in the wake of the omicron variant’s ever‐increasing spread throughout the United States, with three teams facing severe roster shortages heading into this weekend’s games and the league finally yielding on one thing it insisted would not happen this year — the postponement of games.
The Browns’ game scheduled for Saturday against the Las Vegas Raiders will be rescheduled for Monday night, the first time the league has rescheduled a game this season and comes near the end of what has been by far the worst week for the NFL in dealing with the pandemic this season. The NFL also will reschedule to Tuesday games between the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks, as well as Washington and the Philadelphia Eagles.

Washington, Cleveland and the Rams each have more than 20 players in NFL COVID-19 protocols and there have been more than 150 players placed on the list overall in the league. All 32 teams will return to intensive protocols for at least the next two weeks with mandatory mask wearing indoors, no in‐person team or position meetings, limits on how many people can be in weight rooms at one time and no team meals at facilities. Players will also have restrictions on activities outside team buildings the next two weeks.
Saturday brought another announcement from the NFL and players union with more changes to the protocols, announcing that the frequency with which vaccinated, asymptomatic players and personnel are tested. Under the latest set of changes, players that who are vaccinated and show symptoms will be isolated but those who are not showing symptoms will be subject to “targeted testing” in which a specific group of individuals will be tested one week before a different group is tested the following week.
“I would not describe it as we’re stopping testing; we’re trying to test smarter and in a more strategic fashion,” Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, told reporters on Saturday.
The NFLPA has been asking for daily testing for all players since the preseason but the league resisted. The union again called for daily testing on Wednesday, saying “the NFL decided to take away a critical weapon in our fight against the transmission of COVID-19 despite our union’s call for daily testing months ago.”
Sills said Wednesday that he believes testing does not stop the spread of COVID. But Thursday, when announcing the updated protocols, Sills admitted this week showed the first evidence of transmission within team facilities this season.
One of the many Browns who have tested positive this week, quarterback Baker Mayfield, ripped the league on Twitter on Thursday as frustration throughout the league rose with protocols being revised on a daily basis.
“@NFL Make up your damn mind on protocols,” Mayfield tweeted. “All so you can keep the game as scheduled to make money,” adding in a later tweet “Actually caring about player safety would mean delaying the game with this continuing at the rate it is …. But to say you won’t test vaccinated players if they don’t have symptoms, then to pull this randomly. Doesn’t make any sense to me.”
The situation this season is different compared to last season when vaccines were not available. The NFL was able to get the season finished on time, but it did reschedule multiple games to get it done without having to extend the regular season.
Before the preseason started, the NFL — in an effort to incentivize vaccinations among players — said the regular season would not be extended should there be an outbreak and that games would be canceled and called forfeits should a team have to cancel a game due to an outbreak among unvaccinated players. But the announcement did not address what would happen if there was an outbreak on a team through a series of breakthrough positives among vaccinated players.
Even before this week there have been moments this season that have served as reminders that the virus never went away — Ndamukong Suh, Aaron Rodgers, Davonte Adams, Jalen Ramsey, Chandler Jones, T.J. Watt, Ben Roethlisberger and Mike McCarthy are all people who have missed at least one game this season after landing on the NFL’s reserve/COVID‐19 list.
“Here we go, we’re in the last month of the season and we’ve got a shot to make it through,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said earlier this week. “I don’t know after today what’s going to happen, but everybody has to continually be reminded. Stop griping about it. Stop griping about being healthy and helping other people be healthy. I don’t get that. That’s beyond me. It’s so far away from personal rights. I don’t get it. … It’s constant as anything we’ve ever been around. We just have to do a good job. I’ve got to do better. I have to remind guys more.”
Given the surge of positive tests throughout the sports world at large, the NFL this week told coaches, front office and team personnel who are regarded as Tier 1 or Tier 2 and have daily contact with players that they must get a COVID‐19 booster by December 27.
Another change announced Thursday will be protocols to make it easier for players who are vaccinated and asymptomatic to return to practice and games. Testing will measure a player’s viral load and it shows a player that as viral load that is considered not contagious, they would be cleared to return.
The league has experience in playing through a pandemic — it did so last year and was able to get through the season on time without adding an extra week to the regular season. But protocols were notably stricter last season — masks on sidelines have been an anomaly this fall — with vaccinations perhaps leading to overconfidence about not getting a breakthrough positive rather than remaining vigilant.
“That’s the whole issue worldwide,” Carroll said. “People get fatigued from it. We can’t let that happen. Even though everybody is human and you get worn down by the reminders. It’s stressful when you have to be continually reminded and thoughtful of something that you wouldn’t normally do. It wears on you, and we try to avoid it. We look for ways to get out of it. That’s the conversation we hear all the time, that’s the national clamor. It is about being diligent. Diligence comes from the constant reminders and the discipline that it takes to stick with it.”
NFL Schedule
All times Eastern
Thursday’s Game
Kansas City 34, L.A. Chargers 28 (OT)
Saturday’s Game
New England at Indianapolis, 8:15 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Carolina at Buffalo, 1 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination to attend)
Arizona at Detroit, 1 p.m.
N.Y. Jets at Miami, 1 p.m.
Dallas at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m.
Tennessee at Pittsburgh, 1 p.m.
Houston at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.
Cincinnat at Denver, 4:05 p.m.
Atlanta at San Francisco, 4:05 p.m.
Green Bay at Baltimore, 4:25 p.m.
New Orleans at Tampa Bay, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Las Vegas at Cleveland, 5 p.m.
Minnesota at Chicago, 8:20 p.m.
Tuesday’s Games
Washington at Philadelphia, 7 p.m.
Seattle at L.A. Rams, 7 p.m. (Fans must show proof of vaccination or negative test to attend)
NHL: Multiple Teams Shut Down Through Christmas
Posted: Friday, December 17
The National Hockey League has extended the period of game postponements for the Calgary Flames through their game previously scheduled for December 23 against Seattle as well as shutting down games involving the Colorado Avalanche and Florida Panthers through at least December 26.
The news comes as one of the spotlight events for the upcoming 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, the return of NHL players to the men’s hockey competition, has been overshadowed by team shutdowns and questions from several players about what China has planned for potential positive tests.
The realization that — according to China’s latest edition of the Games playbooks — that anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 in China could be forced to quarantine for up to five weeks has gotten the attention of players who, this season, will not be paid for any games missed because of a positive test.
“Clearly I think things are a little bit more uneasy than they were,” Toronto Maple Leafs captain John Tavares told reporters Monday. “There’s going to be some hurdles and some challenges currently (where) things stand and the way they present themselves. … You talk about a five-week quarantine, if you’ve already been over there for a few weeks, that’s a really long time.”

Should any player test positive within Beijing’s closed loop system, a potential five-week quarantine would mean missing potentially half of the remaining 10 weeks in the regular season. There are more than 30 players in the league’s COVID protocols; along with the three team shutdowns announced on Friday, the Ottawa Senators and New York Islanders had pauses earlier this season for team outbreaks.
“I think it’ll be good to have some clarity on the COVID protocols over there,” Chicago Blackhawks goalie Marc-Andre Fleury told NBCSN Chicago. “If you go to the tournament and stay between four walls for 4-5 weeks by yourself over there, not come back to your team, not play for a month or so and not see your family, too, I think it’s something you have to take into consideration.”
While multiple players have said they want more answers about protocols, to date two players — Vegas Golden Knights goalie Robin Lehner and San Jose defenseman Erik Karlsson — have said they would not go to Beijing.
“There’s just too many uncertainties crossing the waters and going into a different nation and different country where we can’t get a straight answer about anything,” Karlsson told reporters on Wednesday. “There’s going to be guys that are going to test positive, and there’s going to be people that are going to have to go through whatever it is that we’re going to have to go through if that happens, which we don’t really know what that is. So, for me, having a family, I can’t take that risk.”
For its part, the NHL remains concerned about the Beijing Games.
“We have real concerns about that, even pre-COVID in terms of the impact on the season,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said last week during the owners meetings in Florida. “Our concerns have only been magnified. … we have expressed those concerns to the NHL Players Association and we’ve seen a number of players are now expressing concerns. We’ll have to see how this ultimately plays out.”
During each NHL team pausing its season, the reports have been the NHL and NHLPA could opt out of the Olympics by January 10. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly last week said that is date in which financial penalties don’t apply but the decision to withdraw could come after if needed.
“I don’t think this is going to be the ideal Olympic experience in terms of the lockdowns in the Olympic village and everything else that’s going on,” Bettman said. “But again, we made a promise to the players and we’re going to, to the best of our ability, adhere to it.’’
The NHLPA wants clarity on from IOC and IIHF officials on what happens to a player at the Olympics if he tests positive for COVID-19. Sportsnet reported Saturday that players will have a chance to ask questions about the Olympics this week after handbook detailing the exact COVID protocols at the Games was released.
“If we have ideas about how to do something better, we’re not going to be bashful about it,’’ NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr told The Athletic last week.
The NHL announced on Wednesday enhanced protocols for the next two weeks in the hopes of curtailing the rise of player positives. The protocols will be much like what players experienced last season with daily testing, face masks worn at all facilities and virtual meetings instead of in person. While the NHL does not plan to mandate boosters, the league itself only has one player who is not vaccinated, Detroit Red Wings forward Tyler Bertuzzi.
Indoor Precautions, Daily Testing and Masks: Sports on the Brink
Updated: Wednesday, December 15
The past two days in professional sports have been dominated by off-field headlines in regard to COVID-19 and the ever-spreading Omicron variant. Just the past 36 hours alone has seen the following news;
- ESPN reported the NFL had 37 positive COVID tests on Monday and the Cleveland Browns entered enhanced COVID protocols with daily testing regardless of vaccination status and mandatory masking after eight players tested positive — followed by coach Kevin Stefanski and quarterback Baker Mayfield testing positive on Wednesday morning ahead of the team’s game against the Vegas Raiders on Saturday.
- The Los Angeles Rams entered enhanced protocols on Tuesday afternoon after six players were put on the COVID list including Odell Beckham Jr., who earlier this season said “I don’t think COVID can get to me. I don’t think it’s going to enter this body. I don’t want no part of it, it don’t want no parts of me. It’s a mutual respect.” Overall, the NFL has more than 70 players in the COVID protocols after positive tests this week alone.
- One of the biggest names in the NBA, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, entered protocols after a positive test that may rule him out of the Bucks’ Christmas Day game against the Boston Celtics. The Brooklyn Nets had seven players enter the league’s protocols within a 24-hour span including star James Harden, leaving the team eight healthy players. The NBA postponed two Chicago Bulls games this week, the first adjustments to the schedule it has had to make this season. Over the past two weeks, 31 players in the league have entered health and safety protocols.
- The NHL announced the Calgary Flames will have games through at least Thursday postponed after six players and one staff member tested positive. There are 30 players in the league’s COVID protocols and Tuesday’s game between the Minnesota Wild and Carolina Hurricanes was postponed after four Hurricanes tested positive.
- Manchester United, one of the most recognizable franchises in the world, said its Premier League game scheduled for Tuesday against Brentford was postponed as the league announced 42 players tested positive this weekend. And in what could be the next step for U.S. pro leagues, the Premier League’s clubs will re-introduce daily testing for players and staffers within team facilities.
- DreamHack Anaheim, announced last week for February 11–13, has been cancelled due to “increased difficulties in hosting the festival in a qualitative way.”
- The Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors and Ottawa Senators will be limited to 50 percent capacity at home games starting Saturday with the Ontario government saying “this measure is being taken to reduce opportunities for close contact in high-risk indoor settings with large crowds and when masks are not always worn.”

So the question for these professional leagues is what happens as the winter turns even colder in the coming weeks ahead of Christmas and New Year’s Eve, which like Thanksgiving are traditional holidays where big gatherings are normal?
It is important to stress that professional sports this week has merely been mirroring the United States and world at large with cases rising like they did last winter as more people are forced to spend time indoors, where COVID is more easily transmissible. There is also something to be said for the increased number of positives in the NBA and NFL coming at a time where they have been increasing the amount of testing since Thanksgiving compared to earlier in the season; there exists the possibility that some positives before Thanksgiving may not have been known because there was less testing and players could have been asymptomatic.
The NFL has not been testing on a daily basis in spite of the NFLPA’s requests to do so, although the league did strengthen its protocols following Thanksgiving. Monday is when the NFL tests all players and personnel regardless of vaccination status; those who are fully vaccinated only have to be tested on Monday while unvaccinated players are tested daily. Some teams have been proactive; the New York Jets announced that it would be holding all team meetings virtually this week instead of in-person to reduce the risk of indoor transmission.
There also is a difference between testing positive and having symptoms. The Bulls have 10 players in the NBA’s health and safety protocols but “we’ve got a lot of guys sitting at home with no symptoms,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan told reporters Saturday. But for most of the Bulls players, their experience is not the same as Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid, who did have symptoms and admitted “I really thought I wasn’t gonna make it. It was that bad.”
Whether the protocols around professional sports strengthen is up for debate — particularly in regard to masking. Masks are seldom seen on NFL sidelines this season after being strictly enforced in 2020; masks being worn by the NBA’s coaches and players, when looking up and down benches during a game, is not as visible as last season. Part of that is simple human nature of being told your status is ‘fully vaccinated’ but each passing day and week is a reminder that wearing a mask further reduces your chances of having a breakthrough positive.
Having players in all leagues return to the same masking protocols on benches like last season would not hurt competition and it would also be a good public reminder for fans, especially at indoor arenas where teams ‘encourage’ mask wearing but they are seldom worn. While the NBA has a policy that fans within 15 feet of the court must wear masks except when actively eating or drinking, a casual observer watching on TV can see that policy being ignored by a majority of attendees.
While the news of the past few days has been concerning, pro leagues have had widespread success this season overall. The NFL has not postponed any games after having to multiple times last season; the Bulls’ postponements are the first for the NBA after having 31 games canceled or postponed last season; the NHL has had multiple postponements but several of those games have been rescheduled.
Vaccination rates have been tremendous in pro sports as well especially compared to the general public. The NHL’s vaccination rate is one of the best in sports; the NBA has said 97 percent of its players are vaccinated and the NFL is over 90 percent as well. And the leagues, still mindful of the financial losses from the 2020–2021 seasons, will be highly resistant to another pause in play given the hundreds of millions at stake.
But as the saying goes: When it rains, it pours. For pro leagues this week, it has been a thunderstorm.
NBA: Breakthrough Positives Increasing Throughout League
Posted: Monday, December 13
The Chicago Bulls, in the midst of a widespread COVID outbreak that has affected 10 players on its roster, will have the next two games postponed by the NBA. ESPN first reported the news.
The Bulls will have games against the Detroit Pistons and Toronto Raptors rescheduled for later dates. Ten Bulls players had entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols since December 1: Coby White, Javonte Green, DeMar DeRozan, Matt Thomas, Derrick Jones Jr., Ayo Dosunmu, Stanley Johnson, Zach LaVine, Troy Brown Jr. and Alize Johnson on Monday morning.

Because of all the positives, the Bulls would have only eight players available for the Pistons game — the league minimum. However the league considered Chicago’s situation and postponed the games since one of those players was only signed last Friday and three others have seldom been on the Bulls roster this season, spending most of the season in the G League.
The NBA postponed 31 games due to COVID-19 last season. The league’s issues with breakthrough COVID positives among vaccinated coaches and players is getting worse in the post-Thanksgiving period as testing as increased throughout the league, with multiple teams short-handed and one needing emergency roster exceptions.
The NBPA says 97 percent of the league is vaccinated and reports have indicated about 60 percent of players have received a booster shot. The NBA has not had to postpone any games to this point, while its winter pro sports counterpart, the National Hockey League, has had to postpone five games involving the Ottawa Senators and New York Islanders at separate points this season due to breakthrough positives on both teams.
The issues go beyond players. Indiana Pacers Coach Rick Carlisle tested positive and missed his team’s game Friday against the Dallas Mavericks, the team he coached for more than a decade before leaving this past summer for Indiana. Carlisle is fully vaccinated and has gotten his booster, reported ESPN; the Pacers had already canceled Thursday’s practice out of “an abundance of caution” and assistant coach Lloyd Pierce is leading the Pacers in Carlisle’s absence.
Toronto Raptors Vice-Chairman and President Masai Ujiri tested positive as well last week despite being fully vaccinated and having gotten a booster. Ujiri said he was at a Giants of Africa event Sunday, then learned of “positive COVID-19 tests among our guests.” The event was held in compliance with public health guidelines. Ujiri is in self-isolation at home for 10 days.
The Charlotte Hornets have been down five players to health and safety protocols: LaMelo Ball, Jalen McDaniels, Mason Plumlee, Terry Rozier and Ish Smith. Teams beyond the Bulls and Hornets have had issues as well. Caleb Martin of the Heat went into the protocols on Saturday night, two days after a career-high 28 points in a win over the Bulls. Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant, who is sideline with a knee injury, entered health and safety protocols on Wednesday.
NFL: Montez Sweat’s COVID Diagnosis a Reminder of Dangers of Vaccine Hesitancy
Posted: Friday, December 10
During the offseason, Washington defensive end Montez Sweat said he was not vaccinated against COVID-19 and would not get vaccinated, infamously saying “I haven’t caught COVID yet. I don’t see me treating COVID until I actually get COVID.”
Be careful what you wish for, then?
Sweat, who has remained unvaccinated, tested positive this week and will miss his team’s game against the Dallas Cowboys . The NFL’s protocols call for a minimum of 10 days isolation for unvaccinated players who test positive, meaning Sweat may also miss next week’s game against another division rival, the Philadelphia Eagles.

Sweat, who has missed time this season with an injury before his positive test, made his anti-vaccine comments after Washington coach Ron Rivera brought in an expert to speak with players and answer any questions they may have during minicamps. Rivera did so because he was disappointed with his team’s vaccination rate at the time, especially because he is immunocompromised as a cancer survivor.
Washington plays Sunday against its biggest rival in the Cowboys, who will have head coach Mike McCarthy return after he missed the last game after testing positive for COVID. McCarthy ran team meetings virtually as Dallas beat the New Orleans Saints; he and five other staffers missed the game.
“We’re back to a pretty normal protocol,” McCarthy said as the Cowboys re-opened meetings and the cafeteria after temporary closures. “We actually expanded some of the meeting rooms just to be extra cautious. We’ve been able to have bigger rooms for our O-line and D-line is probably the only big change.”
McCarthy has been in a hotel near the team’s training complex since November 26 and will continue to do so because he has four family members who are also recovering from COVID after testing positive.
“We just want to make sure we get our home space 100% clear before we have everybody back at the house,” he said. “I’m just thankful that it is behind me and, frankly, I can get back to my job full-time. It’s a challenge not being there every day, especially with what’s right in front of us, the Washington challenge. I’ll definitely look at it as a silver lining as obviously I don’t have to deal with [testing] for the next 90 days.”
And there was more news on late Saturday night when ESPN reported that six Detroit Lions are on the COVID list with as many as a dozen more who are battling the flu, putting the team at a disadvantage against Denver. The report indicated a scenario that has come up is delaying the game until Monday night.
NFL Schedule
All Times Eastern
Thursday’s Game
Minnesota 36, Pittsburgh 28
Sunday’s Games
Baltimore at Cleveland, 1 p.m.
Jacksonville at Tennessee, 1 p.m.
Las Vegas at Kansas City, 1 p.m.
New Orleans at N.Y. Jets, 1 p.m.
Dallas at Washington, 1 p.m.
Atlanta at Carolina, 1 p.m.
Seattle at Houston, 1 p.m.
Detroit at Denver, 4:05 p.m.
N.Y. Giants at L.A. Chargers, 4:05 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination or negative test to attend)
San Francisco at Cincinnati, 4:25 p.m.
Buffalo at Tampa Bay, 4:25 p.m.
Chicago at Green Bay, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
L.A. Rams at Arizona, 8:15 p.m.
SOCCER: Premier League Returns to Emergency Protocols
Posted: Friday, December 10
The Premier League, which postponed a match scheduled for Sunday after eight players and five staffers at Tottenham Hotspur players tested positive for COVID, has told all 20 clubs to return to emergency measures including social distancing in meetings and mask wearing.
Protocols include wearing masks in indoor areas, therapy taking no longer than 15 minutes and medical staff required to be wearing full PPE when in contact with players. The measures were being used at the start of the season but some teams have since gone away from adhering to the measures.
Tottenham was forced to close its first-team training center on Wednesday ahead of Sunday’s postponement of its game against Brighton. Leicester City played in the Europa League on Thursday and is still scheduled to play its Premier League match on Sunday against Newcastle despite reportedly missing seven players with positive tests.
The league’s moves come one day after the British government announced that at any sporting event with more than 10,000 people, proof of double vaccination or a negative test is required.
SOCCER: MLS Ready for Sellout Title Game in Portland
Posted: Thursday, December 9
The dichotomy is striking for Major League Soccer — one year after its championship was played in front of a restricted number of fans in Ohio, this year’s title game will be played in front of a sellout, raucous crowd in Portland, Oregon, when the host Timbers play New York City FC.
While MLS has finished the 2021 season with big crowds at playoff matches, it did have to start the season with its three Canadian teams — Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal — playing in U.S. markets because of cross-border travel restrictions.
“We started this year with little sense as to how the pandemic would play out,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said. “I certainly did not think it would be year two of a virtual State of the League, but we were able to get fans back to our stadiums in all markets for most of the year.”

Vancouver, in particular, spent the first few months of the season playing ‘home’ games in Salt Lake City, Utah. Garber also said the league’s continuing effort to find a new owner for Real Salt Lake, which made the Western Conference title game before losing to Portland after MLS took over the team’s operations last year. Reports earlier this season indicated a group that includes Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils co-owner David Blitzer was close to a deal.
“We continue to be engaged with and in discussions with potential owners,” Garber said. “You’ve heard rumors about that. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to get something closed. We had a timetable to get that done by the end of the year. We’ll see if that’s still achievable. That’s only a couple of weeks away. If not I’m hopeful we’ll get something done soon.”
The RSL sale would also include Rio Tinto Stadium and Zion’s Bank Stadium, two venues that fall under the team’s properties. As part of its continued building boom, three MLS teams opened stadiums this season with Lower.com Field in Columbus, TQL Stadium in Cincinnati and Q2 Stadium in Austin.
“They are absolutely spectacular,” Garber said. “Each one brought a whole new level of design, of fan amenities, of technology, and certainly of energy for their local supporters.”
One of the league’s teams that is still renting space to play games is one of Saturday’s title participants. NYCFC’s home games are typically played at Yankee Stadium although they have at times had to play at the home of its rival, New York Red Bulls, in Harrison, New Jersey.
“The situation in New York as you know continues to evolve,” Garber said. “… I harken back to getting asked this question in D.C., and it took them 20 years to build Audi Field. I’m not saying it’s going to take that long with NYCFC, but we’ve got to get it right. It’s not easy to build stadiums in large cities, and New York is the largest in our league, so I’m confident in time they’ll be able to have a stadium of their own.”
The newest addition to the league will be Charlotte FC, which will play at the Carolina Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium instead of trying to build its own stadium.
“We are very proud of the soccer stadiums that we’ve built, and in most markets that is the solution,” Garber said. “… When we looked at Charlotte we basically accepted the fact that in that market, the location of the team, the relevance of the Panthers, the new ownership group, that this could be another example of us capturing the moment and trying to get the kinds of crowds that we’re able to attract in a large stadium, albeit one that is not built specifically for the sport.”
With Charlotte coming into the league next season followed by St. Louis SC in 2023, the league’s 29th team. MLS has focused discussions on the league’s 30th team in Las Vegas and discussions with Milwaukee Bucks owner Wes Edens, although Garber said Phoenix and San Diego are at least still being discussed.
“We’re excited about the market as are all leagues here in North America,” Garber said of Las Vegas. “Wes is a guy that we all have long standing relationships with, and by the way, he had looked at other MLS clubs over the years. We’ll continue those discussions and continue to try to get something done within the next 10 months.”
NBA: Positives Among Players Rising
Posted: Tuesday, December 7
There have been no NBA games postponed this season because of COVID-19 after the league postponed nearly 30 games last season. But the number of NBA players placed in protocols has been steadily rising as the season continues with Chicago Bulls star DeMar DeRozen — hours after being named Eastern Conference player of the week —going into the league’s protocols.
DeRozan joined Coby White and Javonte Green as Bulls players in the protocols. DeRozan, in his first season with Chicago after joining as a free agent from San Antonio in the offseason, is fourth in the league in scoring, averaging 26.4 points per game. Matt Thomas became the fourth Bulls player in less than a week to enter the COVID protocols on Wednesday morning.
The Bulls are not the first team to be missing multiple players — or the only team currently. The Charlotte Hornets have four players in COVID protocols and the Philadelphia 76ers earlier this season had multiple players missing at the same time and two of its biggest stars, Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris, both missed multiple games with breakthrough positives and symptoms.
“I really thought I wasn’t going to make it,” Embiid said after missing nine games. “It was that bad. So, I’m just thankful to be sitting here. I struggled with it, but I’m just glad I got over it and I’m just here.”
Embiid said he had trouble breathing and had “headaches worse than migraines … the whole body was just done, I guess. It was not a good time.”
For his part, Harris told reporters upon his return, “I just thought I had allergies at first. When I got back home (after testing positive), that night was rough — fever, body aches, the whole nine. From there, it was tough.”
If a player has a positive test, the NBA mandates a minimum of 10 days of isolation. After that period, a player must undergo a cardiac screening and reconditioning to return. A player could clear the protocols by returning two negative PCR tests within a 24-hour period.
The most high-profile player to have gone into protocols was Lakers superstar LeBron James, who missed one game after first testing negative ahead of a game last Tuesday at Sacramento, then testing positive. James returned two negative PCR tests within a 24-hour period per league rules and was able to return to the team but admitted after Thursday’s game against the Clippers that he thought “it was just handled very poorly.”
“Usually when you have a positive test, they’ll test you right away to make sure,” James said. “There was not a follow-up test after my positive test. It was straight to isolation and you’ve been put into protocol. That’s the part that kind of angered me. I had to figure out a way to get home from Sacramento by myself. They wouldn’t allow anyone to travel with me, no security, no anything, when I traveled back from Sacramento. And then I had to put my kids in isolation for the time being, the people in my household in isolation for the time being, so it was just a big-time inconvenience. That was the anger part.”
The Athletic has reported that players who have not received a booster will be subject to game-day testing starting December 17 and team personnel who have yet to receive the booster shot will no longer be permitted to interact with players or travel with their team. James was asked if he had received a booster and if not, whether he would.
“We’ve all been doing exactly what the protocols have told us to do and taking the tests and things of that nature,” James said. “It’s unfortunate when you get a false positive and you get put right into isolation. That’s just the unfortunate part. But we’ll see what happens.”
OLYMPICS: U.S. to Enact Diplomatic Boycott of Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games
Posted: Monday, December 6
The U.S. government has officially announced it will enact a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Winter and Paralympic Games in response to China’s human rights record, a move that will prevent government officials from attending in an official capacity but that will allow Team USA athletes to compete.
The announcement from the White House, a decision made by President Joe Biden, had been expected for weeks after calls from within the U.S. government to take a stand on China’s record.
“This is just an indication that it cannot be business as usual,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. “That does not mean that is the end of the concerns we will raise about human rights abuses. … We feel this sends a clear message.”
In a statement, USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland said the government will still support the U.S. athletic delegation, a move that differs from the last U.S. boycott in 1980 that kept U.S. athletes from competing at the Summer Olympic Games when they were held in Moscow.
“We greatly appreciate the unwavering support of the President and his administration and we know they will be cheering us on from home this winter,” Hirshland said in a statement. “Competing on behalf of the United States is an honor and a privilege, and Team USA is excited and ready to make the nation proud.”
The expected move, however, has been met with criticism by the hosts. China threatened on Monday “firm countermeasures” should the U.S. proceed with the diplomatic boycott of the Games. “Without being invited, American politicians keep hyping the so-called diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which is purely wishful thinking and grandstanding,” China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters at a daily briefing. “If the U.S. side is bent on going its own way, China will take firm countermeasures,” he added.

The diplomatic boycott also opens the doors for other U.S. Olympic dignitaries to attend. In a press conference updating Salt Lake City’s plans to bid for the 2030 or 2034 Games, bid President and CEO Fraser Bullock said he and a contingent from Salt Lake City intend to be in China. “Our focus is strictly on our Games that we are endeavoring to host,” he said. “Our focus is not on any diplomatic boycott or any political dynamics.”
While the boycott may present diplomatic challenges, the leadup to another Olympic and Paralympic Games has been dominated by talk of a new variant of COVID-19. But organizers for the Beijing Winter Games are holding firm that the event will go on as scheduled — similar to statements made by Tokyo organizers in the spring of 2020 in the weeks leading up to an eventual postponement.
At a daily briefing last Tuesday, Zhoa said Omicron would “certainly bring some challenges in terms of prevention and control” but added “I’m fully confident that the Winter Olympics will be held as scheduled, smoothly and successfully.”
While Beijing remains confident the Games will be staged as planned, organizers in Tokyo and within the IOC were similarly resolute in the weeks leading to when the Summer Games were scheduled to be held in 2020. But in the span of three weeks in March 2020, organizers went from saying preparations were “continuing as planned” to announcing a one-year postponement. And the Hong Kong Marathon organizers have already delayed the 2022 race, scheduled for February, back to November.
Beijing’s run-up to the Games has been dominated by anything except the competition that is planned to start in early February. The idea of having a Winter Games in the Chinese capital was met with criticism when the announcement was originally made years ago since Beijing was one of only two potential hosts left in the competition; the country’s alleged treatment of Turkic Muslim Uyghurs and the IOC’s refusal to acknowledge it has led to international criticism; and most recently, tennis star Peng Shuai’s accusation of sexual assault against a former top leader of the ruling Communist Party and the resulting question of her safety and well-being.
China plans some of the world’s strictest restrictions against freedom of movement for athletes and anybody coming from outside of the country to be at the Games — the hosts saying it is to limit potential transmission of COVID and critics hinting it is a convenient excuse to obstruct other reasons. Overseas spectators will not be allowed and the overall count of foreign visitors for the Games (an estimated 20,000) will be severely restricted compared to Tokyo’s protocols, when an estimated 50,000 attended. Athletes, staff and journalists will be confined to bubbles for the duration of the Games.
The level to which China restricts movement in and out of the country for COVID-related reasons was reiterated in mid-November when a Polish luge athlete, Mateusz Sochowicz, fractured his leg on November 8 during a training run and was hospitalized near Beijing. When Poland’s luge federation tried to get him home on a commercial flight, China told them that it would first require a two-week quarantine; Sochowicz traveled on an Air China cargo plane from Beijing to Milan instead before taking another flight to Warsaw, the Poland luge federation said, saying the cargo plane’s interior was like that of a passenger jet and “very comfortable.”
Against all of this is the backdrop of Switzerland’s new quarantine rules that threaten multiple World Cup winter sports events that athletes would be competing in to prepare for Beijing. Olympic officials in Switzerland urged the federal government to exempt international athletes and officials from mandatory 10-day quarantine periods from an ever-increasing number of countries on Switzerland’s red list, including Canada, where the most recent World Cup women’s races were held. World Cup champions Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States and Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland are scheduled to travel to Switzerland for two super-G races.
“If travel restrictions and quarantine rules are maintained, the organization of international sporting events in Switzerland will be in danger, if not impossible,” said Jürg Stahl, the president of Switzerland’s national Olympic committee.
Switzerland is also due to host events in cross-country skiing, ski jumping and ski cross in the next three weeks. The government on Monday canceled the 2021 World University Winter Games based at Lucerne with less than two weeks’ notice shortly before hundreds of athletes, coaches, officials and event staff were due to arrive.
FOOTBALL: New Variant Won’t Slow Big Game Attendance
Posted: Friday, December 3
The state of Michigan is the hottest spot for COVID-19 in the United States this week, leading the country in cases per 100,000 and with only 54 percent of the state’s population fully vaccinated, behind the U.S. average of 59 percent of all ages.
And last Saturday, more than 111,000 fans were shoulder to shoulder in Michigan Stadium to watch the Wolverines beat No. 2 Ohio State and move into the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings.
That was not the only enormous crowd during the final weekend of the regular season in college football;
- LSU’s final home game under Ed Orgeron had 91,595 on hand to see the Tigers upset Texas A&M
- A battle between two sub-.500 teams, Florida State at Florida, drew 88,491
- Alabama’s dramatic comeback win over Auburn in double overtime was watched by 87,451
- Clemson’s continued domination of in-state rival South Carolina had 79,897 in attendance
- Tennessee attracted 77,349 to its victory against Vanderbilt
- Texas finally winning at home, against Kansas State, drew 75,072
All told, those seven games were attended by over 611,000 people. If there was concern from some colleges that COVID would disrupt football attendance for the second year in a row, the numbers certainly have shown the concern was not needed. And after a 2020 season in which dozens of games were postponed or outright cancelled, only one FBS game this season was postponed with that game, Cal at Southern California, being played this weekend.
TV viewers can expect the same when watching conference championship games this weekend. While the Las Vegas Raiders have a vaccination mandate for its games at Allegiant Stadium, the Pac-12 Conference will not for its title matchup between Oregon and Utah on Friday night. Tickets for both the Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis (Michigan vs. Iowa) and the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta (Georgia vs. Alabama) may be the most expensive on record for both events.
There also have not been any documented outbreaks stemming from fans heading to NFL games this season. The NFL’s official attendance total through 12 weeks is more than 12 million fans though the caveat must be noted that those numbers reflect tickets sold, not necessarily tickets used.
This weekend’s conference championship games for college football leaves the bowl season and College Football Playoff left before organizers can call an end to another season held throughout a pandemic. Should any games outside the CFP not be held because of a new variant, they will be a loss for the destinations that host, along with players and programs … but will not affect the overall season. That cannot be said for the NFL, however, with several weeks left to play in the regular season before the playoffs are even held. The NFL increased its health and safety protocols for Thanksgiving with increased testing and mandatory mask-wearing within team facilities, but the Dallas Cowboys were still without its head coach for Thursday’s game against New Orleans and Tuesday saw five players put on the reserve/COVID-19 list for positive tests.
The question then becomes whether the league will further strengthen its protocols in the midst of a new variant that could reach the United States as well as the overall winter season with some warning signs about increased positive numbers throughout the country. At this time, the league has not indicated if it will make any changes.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Two Teams Cancel Games
Posted: Friday, December 3
A week after playing at the Crossover Classic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, both the University of Washington and Nevada men’s basketball teams have had to postpone or cancel games because of COVID outbreaks within their programs.
Washington’s game scheduled for Thursday against Arizona was postponed and the Huskies’ game this weekend against UCLA is to be determined. Nevada’s game on Saturday against North Texas will not be played after Nevada coach Steve Alford tested positive earlier this week; Nevada said it has a 100 percent vaccination rate among its players, coaches and staff.
Washington and Nevada played each other on November 24 in the Crossover Classic, an event that included South Dakota State and George Mason — whose coach, Kim English, told CBS Sports on Thursday that he has one positive test from a vaccinated player within the team.
NFL: Antonio Brown, Two Others Suspended for Fake Vaccine Cards
Posted: Thursday, December 2
The National Football League announced has suspended three players without pay for three games apiece, most notably Tampa Bay’s Antonio Brown, for violating the league’s COVID-19 protocols.
Tampa Bay’s Brown and Mike Edwards have each been suspended without pay for the next three games. Free agent John Franklin III, if signed by a club, is also ineligible to play in the next three games. All three players have accepted the discipline and waived their right of appeal. The suspensions are effective immediately after a review found that the three players violated the protocols.
The NFL and NFLPA said in a joint statement: “The health and safety of players and personnel is our top priority. The protocols were jointly developed working with our respective experts to ensure that we are practicing and playing football as safely as possible during the ongoing pandemic. The NFL-NFLPA jointly reinforce their commitment and further emphasize the importance of strict adherence to the protocols to protect the well-being of everyone associated with the NFL.”

The NFL believed Brown was vaccinated before the Tampa Bay Times reported that Steven Ruiz, a former personal chef for Brown, said the player had his girlfriend reach out to Ruiz over the summer to obtain a fake vaccination card, offering $500. Ruiz said he was unable to acquire a fake card but Brown later showed him one that he said he had purchased. Responding to the Times story, the Buccaneers released a statement saying they had “received completed vaccination cards from all Tampa Bay Buccaneers players.”
On the heels of a two-game losing streak that has seen its NFC East division lead shrink to two games, the Dallas Cowboys will head into tonight’s game at the New Orleans Saints without head coach Mike McCarthy and five others because of COVID-19 protocols.
McCarthy, who is vaccinated, tested positive in a breakthrough case this week. Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn will serve as the Cowboys’ interim coach.
The Cowboys had a COVID-19 outbreak in the preseason and early part of the regular season. There was a lull for about a month before cases ticked up again, starting with kicker Greg Zuerlein in November. Offensive line coach Joe Philbin and his assistant, Jeff Blasko, are out along with offensive assistant Scott Tolzien and right tackle Terence Steele.
Another disruption was when star wide receiver Amari Cooper — who is unvaccinated — tested positive two weeks ago and missed games against the Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders. Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones seemed to send a veiled message to Cooper, saying his positive test while being unvaccinated “is a classic case of how it can impact a team. At the end of the day, this is team. You cannot win anything individually.”
But after those comments, Jones drew his own criticism this week when saying during his radio hit on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas that the Cowboys no longer have to follow the stricter COVID rules with every player “having (gotten) vaccinated or having gotten the COVID.”
Thursday night will be the third time this season an NFL coach is missing a game because of health and safety protocols, McCarthy joining Kliff Kingsbury of the Arizona Cardinals and Matt Nagy of the Chicago Bears. McCarthy said other members of his family have also tested positive.
Top 25 Schedule
All Times Eastern
Friday’s Games
Western Kentucky at No. 22 UTSA, 7 p.m.
No. 11 Oregon vs. No. 19 Utah at Las Vegas, 8 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
No. 8 Baylor vs. No. 7 Oklahoma St. at Arlington, Texas, Noon
Utah State vs. No. 21 San Diego State at Carson, California, 3 p.m.
No. 1 Georgia vs. No. 3 Alabama at Atlanta, 4 p.m.
No. 24 Houston at No. 4 Cincinnati, 4 p.m.
No. 5 Michigan vs. No. 16 Iowa at Indianapolis, 8 p.m.
No. 17 Pittsburgh vs. No. 18 Wake Forest at Charlotte, 8 p.m.
NFL Schedule
All Times Eastern
Thursday’s Game
Dallas at New Orleans, 8:20 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Tampa Bay at Atlanta, 1 p.m.
Arizona at Chicago, 1 p.m.
L.A. Chargers at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.
Minnesota at Detroit, 1 p.m.
N.Y. Giants at Miami, 1 p.m.
Philadelphia at N.Y. Jets, 1 p.m.
Indianapolis at Houston, 1 p.m.
Washington at Las Vegas, 4:05 p.m. (Fans must show proof of vaccination to attend)
Jacksonville at L.A. Rams, 4:05 p.m. (Fans must show proof of vaccination to attend)
Baltimore at Pittsburgh, 4:25 p.m.
San Francisco at Seattle, 4:25 p.m.
Denver at Kansas City, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
New England at Buffalo, 8:15 p.m. (Fans must show proof of vaccination to attend)
NBA: Lakers’ LeBron James in COVID Health and Safety Protocols
Posted: Tuesday, November 30
The biggest name in the NBA has become the biggest name to miss games this season because of COVID-19.
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James entered NBA health and safety protocols and missed Tuesday’s game against the Kings with reports indicating that he will miss several games. If a player tests positive for COVID-19, the NBA mandates 10 days of isolation before a cardiac screening and reconditioning before being cleared to return. A player who tests positive could also be allowed to play after returning two negative PCR tests within a 24-hour period.
James said in late September that he had received the COVID-19 vaccine, admitting “I know that I was very skeptical about it all. But after doing my research and things of that nature, I felt like it was best suited, not only for me but for my family and my friends. And that’s why I decided to do it.”
James has missed half of the season so far for the struggling Lakers although that was because of injuries and a one-game suspension after an ejection against the Detroit Pistons. When he is in action, James is averaging 25.8 points, 6.8 assists and 5.2 rebounds per game this season.
“Obviously it’s a huge loss,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said before the game. “It’s disappointing. We just want the best for him right now.” Vogel added that the team found out James was going into protocols in the morning and made sure he got home to Los Angeles from Sacramento, where the Lakers were playing on Tuesday night.
The news of James’ entry into protocols comes hours after ESPN reported the NBA completed a study on preseason antibody test results of 2,300 players and staff, finding that Moderna and Pfizer vaccines created higher levels of antibodies compared to Johnson and Johnson.
The ESPN report said the NBA has had 34 fully vaccinated players or team staff test positive for a breakthrough case through November 19. The report added that the NBA has a 97 percent vaccination rate among players and is using the report to encourage either vaccinated players to get a booster shot in-season or have players who are unvaccinated — Brooklyn’s Kyrie Irving most notably among them — to get their initial shots.
Vogel said he and Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka met with Lakers players to emphasize the NBA’s recommendation “just to encourage and recommend the booster shot and the values that come with it.”
SPORTS: Omicron Variant Puts Sports World on Edge
Posted: Tuesday, November 30
Multiple sports events throughout Europe and Africa have been affected this week by the new COVID-19 variant while the first meeting between members of the Salt Lake City-Utah Bid Committee exploring a bid for the 2030 or 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland has been delayed until next week at the earliest.
A group of representatives from the SLC Bid Committee and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee including Utah Governor Spencer Cox, Committee Chief Executive Officer Fraser Bullock and USOPC Board Chair Susanne Lyons were on a call with the IOC Future Host Committee last month, according to a report in the Deseret News. Switzerland has a 10-day quarantine for several countries throughout Europe but not the United States, although the conditions are changing on a daily basis.
SLC bid dignitaries were planning to use the in-person meeting to lay out plans for a future Games at the meeting.
Elsewhere in international sports, European golfers were attempting to leave South Africa ahead of a DP World Tour event in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Organizers of golf’s Joburg Open, which started last Thursday, reduced the event to a three-round tournament ending on Saturday after at least 23 mostly European players pulled out in the hours after health authorities announced they had detected the new variant. This week’s South African Open will only be a South African event and the Alfred Dunhill Championship set for December 9–12 was canceled.
Irish golfer Paul Dunne, one of those to withdraw from the Joburg Open, told RTE Radio that he found some flights but they went via Ethiopia, where a yearlong conflict now threatens to reach the capital, Addis Ababa. Scottish golfer David Drysdale decided to keep playing and then stay in South Africa with his wife, who is also his caddy, and make a vacation of it.
“Most of the British players have all decided to head home and that’s totally understandable if you’ve got a wife and kids at home,” Drysdale told the Scotsman newspaper. “There wasn’t a (plane) seat to be had by the time we found out what had happened. A lot of the guys were panicking, but we thought, ‘what’s the point?’ We are staying with a mate in Joburg and our plan is to still stay until Christmas then return home. Hopefully this variant is not as bad as they are fearing … it’s not even been 24 hours since we heard about this.”
Meanwhile, visiting cricket and rugby teams were also altering plans after their matches were postponed “due to the sudden developments.” Rugby games in South Africa in a new European-South African tournament were postponed and a tour to South Africa by India’s cricket team next month was likely to be reconsidered. The Dutch cricket team, already in South Africa for a series, was considering whether to return home early but the Royal Netherlands Cricket Federation said it was “unlikely” to be able to find flights at short notice.
The Winter Universiade in Lucerne, Switzerland, has also been canceled. The multi-sport event had been due to take place from December 11–21 but the decision to cancel was made following meetings between the executive committee of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) and the board of directors of the local organizing committee.
Lucerne had been due to stage the event in January but it was postponed to December due to the pandemic. Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Israel and the Czech Republic are currently affected by Switzerland’s 10-day quarantine, with other countries likely to be added.
The Swiss action has caused problems for Manchester United, who are scheduled to host Young Boys of Bern in the Champions League next week. Under UEFA rules, if a match cannot be staged in the designated country then it falls to the host club to find a neutral venue.
More than just the events that are scheduled this month, concern over the new variant is already putting future world events at risk. The African Cup of Nations, Africa’s premier soccer tournament, is over a month away after having already been postponed for a year because of the pandemic. The 24-team tournament will be played in Cameroon but the event will be hard-hit if European countries extend travel restrictions across Africa. Top European soccer teams have previously prevented their African players from playing for their countries because of the quarantine periods imposed on them when they return.

And the German government has suggested crowds at sports events should be reduced after a weekend that featured one empty-stadium Bundesliga game and another with a crowd of 50,000. Germany has left the policy on sports events to the state governments this season up to this point; around the country, entry is typically restricted to people with proof of vaccination or proof they recently recovered from a coronavirus infection.
European countries have taken different approaches to allowing crowds at sports events. The English Premier League has played in front of full houses all season so far with no vaccination or testing requirements for fans. The Netherlands moved to empty stadiums for sports events this month.
NHL: Islanders Become Second Shutdown Team of the Season
Posted: Monday, November 29
The NHL’s second outbreak of the season to the point that a team has had games paused as revived the question of if the league will have to reverse its decision to let players go to the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing later this season.
The league paused the New York Islanders’ season on Saturday, less than 24 hours ahead of a game against the rival New York Rangers. Casey Cizikas on Saturday was the eighth Islanders player to test positive, prompting the NHL’s move. Anders Lee, Josh Bailey, Ross Johnston, Kieffer Bellows, Adam Pelech, Andy Greene and Zdeno Chara have all tested positive.
The shutdown comes as the Islanders have lost eight games in a row, including the first four games played at their new UBS Arena. Islanders President and General Manager Lou Lamoriello said Saturday that three non-playing members of the organization also have tested positive.

“We certainly have spoken to our trainers and our medical staff and everything is on an individual basis,” Lamoriello said when asked about the infected players’ stamina once they return to the ice. “This virus has affected people in all different ways. It certainly has affected our own players. So, we won’t have any answers to those questions until we get each and every one of them on the ice and see how they feel and see how they look.”
The Islanders could restart the season on Thursday against the San Jose Sharks, who earlier this season played a game while missing three coaches and seven players due to a COVID outbreak. The Islanders’ shutdown is the second of the season for the NHL, which earlier postponed games for the Ottawa Senators when 10 players and an assistant coach were in COVID protocols.
When the NHL announced before the season that it would pause the season to allow players to participate in the Olympic Winter Games, it was greeted with relief and joy from players who had been waiting for the opportunity — the NHL will hold All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas on February 4–5 before players fly to China for the Olympics that open February 9.
But the league also said that if it had enough games to reschedule, that it would consider pulling out from the Games. The NHL and Players Association has a January 10 deadline to withdraw.
No Thanksgiving Postponements for NFL But Attendance Issues Persist
Posted: Wednesday, November 24
Aaron Rodgers’ relationship with the truth was debated again as the NFL heads into its Thanksgiving Day weekend of games.
The Green Bay Packers star, who missed one game and sat out 10 days because he was unvaccinated — having told reporters in the preseason that he was “immunized” — said after Sunday’s loss to the Minnesota Vikings that he has been dealing with a painful toe injury that is worse than turf toe. Rodgers then went on the Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday and said he had no lingering effects from his illness “other than the COVID toe,” which has sent Google Search into a frenzy.

COVID toe is a condition that causes symptoms such as discoloration and lesions that can be extremely painful and turn the toes purple. Rodgers also mentioned on the show that the injury was a bone issue, which is not what COVID toe affects. The difference in description is what has led to debate over what the actual injury is.
Rodgers may have been made aware of the online debate before his Wednesday meeting with the media, disclosing that there is not COVID toe but a fractured toe and criticizing reports from others, saying “I can’t believe I again have to come on the air and talk about my medical information. But yeah. I have a fractured toe, I’ve never heard of COVID toe before.”
Quarterbacks have been in the spotlight all season when it comes to COVID and the NFL. Minnesota’s Kirk Cousins and Indianapolis’ Carson Wentz had to sit out during the preseason with both admitting they are unvaccinated. Rodgers’ saga has been well-told; Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger, who is vaccinated, had to miss one game after testing positive and this week the New York Jets had backup Mike White test positive, which also knocked out the unvaccinated Joe Flacco as a close contact. The Tennessee Titans put backup QB Logan Woodside on the COVID list on Wednesday; Titans starting QB Ryan Tannehill said before the season he only became vaccinated because of the NFL’s strict protocols for unvaccinated players.
While COVID has remained part of the NFL season, the league is in much better shape that it was at this time last season. The NFL had already rescheduled multiple games ahead of Thanksgiving last season but has not had to do so this year. It was also at this time last season that the NFL infamously had to postpone its prime-time Thanksgiving Day game between Pittsburgh and Baltimore until the following Sunday after an outbreak within the Ravens complex. The league later admitted after the season was finished that it was that game and the outbreak within Baltimore that was the closest it had come to having to add an extra week to the regular season, a step that did not end up needing to be taken.
The Thanksgiving Day games in Detroit and Dallas, along with a rotating prime-time game that this year will be in New Orleans, traditionally bring in sellout crowds. But that may be in doubt in Detroit, where the Lions are winless and have had some of the lowest crowds in Ford Field history this season. It’s been one data point in a larger trend of what could be lower actual attendance numbers for the NFL this season even if the paid attendance numbers are still strong.
The league’s overall attendance has been strong this season, in part because of big crowds in Las Vegas (93.9 percent capacity) in the Raiders’ inaugural season with fans in the market along with fans being allowed at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles for the first time to see the Rams (99.6 percent capacity) and Chargers (98.2 percent capacity).
One place where paid or actual attendance has been an issue is in Washington, where the team has an average paid attendance of 51,291 through five games this season — 62.6 percent capacity at FedEx Field. Washington is the only team that has not announced attendance at least at 80 percent capacity; the Lions are next-worst at 80.7 percent. The Saints are 30th but that is a big asterisk for the team given it played its first game in Jacksonville, Florida; the Jets are 29th at 88.1 percent.
There is a disclaimer for Washington, Detroit and New York, which are among the teams called out within the NFL for having low attendance numbers; the crowds may have some hesitancy because of COVID but each of those franchise have been, to put it charitably, underperforming on the field for several years. But as the NFL offers a rosy picture on tickets, there are seven teams below 90 percent capacity overall compared to three in 2019 before the pandemic.
“I think the narrative that everything is back to normal, which I continue to see, is just a head scratcher,” Legends VP for Business Operations Tim Statezni told Sportico recently. “There’s not a team I’ve talked to that has not had challenges with moving tickets.”
TicketManager CEO Tony Knopp told Sportico that in 2019, a ticket scan rate around 70 percent was typical in 2019 but sometimes for events dips below 40 percent: “That’s how we know demand is soft. A lot of the teams are playing the Aaron Rodgers game, like, I’m immunized, where they’re saying we distributed 16,000 tickets tonight and 6,000 people showed.”
Regardless of fan attendance, one thing that has not been reported all fall is any outbreaks from capacity (or near-capacity) crowds at NFL or college football games. There also has not been any documented spread of COVID from one player to another and last month, a study published in JAMA Network Open said that researchers from Texas A&M tracked nearly 1,200 SEC players between September 26 and December 19, 2020 with no cross-contamination between teams.
The players had wearable sensors that could determine what kind of contact they had during the game with three PCR Covid-19 tests each week. The study said players had 109,762 opponent interactions over 64 regular season games; 138 tested positive during the season with 18 testing positive within 48 hours of playing. The researchers said in their study that regular testing along with strict isolation and quarantine rules kept the majority of players who got sick off the field.
AP Top 25 Schedule
All Times EDT
Thursday’s Game
No. 12 Ole Miss at No. 25 Mississippi State, 7:30 p.m.
Friday’s Games
Boise State at No. 19 San Diego State, Noon
No. 17 Iowa at Nebraska, 1:30 p.m.
No. 5 Cincinnati at East Carolina, 3:30 p.m.
Missouri at No. 21 Arkansas, 3:30 p.m.
Colorado at No. 23 Utah, 4 p.m.
North Carolina at No. 20 North Carolina State, 7 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
No. 1 Georgia at Georgia Tech, Noon
No. 4 Ohio State at No. 6 Michigan, Noon
No. 10 Wake Forest at Boston College, Noon
Texas Tech at No. 11, Noon
No. 24 Houston at UConn, Noon
No. 22 UTSA at North Texas, 2 p.m.
No. 2 Alabama at Auburn, 3:30 p.m.
Oregon State at No. 3 Oregon, 3:30 p.m.
Penn State at No. 7 Michigan State, 3:30 p.m.
No. 15 Wisconsin at Minnesota, 4 p.m.
No. 16 Texas A&M at LSU, 7 p.m.
No. 13 Oklahoma at No. 9 Oklahoma State, 7:30 p.m.
No. 18 Pittsburgh at Syracuse, 7:30 p.m.
No. 8 Notre Dame at Stanford, 8 p.m.
No. 14 BYU at USC, 10:30 p.m.
NFL Schedule
All Times EDT
Thursday’s Games
Chicago at Detroit, 12:30 p.m.
Las Vegas at Dallas, 4:30 p.m.
Buffalo at New Orleans, 8:20 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.
Tampa Bay at Indianapolis, 1 p.m.
Carolina at Miami, 1 p.m.
Tennessee at New England, 1 p.m.
Philadelphia at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m.
Atlanta at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.
N.Y. Jets at Houston, 1 p.m.
L.A. Chargers at Denver, 4:05 p.m.
L.A. Rams at Green Bay, 4:25 p.m.
Minnesota at San Francisco, 4:25 p.m.
Cleveland at Baltimore, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Seattle at Washington, 8:15 p.m.
Canada Mandates Vaccination for Visiting MLB, NBA Players
Posted: Tuesday, November 23
While both the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association say athletes in its leagues are nearly 100 percent vaccinated, the relative few who are not will not be able to participate in any cross-border competition starting January 15.
Unvaccinated professional or amateur athletes will no longer be able to enter Canada on that date, said minister of public safety Marco Mendicino on Friday. While the NHL already bars unvaccinated players from playing in Canada, NBA players have been able to go to Toronto under an exemption made in September.
The decision by Mendocino and the Canadian government is based on the availability of vaccines throughout the world. The new rule, unless lifted in the spring, will also affect Major League Baseball teams that visit the Toronto Blue Jays.

Mendocino said there will be no exemption for individuals attempting to reunite with family, international students over 18, cross-border essential workers, and more, all in an attempt to increase vaccination rates in Canada and North America.
Canada’s decision is the latest in another series of moves within the sports world to ramp up vaccination rates as the winter approaches and fears of another surge are growing. Earlier last week, the International Olympic Committee announced that Pfizer and BioNTech SE will donate doses of the vaccine to participants in the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing.
Athletes heading to the 2022 Games must be fully vaccinated according to the requirements of their respective home countries at least 14 days prior to departure for China to be allowed into the closed loop system without quarantine. Anyone not fully vaccinated will need to quarantine for 21 days upon arrival in Beijing. Exceptions may be granted for athletes and team officials on a case-by-case basis, based on medical reasons.
But while Canada and the IOC are ramping up vaccination mandates and incentives, one NBA team will be dropping its fan requirement of providing proof of a negative test for entry. The Oklahoma City Thunder announced that beginning December 1, fans will be able to attend without proof of vaccination or a negative test.
“We have decided to lift our vaccination/testing requirements,” the team said Monday. “Since we announced the protocols in September, the Oklahoma Department of Health reports the percentage of Oklahoma County residents 12 and older who are fully or partially vaccinated has risen to 85%. The number of COVID cases statewide has dropped approximately 60% and hospitalizations have declined at similar rates.”
The requirements remain in place for games scheduled for Wednesday and Friday.
And then there is growing drama within one of the biggest clubs in world soccer, Germany’s Bayern Munich. The leaders of the Bundesliga lost on Friday, a rare occurrence for the powerhouse — which was without five players who are unvaccinated after a club official tested positive. Local health regulations stipulate a 10-day quarantine for contacts of people who have either unvaccinated or not recovered from COVID-19 in the past six months.
The five players will also miss a Champions League game at Dynamo Kyiv and potentially a December 4 game against second-place Borussia Dortmund. Bayern sent an internal announcement last week that it would withhold pay from anyone missing training or games due to being unvaccinated after labor law regulations in Germany changed November 1.
TENNIS: Aussie Open Vaccine Mandate Puts Ball in Djokovic’s Court
Posted: Monday, November 22
The Australian Open has made clear its policy of all players being vaccinated to be allowed to participate in the year’s first Grand Slam, leaving defending champion Novak Djokovic with his own decision to make.
Australian Open chief Craig Tiley confirmed Saturday that the state of Victoria will have the mandate for all players and fans. Djokovic, who is tied with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal for the most Grand Slam titles in men’s tennis history with 20, has refused to say if he is vaccinated and has previously declared doubts over the vaccine.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Djokovic said losing to Alexander Zverev in the semifinals of the ATP Finals on Saturday. “I was just waiting to hear what the news is going to be and now that I know we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Tiley said he had been in contact with Djokovic.
“I know that he wants to play, he’s clearly indicated that, and he knows the conditions that he would have to undergo in order to be eligible to play,” Tiley said. “Entry in here will be determined by around early to the middle of December on the entry deadline, so you’ll know when a player’s entered an event. … So in the next couple of weeks, you will have a really good indication of where everyone’s at because at that point there’s an official list of who’s going to be here.”
The vaccination policy for fans means there will be full crowds for the tournament. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews has been consistent in saying vaccines would be mandatory for players and fans but Australian federal authorities at one point indicated that unvaccinated players might be able to compete after a 14-day quarantine period.
The tournament starts January 17. Djokovic has won the tournament nine times in the past.
It will be the first Grand Slam where players have a vaccine mandate; events on the WTA and ATP Tours did not have one last year nor did any majors, including the U.S. Open — which did have a mandate for fans to either be vaccinated or show proof of a negative test to attend.
“Everyone on site, the fans, all the staff, the players, will need to be vaccinated,” Tiley said at the tournament’s official launch. “There’s been a lot of speculation about Novak’s position, he’s said it’s a private matter.”
NFL: League Steps Up Protocols As Thanksgiving Approaches
Posted: Friday, November 19
One of the moments where the National Football League last season was closest to canceling a game and instituting an extra week to the regular season came over the Thanksgiving holiday, when the Baltimore Ravens had a widespread outbreak within the team facility that forced the postponement of its game against the Pittsburgh Steelers to the following Monday.
With Thanksgiving approaching and cases rising across the country — the New York Times reported the U.S.’ 14-day average has increased 23 percent — the NFL has told all teams that there will be two days of mandatory testing after Thanksgiving, an increase from usual this season, along with mandatory mask wearing for all players and staff inside team facilities through December 1. Multiple outlets reported this week that the NFL is also requiring teams to have video cameras installed in all weight rooms and cafeterias to monitor mask wearing of players.
Teams currently test vaccinated players and staff once per week. Unvaccinated players are still tested on a daily basis and those results must come back negative before they are allowing into team facilities.
While the protocols have been increased for players and staff, no NFL team has increased fan protocols ahead of the holiday. The Las Vegas Raiders and Buffalo Bills are the only teams to require fans to show proof of vaccination to attend games; the Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers require either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test within 72 hours of kickoff.
Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, said the case increases and traditional family holiday gatherings is the motivation behind the increased protocols, especially with many medical professionals worried about a winter surge despite the widespread availability of vaccination.
“I know sometimes people see cases and say, ‘Well, if they are positive cases, the vaccines must not be working’” Sills said. “We have to always be reminded that the vaccines are designed to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death. And they continue to do an outstanding job with that. In addition to that, unvaccinated players have consistently tested players at a much higher rate than vaccinated players. … It’s clear that the vaccines are providing substantial benefits — milder illness, shorter duration and a lack of spread around the building.”
Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers said on “The Pat McAfee Show” on November 5 that he didn’t believe the NFL’s rules were based on science, two days after he tested positive and eventually missed a game. Sills disputed that belief this week.
“They’re always based on science,” Sills said. “The science that at best we understand for public health, but also our own data. We are constantly looking at our own data in every way possible, to see where we might still be vulnerable and what parts of our protocols we think are particularly effective. So, we’re very comfortable with what we’ve put in place being driven by our data and is working.”
COVID has not messed with any NFL games on the schedule but teams on a near-weekly basis have been affected by players coming on and off the COVID-19/reserve list. Sunday night’s game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Pittsburgh Steelers may have two big-name players with Chargers defensive lineman Joey Bosa and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in the league’s protocols this week.
Bosa’s vaccination status is unknown while Roethlisberger is vaccinated. One player who the NFL believes to be vaccinated is Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Antonio Brown, although the Tampa Bay Times reported on Thursday that Steven Ruiz, a former personal chef for Brown, said the player had his girlfriend reach out to Ruiz over the summer to obtain a fake vaccination card, offering $500.
Ruiz said he was unable to acquire a fake card but Brown later showed him one that he said he had purchased. Responding to the Times story, the Buccaneers released a statement saying they had “received completed vaccination cards from all Tampa Bay Buccaneers players.”
AP Top 25 Schedule
All Times EST
Friday’s Games
No. 17 Houston vs. Memphis, 9 p.m.
No. 23 San Diego St. at UNLV, 11:30 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
No. 1 Georgia vs. Charleston Southern, Noon
No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 21 Arkansas, 3:30 p.m.
No. 3 Cincinnati, vs. SMU, 3:30 p.m.
No. 4 Oregon at No. 24 Utah, 7:30 p.m.
No. 5 Ohio St. vs. No. 7 Michigan St., Noon
No. 6 Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech, 2:30 p.m.
No. 8 Michigan at Maryland, 3:30 p.m.
No. 9 Oklahoma St. at Texas Tech, 8 p.m.
No. 10 Mississippi vs. Vanderbilt, 7:30 p.m.
No. 11 Baylor at Kansas St., 5:30 p.m.
No. 12 Oklahoma vs. Iowa St., Noon
No. 13 Wake Forest at Clemson, Noon
No. 14 BYU at Georgia Southern, 4 p.m.
No. 15 UTSA vs. UAB, 3:30 p.m.
No. 16 Texas A&M vs. Prairie View, Noon
No. 18 Iowa vs. Illinois, 2 p.m.
No. 19 Wisconsin vs. Nebraska, 3:30 p.m.
No. 20 Pittsburgh vs. Virginia, 3:30 p.m.
No. 22 Louisiana-Lafayette at Liberty, 4 p.m.
No. 25 NC State vs. Syracuse, 4 p.m.
NFL Schedule
All Times EST
Thursday’s Game
New England at Atlanta, 8:20 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Indianapolis at Buffalo,1 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination to enter)
Baltimore at Chicago, 1 p.m.
Detroit at Cleveland, 1 p.m.
Houston at Tennessee, 1 p.m.
Green Bay at Minnesota, 1 p.m.
Miami at N.Y. Jets, 1 p.m.
New Orleans at Philadelphia, 1 p.m.
Washington at Carolina, 1 p.m.
San Francisco at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.
Cincinnati at Las Vegas, 4:05 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination to enter)
Dallas at Kansas City, 4:25 p.m.
Arizona at Seattle, 4:25 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination or negative COVID test to enter)
Pittsburgh at L.A. Chargers, 8:20 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination or negative COVID test to enter)
Monday’s Game
N.Y. Giants at Tampa Bay, 8:15 p.m.

SOCCER: NWSL Star May Miss Final Because of Protocols
Posted: Thursday, November 18
Ahead of the biggest game in the National Women’s Soccer League season, the league’s runner-up for Most Valuable Player could miss the game because of COVID-19 protocols.
Chicago Red Stars forward Mallory Pugh, along with defender Kayla Sharples, entered protocols before the Stars’ 2-0 upset win over the Portland Thorns last weekend. Chicago is scheduled to play the Washington Spirit in the NWSL championship game on Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky.
A NWSL player who tests positive for COVID-19 must clear a 10-day isolation period before returning and must be symptom-free for at least seven days. The date of Pugh’s positive test is not known, which puts her status in doubt.
Red Stars coach Rory Dames earlier this week was uncertain about the status of both Pugh and Sharples, who tweeted Sunday she is fully vaccinated and had gotten the booster shot.
Pugh’s vaccination status is in doubt. She was one of two players — Washington’s Trinity Rodman is the other — who opted out of the U.S. women’s national team camp that will be held after the NWSL title game in Australia with two games against the Australian national team as part of the trip. Vaccination is mandatory for those entering Australia and U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski said “everybody that travels to Australia will be fully vaccinated,” which naturally led to debate over both Pugh and Rodman’s statuses.
The other team in Saturday’s championship game, the Spirit, had their own issues with COVID this season. The team had to forfeit a match in the regular season against OL Reign for “breaches of the league’s medical protocols” in early September. The team also had a match at Portland postponed until later in the season after four players tested positive for COVID
The NWSL said this season that nearly 90 percent of players and almost all staff members were vaccinated.
NHL: Ottawa Postponements May Affect 2022 Olympics
Posted: Tuesday, November 16
The biggest outbreak for a professional sports league so far this fall could have far-reaching implications for the upcoming 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
The National Hockey League has postponed three Ottawa Senators for the next week among a COVID-19 outbreak on the team that has affected 10 players, the first time any North American major professional sports league has been hit by rescheduling this fall because of the coronavirus.
Games scheduled for Tuesday at New Jersey, at home Thursday against Nashville and at home Saturday against the New York Rangers were postponed. The NHL was still looking at when to reschedule the three games. The Senators are currently in last place in the Atlantic Division with a 4-10-1 record.
“The Senators organization has, and will continue to follow, all recommended guidelines aimed at protecting the health and safety of its players, staff and community at large as set by the NHL, local, provincial and national agencies,” the league said in a statement.
Ottawa’s team is fully vaccinated, which is the norm in the NHL — the league has less than 10 unvaccinated players overall. Besides the 10 players, associate coach Jack Capuano also is in protocol. The Athletic reported that the Senators lobbied to have a three-game homestead last week postponed, but the league denied the request. Before Monday’s announcement, the team played four games in six nights.
“The health and safety of the local community, the venue’s patrons and the organization’s staff and players is Senators Sports & Entertainment’s highest priority,” the team said.
Neither the NFL nor the NBA has had to postpone a game. Major League Baseball had nine postponements after 45 last year. The NHL postponed 51 games during its last regular season.
A handful of other NHL teams have been hit this season, including Pittsburgh and San Jose. Penguins star Sidney Crosby returned Sunday after an absence of more than 10 days because of the virus. Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon also missed time last month after testing positive, though he was asymptomatic. The NHL’s season protocols say players who test positive must be symptom-free 10 days after that initial positive result. Any player who tests positive and experiences symptoms must be cleared by a cardiologist.
The NHL had been planning all season to have a break for the Olympics so that its players would be able to participate in Beijing, an event that players have been openly wanting to play in. But the NHL’s agreement to let players go to Beijing included a clause that the league and Players Association have until January 10 to withdraw if circumstances force the cancellation of enough games that a nearly three-week break in February is not feasible.
FOOTBALL: Cases Stack Up Over Weekend, Sideline NFL Stars
Posted: November 15, 2021
The National Football League’s ability to get through the first 10 weeks of the season without any canceled games is in stark contrast to last season, in which the league had to reshuffle games on a near-weekly basis.
But that has not stopped this season from having to deal with multiple COVID positives affecting games including the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose three-game winning streak was stopped in a 16-16 tie with the winless Detroit Lions one day after quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list.

Roethlisberger previously told “The Dan Patrick Show” that he is vaccinated, which by the NFL’s health and safety protocols means he could return for next Sunday night’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers. A vaccinated player who tests positive must have two negative tests at least 24 hours apart and remain asymptomatic in order to return.
Roethlisberger is the first Steelers player to be put on the COVID-19 list this season. Last season the Steelers had multiple games moved not because of positives on their team but because of the other team dealing with COVID outbreaks, notably the Baltimore Ravens in a scheduled Thanksgiving Day game.
While one star quarterback was missing on Sunday because of COVID, another QB returned — Aaron Rodgers started for the Green Bay Packers in its xx-x win over the Seattle Seahawks one day after coming off the COVID list. Rodgers infamously tested positive last week and is unvaccinated after making misleading comments about his status earlier in the season.
The Buffalo Bills also had to make a gameday adjustment and placed defensive tackle Star Lotulelei on the reserve/COVID-19 list hours before the team’s 45-17 victory against the New York Jets. Lotulelei was the fifth Bills player to be placed on the COVID-19 list in the last week and a half. Another team dealing with virus-related issues is the Minnesota Vikings, who saw vaccinated offensive lineman Dakota Dozier admitted to the hospital for treatment against the virus during the week before he was released on Sunday.
FOOTBALL: NFL Cases Show League is Playing a Long Game with COVID-19
Posted: November 12, 2021
In a week that saw fines levied against the Green Bay Packers for the team’s handling of Aaron Rodgers’ COVID-19 protocols — as well as fines against the star quarterback stemming from his admittedly misleading comments about his vaccination status before testing positive earlier in the week — the seriousness of the virus continues to be felt across the league.
The latest team dealing with virus-related issues is the Minnesota Vikings, who saw vaccinated offensive lineman Dakota Dozier admitted to the hospital for treatment against the virus.
“One of our players that was vaccinated, he had to go to the ER last night because of COVID,” Coach Mike Zimmer told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s serious stuff. Like 29 guys are getting tested because of close contact, including myself.”
Of those that were deemed to be close contacts, the vaccinated individuals do not need to quarantine in accordance with the NFL’s coronavirus policy. But Dozier’s case is the latest to affect the team, who travels to Los Angeles on Sunday to play the Chargers.
The Vikings on Monday placed linebacker Ryan Connelly and offensive lineman Tim Parris, on the reserve/COVID-19 list, bringing the teams’ total at the time to five players on the list.
Vaccinated center Garrett Bradbury also missed the team’s game last week against Baltimore after being placed on the list.
The Vikings outbreak comes days after the NFL stepped in the Rodgers morass, fining the team, Rodgers and Allen Lazard. Rodgers and Lazard were each fined $14,650 for attending a Halloween party where video showed players without masks. The Packers, meanwhile, were levied a $300,000 fine for not properly enforcing safety protocols, including for instances where Rodgers did not wear a mask at press conferences. The team was also fined for not disciplining him and Lazard even though team officials knew about the party where the unvaccinated players were maskless — a violation of league policy.
“We respect the league’s findings and we recognize the importance of adherence to the COVID protocols to keep our team and organization safe and healthy,” Packers President Mark Murphy said in a statement. “We will continue to educate the team regarding the importance of the protocols and remain committed to operating within the protocols.”
As the situation shows in Minnesota as well, despite a tighter lid on the league’s protocols this season, the long game against the virus continues to be a daunting one.
This Weekend’s Games
All times in ET
College Football Top 25
Thursday, Nov. 11
No. 21 Pitt 30, North Carolina 23
Friday, November 12
No. 5 Cincinnati at South Florida | 6 p.m. | ESPN2
Saturday, Nov. 13
No. 1 Georgia at Tennessee | 3:30 p.m. | CBS
No. 2 Alabama vs. New Mexico State | 12 p.m. | SEC Network
No. 3 Oregon vs. Washington State | 10:30 p.m. | ESPN
No. 4 Ohio State vs. No. 19 Purdue | 3:30 p.m. | ABC
No. 6 Michigan at Penn State | 12 p.m. | ABC
No. 7 Michigan State vs. Maryland | 4 p.m. | FOX
No. 8 Oklahoma at No. 13 Baylor | 12 p.m. | FOX
No. 9 Notre Dame at Virginia | 7:30 p.m. | ABC
No. 10 Oklahoma State vs. TCU | 8 p.m. | FOX
No. 11 Texas A&M at No. 15 Ole Miss | 7 p.m. | ESPN
No. 12 Wake Forest vs. No. 16 NC State | 7:30 p.m. | ACC Network
No. 14 BYU — No game
No. 17 Auburn vs. Mississippi State | 12 p.m. | ESPN
No. 18 Wisconsin vs. Northwestern | 12 p.m. | ESPN2
No. 20 Iowa vs. Minnesota | 3:30 p.m. | Big Ten Network
No. 22 San Diego State vs. Nevada | 10:30 p.m. | CBSSN
No. 23 UTSA vs. Southern Miss | 3:30 p.m. | ESPN+
No. 24 Utah at Arizona | 2 p.m. | Pac-12 Network
No. 25 Arkansas at LSU | 7:30 p.m. | SEC Network
NFL Schedule Week 10
Thursday, November 11
Ravens 10, Dolphins 22
Sunday, November 14
Bills at Jets, 1 p.m. ET
Buccaneers at Washington, 1 p.m.
Falcons at Cowboys, 1 p.m.
Saints at Titans, 1 p.m.
Jaguars at Colts 1 p.m.
Lions at Steelers, 1 p.m.
Browns at Patriots, 4:05 p.m.
Panthers at Cardinals, 4:05 p.m.
Eagles at Broncos, 4:25 p.m.
Seahawks at Packers, 4:25 p.m.
Chiefs at Raiders, 8:20 p.m.
Monday, November 15
Rams at 49ers, 8:15 p.m.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Cal and USC Postpone Game Over COVID-19 Outbreak
Posted: November 10, 2021
Flash back for a moment to the tumultuous 2020 college football season, where game cancellations due to COVID-19 were a regular part of the weekend schedule. Virtually no teams and leagues were spared the will-they-or-won’t-they-play scenario as games disappeared from the schedule.
By that standard, the 2021 season can be viewed as nothing short of success. But the fall wave of COVID cases around the country has finally caught up to college football. On Tuesday, the Pac-12 became the first conference hit, announcing that the Cal-USC game scheduled for this Saturday will be postponed after an outbreak in the Cal football program.
Before the season, the Pac-12 along with other major conferences announced that any team that couldn’t field a team for COVID purposes would have to forfeit their game — a change from the previous season when such canceled games simply didn’t count on a team’s record.

But after contacting the Pac-12 about the situation, Cal and USC agreed to postpone the game to December 4 — the day after the Pac-12 Championship Game. For USC, whose overall record is 4-5, the game offers a chance to reach potential bowl eligibility (At 3-4 in the conference, they are out of the running for the championship game). Cal’s record sits at 3-6 with a shot at the Pac-12 title game already out of reach.
“It was a difficult decision to postpone this Saturday’s game against USC,” Cal Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton said. “We know how important every one of our games is to our student-athletes, especially our seniors who have been incredible representatives of the program, but it was the right thing to do. Due to additional impact on specific position groups, we have decided to postpone Saturday’s game. We have had multiple COVID-19 positives within our program, and we are taking every step we can to mitigate the spread and protect the greater community.”
USC Interim Coach Donte Williams said his team’s preference was to play the game.
“We want to play the game, and a forfeit is not the way to go, and that’s not the way you want to qualify for a bowl game,” he said. “Our whole thing is fighting on and competing, right, that’s our biggest thing is competing and I’m pretty sure they want to compete against us so we look forward to the opportunity.”
Cal played its game last week at Arizona, losing 10-3 to the previously winless Arizona team. Cal played without starting quarterback Chase Garbers and six other starters because of positive tests that took 24 players and assistant coaches out of play. The school had not been regularly testing asymptomatic players throughout the season but began testing close contacts and eventually the entire team, which led to the two dozen positive tests.
Garbers was critical of how Cal has handled the process of testing saying in a Twitter post on Monday night that the school had not been transparent about whether COVID tests were recommended or mandated, suggesting that those that have not developed symptoms should not be forced to be tested.
“We have worked too hard to have someone take this all away from us. It is wrong,” Garbers wrote. “We deserve answers and transparent communication.”
BASKETBALL: NBA, Players Association, Encourage Boosters
Posted: November 9, 2021
As the professional sports leagues in North America continue their seasons, leagues continue to remind their athletes that the threats of COVID-19 remain. That is the case in the NBA, where the league and the National Basketball Players Association have advised players, coaches and referees that they should receive booster shots when they are eligible, according to a report from the Associate Press, or soon face game-day testing.
The league also noted a particular urgency for those who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine more than two months ago, suggesting that those players especially receive a booster. The sides also encouraged players who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines more than six months ago to get a booster shot.

Depending on when they received their last vaccination dose, some players will begin being subject to game-day testing until they receive a booster, according to the report. An estimated 97 percent of NBA players were believed to be vaccinated when the season began.
Even before the recent messaging, some teams were staring to plan for players to receive booster shots when available. Those moves come as several players — including those that were previously vaccinated — are being put into league protocols for testing positive or being exposed to those who had.
One of the biggest names on that list is Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, who returned a positive test for COVID-19 on Monday morning, according to ESPN. Embiid missed Monday’s game against the New York Knicks and will be required to sit for at least 10 days according to the league’s protocols. Embiid is the fourth member of the team in the health and safety protocols, joining forward Tobias Harris and guards Matisse Thybulle and Isaiah Joe.
RUNNING: Marathons Make Return to New York, Los Angeles
Posted: November 8, 2021
One of the hardest hit segments of the sports-events industry during the pandemic was mass participation races. But big city marathons are back, and in New York and Los Angeles on Sunday, runners took back to the street in big numbers, weeks after similar large-scale races were staged in Chicago and Boston.
To be sure, the fields for the TCS New York City Marathon and the Los Angeles Marathon were down from their 2019 and 2020 numbers, by design. New York, which was unable to race in 2020, saw an estimated 33,000 runners, down from a high of more than 50,000, for what was the 50th running of the race that covers all five city boroughs. In Los Angeles, an estimated 13,000 runners hit the streets, down from a 2020 field of 27,000.
“Our operations team has always been planning for a reduced field size in order to safely host the marathon and provide for adequate social distancing at the start line and on the course,” Dan Cruz, the Los Angeles Marathon’s head of communications, told City News Service.
The fact that both races were staged on the same day was a function of the pandemic. The 2020 Los Angeles race was held just weeks before society started to shut down in March 2020. The 2021 race was pushed back on the calendar, although the 2022 race is expected to return to its traditional March dates.

The 2021 version of the Los Angeles race also saw a new route for racers in its 36th edition: A start at Dodger Stadium that wove its way through downtown Los Angeles, Echo Park, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood and Brentwood before returning through Westwood to its finish in Century City. The “Stadium to the Stars” route was used for the first time and was re-routed after marathon organizers failed to reach an agreement over increased costs by the city of Santa Monica, which for years has served as the finishing point.
The Los Angeles race saw its smallest field since its start in 1986, but organizers reported that they were happy with the turnout, whose field was limited on purpose to avoid further crowding.
In New York, fans lined the streets for what has become a tradition over 50 years in early November. The 2021 version, however, had notable differences from any past race. The field was limited to about 40 percent of capacity and runners had to be vaccinated or show proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of the race. (Los Angeles had the same requiment of racers.) Spectators were encouraged to maintain social distancing, and some ancillary events were scaled back to abide by the rules. A fifth starting wave was also added in an effort to further distance participants.
The classic line of, ‘We’ve always done it that way,’ that wasn’t going to be an option,” race director Ted Metellus said.
FOOTBALL: Aaron Rodgers Case Shows COVID Vaccines Still an Issue
Posted: November 5, 2021
One of the biggest names in the National Football League has turned into one of the biggest stories in sports this week after testing positive for COVID-19 — and subsequently being reported as unvaccinated.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers will not play against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday after testing positive, becoming the biggest name in the NFL to have a positive test this season and miss a game.
The NFL’s protocols say that unvaccinated players such as Rodgers must isolate a minimum of 10 days if they test positive even without symptoms. If Rodgers had been vaccinated, he would have been able to return once he produced two negative tests with 24 hours in between.
The attention focused around Rodgers is not only his stature within the game but because of his now-infamous comments before the season that he had been “immunized” adding “there’s guys on the team that haven’t been vaccinated. I think it’s a personal decision. I’m not going to judge those guys. There are guys that’ve been vaccinated that have contracted COVID. It’s an interesting issue that I think we’re going to see played out the entire season.”
While at the time it was taken as an affirmation that he had been vaccinated, both ESPN and the NFL Network reported that the NFL has considered Rodgers as unvaccinated all season. ESPN reported that Rodgers requested the NFL to approve “an alternate treatment” he underwent in the offseason, a request that was denied. NFL Network reported that Rodgers received “homeopathic treatment from his personal doctor” to raise his antibody levels.
Attention has also been focused on Rodgers’ multiple media appearances while not wearing a mask — which for unvaccinated players is not supposed to happen. The NFL released a statement on Wednesday afternoon noting “the primary responsibility” for enforcing protocols is with the team and noted that teams have been disciplined in the past for protocol violations.
Packers coach Matt LaFleur was asked whether Rodgers’ preseason comments were misleading, replying “It’s a great question for Aaron, I’m not going to comment on it.”
Rodgers is the Packers’ second star to test positive this season. Receiver Davante Adams was out last week because of a positive test and missed a win over the previously unbeaten Arizona Cardinals; ESPN said Rodgers follows masking protocols while interacting with players and coaches at the team’s headquarters.
Rodgers will be away from the Packers until at least November 13, the day before Green Bay is scheduled to face the Seattle Seahawks.
AP Top 25 Schedule
All Times EDT
Thursday’s Game
No. 24 Louisiana-Lafayette vs. Georgia St., 7:30 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
No. 1 Georgia vs. Missouri, Noon
No. 2 Cincinnati vs. Tulsa, 3:30 p.m.
No. 3 Alabama vs. LSU, 7 p.m.
No. 5 Michigan St. at Purdue, 3:30 p.m.
No. 6 Ohio St. at Nebraska, Noon
No. 7 Oregon at Washington, 7:30 p.m. (fans must show proof of vaccination or negative COVID test within 72 hours of kickoff)
No. 8 Notre Dame vs. Navy, 3:30 p.m.
No. 9 Michigan vs. Indiana, 7:30 p.m.
No. 10 Wake Forest at North Carolina, Noon
No. 11 Oklahoma St. at West Virginia, 3:30 p.m.
No. 12 Auburn at No. 13 Texas A&M, 3:30 p.m.
No. 14 Baylor at TCU, 3:30 p.m.
No. 15 Mississippi vs. Liberty, Noon
No. 16 UTSA at UTEP, 10:15 p.m.
No. 17 BYU vs. Idaho St., 3 p.m.
No. 18 Kentucky vs. Tennessee, 7 p.m.
No. 19 Iowa at Northwestern, 7 p.m.
No. 20 Houston at South Florida, 7:30 p.m.
No. 21 Coastal Carolina at Georgia Southern, 6 p.m.
No. 22 Penn St. at Maryland, 3:30 p.m.
No. 23 SMU at Memphis, Noon
No. 25 Fresno St. vs. Boise St., 7 p.m.
NFL Schedule
All Times EDT
Thursday’s Game
N.Y. Jets at Indianapolis, 8:20 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Cleveland at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.
Denver at Dallas, 1 p.m.
Houston at Miami, 1 p.m.
Atlanta at New Orleans, 1 p.m.
Las Vegas at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m.
New England at Carolina, 1 p.m.
Buffalo at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.
Minnesota at Baltimore, 1 p.m.
L.A. Chargers at Philadelphia, 4:05 p.m.
Green Bay at Kansas City, 4:25 p.m.
Arizona at San Francisco, 4:25 p.m.
Tennessee at L.A. Rams, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Chicago at Pittsburgh, 8:15 p.m.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: SEC Pleased With Non-COVID Affected Start to Season
Posted: Thursday, November 4
Heading into the weekend off the announcement that Georgia and Alabama are Nos. 1-2 in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season, one of the biggest reliefs so far for Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey is not the CFP standings — if anything, that would be expected for what has been the dominant conference in college football for several years now.
The real bright spot is that so far this season, the SEC has had no issues with COVID within any of its programs. Two games last season were canceled and declared no-contests and several others were shuffled throughout the 2020 season; at one point, four out of seven games were postponed in one weekend.
“You don’t get to lose focus,” Sankey said on this week’s SportsTravel Podcast. “Last year, we had great momentum built up, three weeks of uninterrupted football competition and then it was a constant cycle of disruption. And I really thought when we moved to the end of November that it would get easier and it became harder.”
“So I take the same approach here,” he continued. “We can’t lose focus, we have to encourage healthy behavior. We’ve been close — not in football but in some other sports with having to not play games which would become forfeits. I’m encouraged, I’m hopeful, I don’t lose focus and I’m still on edge. Maybe not quite as on edge as I was last year because we’re not seeing the positive test results. We have to stay vigilant and then as we go indoors for men’s and women’s basketball in particular, our level of attention has to exponentially increase and we’re going to have to be intentional about communicating healthy behaviors both for our teams and for our fans who seek to attend.”
With last season in mind — and while trying to encourage vaccination by players and coaches knowing it cannot mandate them as a conference — the SEC announced at the start of the year that if a team was not able to participate in a game because of “unavailability issues” the game would be forfeited.
“We haven’t mandated the vaccine but we have worked to educate people,” Sankey said. “… We are active in states that have anti-vaccine mandates, that’s just a reality. We have to follow the law, the state laws around vaccination. Interestingly enough, we’re now having universities facing federal contract requirements that mandate vaccinations so you’re seeing announcements at a number of our campuses.”
That comment is in reference to the recent news at Auburn University that all employees, including coaches, must be vaccinated by December 8. Auburn football coach Bryan Harsin tested positive for COVID on August 20 and missed 10 days of preseason practice; he has repeatedly declined to share his vaccination status, including when asked after Auburn’s announcement of a mandate.
Sankey also touched on other issues on the podcast, including;
- The SEC’s philosophy on conference championship settings. While the league has events that have been traditional stops such as baseball in Hoover, Alabama, and football in Atlanta, other events have rotated around member campuses and for basketball, sometimes in Greenville, South Carolina, which is driving distance for multiple schools including nominal host South Carolina. “We have a neutral site in baseball, there’s been a facility investment by the city of Hoover, but we’re on campus for softball (and) that seems disparate,” Sankey said. “(But) what we know is on our campuses for softball, we have the best facilities in the country, bar none. We have had investments of multiple tens of millions of dollars in softball facilities that meet that national championship caliber expectations. … As we’ve looked across our region, going to a park and playing in what is a nice softball facility but is not world class is not how we’re going to support our student-athletes. … Basketball, we used to move it around a lot, we’ve been in men’s basketball primarily in Nashville, in women’s basketball primarily in Greenville, South Carolina. That flips this year but after the coming season, we’ll be in Nashville for the next decade. We do that because we learned the constant movement didn’t give us the feel, the buzz around our event that we want.”
- Gender equity within college sports and the SEC. “We have been very intentional about how we support our championships well in advance of some of the challenges the NCAA has faced,” Sankey said, “but we’ve even undertaken within our staff a review looking at the equity between and among our sports, … making sure that our commitment is consistent with our aspirations to support national championship caliber competitions for men and women. We were all embarrassed by what was identified in San Antonio, I think in many ways it’s inexcusable and it’s a failure from an operational standpoint and a management standpoint. I don’t think we needed a law firm to tell us what was wrong but the NCAA leadership and its board of governors chose that route.”I read with interest the first phase … I’m concerned that we have to validate those opinions. Those are opinions from an outside firm. That doesn’t negate the observations but that doesn’t mean they are automatically correct. … I know how to run championships, my staff knows how to run championships, the NCAA staff knows how to run championships. When we fall down, we owe it to the young people in our program to look deeply at ourselves and the fact that there’s an outside review should encourage us to look deeply at ourselves, not simply substitute our own professional judgement on how to change.”
PRO SPORTS: Several NBA, NHL Stars Test Positive
Posted: Thursday, November 4
Philadelphia 76ers forward Tobias Harris is in the NBA’s health and safety protocols after testing positive for COVID, one in a series of big-name players in the NBA and NHL to have tested positive in the past week.
Harris averages 19.8 points and nine rebounds per game with the 76ers. A player who tests positive has to sit out a minimum of 10 days.
“He’s doing OK but not great, honestly,” 76ers coach Doc Rivers said before Philadelphia’s game on Wednesday. “That’s the most I’m gonna say about it. But it hit him, for sure. A lot of guys have had this and they are mad like, ‘What the hell? I’m fine.’ Tobias is not in that category right now.”
Three other notable players in the NBA have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past week, including Cleveland Cavaliers teammates Kevin Love and Lauri Markkanen as well as Milwaukee Bucks star Khris Middleton, who missed a game Sunday with what was then called a non-COVID illness.
“We thought he just had a head cold or some type of non-COVID illness,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “And then, [he] didn’t feel good again the next day. Got tested and has come back positive.”
And one of the biggest names in the NHL, Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, has tested positive in a breakthrough case. Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said Crosby is showing mild symptoms and is the NHL’s protocols, which means he will be self-isolating for 10 days after symptoms first appear; or at least 24 hours since the last recorded fever.
Pittsburgh defensemen Chad Ruhwedel and Marcus Pettersson remain in protocols after testing positive and having mild symptoms. Another defender, Brian Dumoulin, missed practice after testing positive but is asymptomatic, which means he can return after two negative tests that are 24 hours apart. The Penguins’ COVID issues come a few days after the San Jose Sharks had to put seven players and their coach in the league protocols for positive tests.
RUNNING: Boston Marathon to Enforce Vaccine Mandate
Posted: Wednesday, November 3
One of the biggest mass-participation events in the country will be restored to its traditional date — with a vaccine mandate and participation cap for 2022.
The Boston Athletic Association announced Tuesday that the field size for the 126th Boston Marathon on April 18, 2022, has been established as 30,000 participants who must be fully vaccinated to participate. The race will return to Patriots’ Day for the first time since 2019 after the 2020 event was held virtually and the 2021 event was held on October 11.

“As we look to return to the traditional Patriots’ Day date for the first time since 2019 and allow for as many athletes to participate as safely as possible, we know that a fully vaccinated field is the appropriate requirement to implement,” said Tom Grilk, president and chief executive officer of the B.A.A. “We had a 93% vaccination rate among our 125th Boston Marathon participants and want to do our part to continue to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 as we continue our return to racing.”
Participants will need to provide proof of vaccination prior to participating in the race while requests for a medical exemption will be reviewed individually. Achieving the qualifying standard does not guarantee acceptance into the Boston Marathon due to field size limitations. Those who are fastest among the pool of applicants in their age and gender group will be accepted.
INTERNATIONAL SPORTS: Events in China, Abu Dhabi Rescheduled
Posted: Wednesday, November 3
World Athletics and the local organising committee for the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships Yangzhou 2022 have agreed to postpone the championships, which were scheduled to be held in China, on 27 March 27 and will now take place on November 13. The postponement is due to the biosecurity measures and travel restrictions currently in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in China.
“World Athletics and the LOC in Yangzhou are committed to the responsible planning and delivery of the half marathon championships, which includes ensuring that athletes from all international federations are able to participate and enjoy an experience that is befitting a World Athletics Series event,” the organization said in an announcement.
The International Mixed Martial Arts Federation has also announced the rescheduling of its 2021 World Championships to Abu Dhabi, January 24–29, after the earlier cancellation of the event to be originally held in Kazakhstan. The senior and junior nations tournaments will take place at the Jiu-Jitsu Arena in Zayed Sports City, near UFC Fight Island. The annual event in 2019 attracted around 450 athletes from 49 nations, before COVID-19 put a stop to IMMAF championships in 2020, making this the first IMMAF Worlds in two years.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: CFP Expansion Hits Next Stage of Negotiations
Posted: Wednesday, November 3
Commissioners from the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences, along with Notre Dame, will arrive today in Dallas for the latest meeting about the potential for expansion of the College Football Playoff that could potentially bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in new income to a collegiate sports scene that continues to determine the financial ramifications of the pandemic.
The entire process surrounding the expansion talk comes from the first summer announcement that it was being considered — an announcement, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told the SportsTravel Podcast this week, was intentional.
“That was done with the understanding that if we started to pursue this 12-team format behind the scenes, it would leak,” Sankey said. “Rather than just deal with a bunch of leaks of information, let’s just take it straight on. But even at that time, there was no certainty that that would be the model that all 11 of the entities in the decision-making body would say yes” because all parties involved must approve any decision.

The official proposal floated in the summer was expansion from four teams to 12, comprised of the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large teams determined by a 13-member selection committee. The first round of the games would be played on campus sites with the top four seeds receiving byes. A meeting in September did not come to any resolutions.
And with the Big 10, ACC and Pac-12 now in an informal “Alliance” after the decision by Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 for the SEC, which has set off a chain reaction of conference realignment announcements, getting unanimous consent will take some doing.
“It’s clear the majority of participants support this proposed expansion but we still have some work to do with others and we’ll see what that means,” Sankey said. “For the Southeastern Conference in particular, we’re open to expansion. We’re not the ones called for the change to the format. We think the four-team format has worked and is working well, and it can continue to work well. But we have a responsibility to look broadly at the future of college football and that’s created at least for our part the willingness to explore this new 12-team expansion.”
Even the composition of a potential first-round has become the focus of some lobbying by Bowl Season, the group that oversees the operation of the 43 postseason games. ESPN reported last week that it has sent a letter to over 100 people involved in college football asking that the bowl games be hosts for the first round rather than campus sites, saying “the bowls would provide a neutral, competitively fair setting for these games as they have throughout their history. To exclude bowl games from any round of an expanded playoff would be harmful to Bowl Season, individual bowls and their host communities, and post-season college football in general.”
NBA: Nets Owner Joe Tsai Says Team is More Important than Kyrie
Posted: Tuesday, November 2
So much of the NBA’s off-court attention in the early part of the season has been the ongoing Kyrie Irving saga with Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai telling ESPN over the weekend that he hopes the guard gets vaccinated soon without holding out too much hope at the same time.
Tsai told ESPN he has not spoken to Irving since the announced before the season that Irving would not be the team until he complies with New York City’s COVID-19 mandate of getting at least one vaccination shot. Irving said on Instagram Live on October 13 that he isn’t pro- or anti-vaccine.
“Kyrie has his own belief so I respect that,” Tsai said. “But we have to make a team decision. This is not a decision about him. This is a decision about where we go as a team. And it is just not tenable for us to have a team with a player that comes in and out, no home games, only away games.”
Irving said on his Instagram Live that he was trying to be a voice for the voiceless, a comment that has drawn heavy criticism — especially in light of protestors who were very much in full voice outside the Barclays Center for the Nets’ home opener in October. Security at one point before the game had to stop protestors from trying to storm the arena doors.
“I just think that it’s cavalier for people to hijack something like this when life and death is at stake,” Tsai told ESPN. “… These guys are not basketball fans. They could care less whether someone is on the court playing or not. They’re hijacking the issue, but it’s dangerous because we have a life-and-death situation. The fact is, if you are not vaccinated and you catch COVID, you have a much higher probability of getting very, very sick and end up in the ICU and possibly die. That’s the consequence.”
The NBA put two notable players into the health and safety protocols on Monday, Cleveland’s Kevin Love and Philadelphia’s Tobias Harris. It is unclear how long both players will be out as of this time.
One player who was in the protocols in the preseason was Boston’s Jaylen Brown, who was able to return in time for the team’s season opener and has not missed any games. But after dealing with COVID, Brown said last week that sometimes he feels like he played three games after one night.
“I’ve noticed in the last couple of days — what, four games for me now? — my body hasn’t recovered the same in a sense. I’ve been talking to our medical staff about that,” he told NBC Sports Boston. “Like, I feel great. And then it feels like instead of playing one game, it kind of feels like I played three. I’m used to my body responding and recovering a lot faster. I know I just turned 25, but this can’t be what it looks like on the other side.”
Brown tested positive on October 8 and sat 10 days. He scored 46 points in 46 minutes in a season-opening, double overtime loss to the New York Knicks on October 20 but has had an inconsistent start to the season; he scored 30 points last Monday against the Charlotte Hornets, then made only eight shots in the next two games while dealing with joint pain and breathing issues; Brown now uses an inhaler when not in games.
“Some days I feel fantastic and then it’s like two, three days, it takes my body too long to feel fantastic again,” Brown said. “That’s an issue for me.”
NHL: Short-Handed Sharks Win Despite Team Outbreak
Posted: Monday, November 1
The San Jose Sharks’ overtime victory against the Winnipeg Jets, even so early in the 2021–2022 National Hockey League season, will likely end up as one of the most impressive by the time the season is over for what the Sharks went through ahead of the game.
San Jose coach Bob Boughner and seven players were put in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol only 25 minutes before the start of the game on Saturday in California. Forwards Andrew Cogliano, Jonathan Dahlen and Matt Nieto, and defensemen Erik Karlsson, Jake Middleton, Radim Simek and Marc-Edouard Vlasic missed the game while in the protocol.

“That’s what adversity does, right? It forces you to depend on each other and bring out the best in each other,” Sharks goalie James Reimer said.
The team had announced that there were “some positives” within the organization five hours before the game but did not reveal the official list until shortly before the opening faceoff, calling in five players from the AHL San Jose Barracuda. The game was delayed 30 minutes because of waiting for the test results.
“It was a crazy day but a big game for us. … I’m proud of every guy in the room right now,” Tomas Hertl said.
Sharks assistant coach John MacLean assumed head coaching duties and development coach Mike Ricci also joined the bench. Both the Sharks and Barracuda rosters are fully vaccinated.
“It was a tremendous effort,” MacLean said. “(We) had great energy and they all knew they had to play. … The bench was lively. They were pretty much coaching themselves. They were excited to get out there and play, so that’s always fun to see.”
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Auburn Coach Faces Vaccine Mandate
Posted: Friday, October 29
Shortly after Washington State fired its head coach in midseason with a winning record for his refusal to comply with a statewide vaccination mandate, one of the biggest schools in the Southeastern Conference may soon face the same situation.
Auburn University last week mandated that all university employees must be fully vaccinated by December 8 and so far, Tigers football coach Bryan Harsin has declined to say whether or not he has been — or will get — vaccinated.

Harsin refused to discuss his vaccination status at SEC media days in July and said it was a personal decision. But questions over his vaccination status have resurfaced after Auburn’s announcement.
“I’m aware of the new policy and appreciate you have to ask the question and understand it, but it doesn’t change — the executive order and all those things — that I’m not going to discuss any individual’s decision or status on the vaccine or anyone else’s, including my own,” said Harsin, who just moved to Auburn before this season after a tenure at Boise State. “I’ve made it clear that wasn’t something I was going to talk about or discuss and wasn’t going to go down that road. I don’t feel like right now that’s any different.”
The spotlight on Harsin’s status comes at — from a football standpoint — the worst time possible for Auburn, which has won three of its past four games and risen to No. 18 in the Associated Press Top 25 rankings ahead of Saturday’s home game against No. 10 Ole Miss.
“We’re focused on Ole Miss. We’re focused on the things we have to do to get prepared for this week,” Harsin said. “… We’ve had those conversations [about the vaccine], but that doesn’t change what I’ve said before.”
Auburn’s policy has limited circumstances where an employee is entitled to a medical or religious accommodation. Harsin tested positive for COVID-19 in August and had to step away from preseason for several days.
Harsin’s ambivalence in talking about his vaccination status stands in contrast to Auburn’s biggest rival, Alabama, where coach Nick Saban has done public service announcements encouraging vaccination.
Auburn is not the only SEC school where a vaccine mandate has recently been installed. Mississippi’s Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees voted this week to require those employed by colleges and universities to be vaccinated by Dec. 8. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said his team and staff was 100 percent vaccinated right before the season started, and Kiffin missed only one game after testing positive in a breakthrough case. Mississippi State head football coach Mike Leach has declined to discuss his vaccination status.
“The whole COVID vaccine thing bounces all over the place,” Leach said this week. “It would be like commenting on each hit in a tennis match, so I don’t have any comment.”
Washington State fired Nick Rolovich and four assistants after they refused to comply with a mandate that required all state employees to be vaccinated. Rolovich is suing Washington State for illegal termination. ESPN this week released a story inside the final months of Rolovich’s tenure, including details in which the school set up a meeting for him with a Washington State immunologist to answer vaccine questions.
Dr. Guy Palmer told ESPN that Rolovich never mentioned religious concerns, instead asking anti-vaccine questions: “Is Bill Gates involved with the vaccines? Does [Gates] hold a patent on the vaccines?” Palmer told ESPN. “He asked whether SV40 is in the vaccines and whether that could be a dangerous thing. And the answer to that is no.”
AP Top 25 Schedule
All Times Eastern
Thursday’s Games
No. 24 Coastal Carolina vs. Troy, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
No. 1 Georgia vs. Florida at Jacksonville, Fla., 3:30 p.m.
No. 2 Cincinnati at Tulane, Noon
No. 4 Oklahoma vs. Texas Tech, 3:30 p.m.
No. 5 Ohio St. vs. No. 20 Penn St., 7:30 p.m.
No. 6 Michigan at No. 8 Michigan St., Noon
No. 7 Oregon vs. Colorado, 3:30 p.m. (Fans must show proof of vaccination or negative COVID test)
No. 9 Iowa at Wisconsin, Noon
No. 10 Mississippi at No. 18 Auburn, 7 p.m.
No. 11 Notre Dame vs. North Carolina, 7:30 p.m.
No. 12 Kentucky at Mississippi St., 7 p.m.
No. 13 Wake Forest vs. Duke, 4 p.m.
No. 15 Oklahoma St. vs. Kansas, 7 p.m.
No. 16 Baylor vs. Texas, Noon
No. 17 Pittsburgh vs. Miami, Noon
No. 19 SMU at Houston, 7 p.m.
No. 21 San Diego St. vs. Fresno St., 10:30 p.m.
No. 22 Iowa St. at West Virginia, 2 p.m.
No. 25 BYU vs. Virginia, 10:15 p.m.
NFL Schedule
All Times Eastern
Thursday’s Game
Green Bay at Arizona, 8:20 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Carolina at Atlanta, 1 p.m.
Miami at Buffalo, 1 p.m. (Fans must show proof of full vaccination)
San Francisco at Chicago, 1 p.m.
Pittsburgh at Cleveland, 1 p.m.
Philadelphia at Detroit, 1 p.m.
Tennessee at Indianapolis, 1 p.m.
Cincinnati at N.Y. Jets, 1 p.m.
L.A. Rams at Houston, 1 p.m.
New England at L.A. Chargers, 4:05 p.m.
Jacksonville at Seattle, 4:05 p.m. (Fans must show proof of vaccination or negative COVID test)
Washington at Denver, 4:25 p.m.
Tampa Bay at New Orleans, 4:25 p.m.
Dallas at Minnesota, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
N.Y. Giants at Kansas City, 8:15 p.m.
NFL: Packers Short-Handed on Stars Ahead of Marquee Game
Posted: Wednesday, October 27
The biggest game so far this NFL season is going to see the Green Bay Packers without one of their stars because of COVID-19.
The Green Bay Packers could potentially be without wide receiver Davante Adams after he was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list Monday ahead of Thursday night’s game against the unbeaten Arizona Cardinals. ESPN reported that Adams tested positive but is vaccinated.
Adams leads the Packers in catches (52) and receiving yards (744). Allen Lazard is also out of the game because he has been ruled an unvaccinated close contact of Adams; a third wide receiver will miss the game with an injury.

ESPN reported that Lazard tried to persuade the league that he was not a close contact to Adams and had tested negative, which should allow him to play. The NFL declined Lazard’s case because of its health and safety protocols, making the receiver eligible to play starting Friday instead of Thursday night.
Packers coach Matt LaFleur also said the team is expected to be without defensive coordinator Joe Barry for Thursday’s game. Green Bay has entered enhanced mitigation protocols that call for daily testing of all personnel and for masks to be worn at the facility ahead of a game which matches up two of the best teams in the league.
“Any time that you have any cases, you’re always a little bit concerned about that,” LaFleur said. “But the majority of our guys are vaccinated, so there’s a little bit different protocol with that. I don’t think in terms of being at close contact with any of our players, I don’t think that’s a real concern of ours right now. But we’re still waiting to hear back from the league before we get clearance on anything.”
Barry will also require two negative tests 24 hours apart before he could return. Barry is the second member of the Packers’ defensive coaching staff to test positive this season after defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery missed a Week 2 game against the Detroit Lions.
Without Barry around, LaFleur said running the defense will be a “collective effort with everybody involved and having an input.”
While Green Bay is dealing with active COVID cases, the Cardinals appear to be past their issues with the virus. The team activated defensive end Chandler Jones and defensive lineman Zach Allen from the reserve/COVID-19 list Monday.
Jones had missed the past two games for the team since testing positive. The Cardinals won both, including at the Cleveland Browns two weeks ago while also missing head coach Kliff Kingsbury, who tested positive and was away from the team for eight days. Kingsbury returned ahead of this past Sunday’s win over the Houston Texans but admitted to some rustiness after being away.
“It just felt funky,” Kingsbury said. “Usually, I’ve called those plays over and over throughout the week. [Quarterback Kyler Murray] and I have had that dialogue. That was the first time we’d even gone over them was out there. So, it just didn’t feel like the same type of rhythm, same type of comfort level. I just felt more on edge than I normally do after six days of preparation.”
Kingsbury, who like all coaches is fully vaccinated, first tested positive on October 15 and needed two negative tests 24 hours apart to be able to return, which did not happen until 6:30 a.m. Sunday.
TENNIS: Quarantine, Not Vaccination, May Be Option at Australian Open
Posted: Tuesday, October 26
After hints from Australia that made it appear as if players would have to be vaccinated to play, throwing the status of ATP Tour No. 1 Novak Djokovic and many others on the ATP and WTA Tours who have been COVID skeptics, now it appears that there may have been a change of serve.
Those who are not vaccinated could still play in the first Grand Slam of the tennis season after two weeks of quarantine, the WTA Tour has reportedly told players. The Australian Open is scheduled to start January 17.
An email obtained by freelance tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg from the WTA Tour to players said it wanted “clear up false and misleading information” about the Australian Open’s plans. The email would also contradict Australia’s immigration minister, who said last week players would need to be fully vaccinated to compete.
The WTA said the information came from Tennis Australia, who had requested players keep it confidential. Neither the ATP or WTA Tour has said what percentage of players are vaccinated recently; both estimated around 50 percent of the tour was vaccinated at the U.S. Open in September.
“We are optimistic that we can hold the Australian Open as close to pre-pandemic conditions as possible,” the governing body said in a statement to Reuters.
All players had to undergo two weeks of quarantine after arriving for the 2021 Australian Open, although most were allowed to leave their hotels to practice. Starting November 1, fully vaccinated citizens along permanent residents and their overseas-based family members who arrive in Sydney and Melbourne will no longer need to quarantine.
NBA: Anti-Vaxxers Try to Storm Nets Game In Support of Kyrie Irving
Posted: Sunday, October 25
Brooklyn Nets star guard Kyrie Irving, on an Instagram Live post explaining why he would rather sit out the NBA season than be vaccinated against COVID-19, said he was doing it to give a voice for the voiceless.
Sunday before the team’s home opener at the Barclays Center, people who very much have a voice nearly stormed the arena while protesting New York City’s vaccine mandate, chanting “Let Kyrie Play!”
A small group broke through barriers and got to the front entrance of the building, forcing arena officials to close the doors while fans were trying to get in ahead of Sunday afternoon’s loss to the Charlotte Hornets.

“Barclays Center briefly closed its doors today in order to clear protestors from the main doors on the plaza and ensure guests could safely enter the arena,” an arena spokeswoman said. “Only ticketed guests were able to enter the building and the game proceeded according to schedule.”
A New York mandate requires professional athletes playing for a team in the city be vaccinated in order to play or practice in public venues. Irving is the lone Nets or Knicks player to refuse vaccination and could have played in road games, but the Nets decided that he was not all-in, he would be told to stay out.
Protester Curtis Orwell told The Associated Press he was fighting for “bodily autonomy and sovereignty.” Orwell said he was not vaccinated and knew some people who lost jobs because they weren’t.
NFL: How the Cardinals Stayed Unbeaten Amid Team Outbreak
Updated: Sunday, October 24
The Arizona Cardinals are the lone unbeaten in the National Football League and last weekend, the team stayed perfect while coming closer than any NFL team in having a COVID outbreak throughout the locker room.
The Cardinals are the first team that has had to work under intensive protocols this season with frequent testing after three players, plus head coach Kliff Kingsbury, quarterbacks coach Cam Turner and general manager Steve Keim, each tested positive over the last week.

Star pass rusher Chandler Jones tested positive on Tuesday last week, followed by defensive lineman Zach Allen on Friday afternoon and defensive lineman Corey Peters on Sunday.
“Once you get four or five (positive) tests in a week, they make everyone on Tier One and Two test daily,” defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said. “Until you get through a four- or five-day period. It’s been more stressful, but hopefully, after a week, things will return to normal protocols.”
Kingsbury was away from the team but made sure to stay in touch with the team and coaching staff. He was cleared to rejoin the team ahead of Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans after a negative test on Saturday morning and another on early Sunday.
Kingsbury was the first head coach to miss a game due to a positive test. Joseph split head coach duties Sunday with assistant head coach/special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers in last weekend’s 37-14 win over the Cleveland Browns in which burgeoning star quarterback Kyler Murray threw for 239 yards and four touchdowns.
“Once we got the news, it was just an opportunity and kind of exciting to go out and prove ourselves on the road against a great team,” Murray said. “I think with the guys, you could feel the energy all week at practice. It was a great week. Coming on the road, us versus them, it was a good game.”
Kingsbury can return once he has either back-to-back negative tests or 10 days away from the team facility, whichever comes first. Kingsbury is still leading virtual meetings over Zoom with his staff.
“It’s still his plan,” Joseph said. “He’s still involved with everything. So nothing has changed as far as who is building the game plan.”
Top 25 College Football Schedule
Wednesday’s Game
Appalachian State 30, No. 14 Coastal Carolina 27
Thursday’s Game
No. 21 SMU 55, Tulane 26
Saturday’s Games
No. 2 Cincinnati at Navy, Noon
No. 3 Oklahoma at Kansas, Noon
No. 4 Alabama vs. Tennessee, 7 p.m.
No. 5 Ohio State at Indiana, 7:30 p.m.
No. 6 Michigan vs. Northwestern, 12 p.m.
No. 7 Penn State vs. Illinois, 12 p.m.
No. 8 Oklahoma State at Iowa State, 3:30 p.m.
No. 10 Oregon at UCLA, 3:30 p.m. (Fans must be fully vaccinated or have negative test within 72 hours)
No. 12 Ole Miss vs. LSU, 3:30 p.m.
No. 13 Notre Dame vs. USC, 7:30 p.m.
No. 16 Wake Forest at Army, 12 p.m.
No. 18 NC State at Miami, 7:30 p.m.
No. 22 San Diego State at Air Force, 7 p.m.
No. 23 Pitt vs. Clemson, 3:30 p.m.
No. 24 UTSA at Louisiana Tech, 7 p.m.
No. 25 Purdue vs. Wisconsin, 3 p.m.
NFL Schedule
Thursday’s Game
Cleveland 17, Denver 14
Sunday’s Games
Cincinnati at Baltimore, 1 p.m.
Washington at Green Bay, 1 p.m.
Atlanta at Miami, 1 p.m.
N.Y. Jets at New England, 1 p.m.
Carolina at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m.
Kansas City at Tennessee, 1 p.m.
Detroit at L.A. Rams, 4:05 p.m. (Fans must be fully vaccinated or have negative test within 72 hours)
Philadelphia at Las Vegas, 4:05 p.m. (Fans must be fully vaccinated to attend)
Houston at Arizona, 4:25 p.m.
Chicago at Tampa Bay, 4:25 p.m.
Indianapolis at San Francisco, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
New Orleans at Seattle, 8:15 p.m.
TENNIS: Novak Djokovic will need to be vaccinated to play Australian Open
Posted: Thursday, October 21
One match from the first men’s Grand Slam in nearly five decades, Novak Djokovic may miss the first Slam of 2022 for his apparent reluctance to get vaccinated.
Players on the ATP and WTA Tours who are not fully vaccinated are unlikely to get a visa for the Australian Open in Melbourne in January, according to Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews.
“I don’t think any unvaccinated tennis player is going to get a visa to come into this country,” Andrews said late last week. “If they did get a visa, they’d probably have to quarantine for a couple of weeks when no other players will have to.”
Djokovic has previously said that he was opposed to a mandate. Djokovic did not reveal his status on Monday when talking to Serbian newspaper Blic, saying “it is a private matter and an inappropriate inquiry.” He added “things being as they are, I still don’t know if I will go to Melbourne.”
Last year’s opening Grand Slam of the season did not have a vaccine mandate because the vaccine had not been approved. Players had to quarantine for two weeks but most were allowed a limited time to practice, but any who tested positive or were a close contact of a positive case were not allowed to leave their hotel rooms.
To be fair to Djokovic, his stand against vaccination is not unique in the tennis world; before the U.S. Open, roughly half of the elite male and female players were vaccinated. Several other of the ATP Tour’s top 10 players in the world have made bizarre statements, Stefanos Tsitsipas earlier this year said he believed the vaccine had side effects, earning a rebuke from Greece’s health minister; Tsitsipas said in late September that he had changed his mind and would get vaccinated.
Of the so-called Big Four in men’s tennis — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Djokovic and Andy Murray — only Djokovic has not made his vaccination status know. Murray has endorsed the ATP Tour making vaccination mandatory.
At the U.S. Open, spectators were told less than 72 hours before the tournament started that they had to show proof of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to attend matches, although players weren’t required to get a shot. Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion said during the tournament it was “a bit bizarre that fans have to be vaccinated and players are not.”
The Australian Open did have fans last year, but not at full capacity with a few days being closed off after positive case numbers started to rise. Australia is preparing to re-open its borders next month in a state-by-state process that depends on vaccination rates. Fully vaccinated people will have fewer restrictions than those who are not.
NBA: Kyrie Irving’s Vaccine Refusal Stands Out Among 96 Percent League Vaccinated Rate
Posted: Wednesday, October 20
The Brooklyn Nets entered this NBA season as one of the title favorites before having a reality check on Tuesday night, losing 127-104 to the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks in the league’s season opener.
The Nets will remain one of the most-discussed teams all season long no matter what its record is because of one reason: Kyrie Irving, one of the team’s three stars but a player who has been told by the team to stay away because of his refusal to get vaccinated.
Irving’s refusal to get the COVID vaccine means he is ineligible to play at home games in the Barclays Center along with games at Madison Square Garden, home of the Knicks, because of New York City’s health department requirements of employees at indoor venues.
The NBA announced on Monday that 96 percent of the league’s players are vaccinated but due to Irving’s status as one of the game’s best players when available, his refusal to get vaccinated has drawn outsized attention.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the stalemate is “between Kyrie and New York City right now” and “is not a league issue.” The NBA has mandated vaccination for referees, coaches, trainers and media members who come into direct contact with players.
Irving said last week Instagram that he still hopes to play this season for the Nets but did not commit to getting vaccinated should that be the only pathway back to playing all season long.
“What is being mad going to do,” Nets teammate Kevin Durant said last week. “We are not going to change his mind, know what I’m saying?”
“Definitely want Kyrie to be around,” Durant added. “I wish none of this stuff would happen, but this is the situation that we are in. Kyrie made his decision on what he wanted to do and he chose to do what he wanted to do, and the team did the same.”
Unvaccinated players undergo daily testing and face restrictions designed to limit close contact with teammates away from the court. New York and San Francisco have local mandates that mean unvaccinated players are banned from playing in their home markets, even if visiting players are exempt from the mandate; the Golden State Warriors’ Andrew Wiggins resisted getting vaccinated until his request for a religious exemption from the city of San Francisco was denied, at which point he got his shot.
The Warriors did not have fans for most of last season, a season in which only the Oklahoma City Thunder did not have home fans for the entire 2020–2021 campaign. This year every arena will be at full capacity to start the season with many having some type of protocol for fans to enter.
The ability to have fans at all games will help the NBA’s bottom line; Silver said last season, between limited attendance in most markets and only 72 games instead of the regular 82, saw the league’s revenue take a 35 percent dive. The commissioner said the league projects $10 billion in revenues this season should it held without any COVID interruptions.
“It’s our hope that this season will look a lot more like normal,” Silver said. “The one thing I’ve learned over the last year-and-a-half is to be very cautious about making any predictions, including what will happen with this virus. … Once we see what’s happening one way or the other with the virus, we’ll be making some [protocol] modifications. But I think we’re in good shape right now.”
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Washington State Fires Nick Rolovich For Refusing to Get Vaccinated
Posted: Tuesday, October 19
The Washington State Cougars held off Stanford on Saturday night, winning their third consecutive game and improving to over .500 and getting within two games of bowl eligibility.
The team celebrated like it had won the Pac-12 title, dumping Gatorade on its coach and doing everything but carrying him off the field. Why would they do that for a midseason game by going over .500? It wasn’t because the team has never had success, but because it was the final game for coach Nick Rolovich, who after the game seemed resigned that he would be fired.
The reason? Rolovich’s refusal to get vaccinated after having his request for a religious exemption denied ahead of Monday’s state employee deadline, leading to his firing — for cause. Along with Rolovich, assistant coaches Ricky Logo, John Richardson, Craig Stutzmann and Mark Weber were fired for refusing to be vaccinated.

“While much has been made of the relatively small number of university employees who are not complying with the Governor’s mandate, we are immensely gratified that nearly 90 percent of WSU employees and 97 percent of our students are now vaccinated,” Washington State President Kirk Schultz said in a statement announcing the firings. “WSU students, faculty, and staff understand the importance of getting vaccinated and wearing masks so that we can safely return to in-person learning and activities. I am proud of all those members of our community who have set the example and taken the steps to protect not just themselves, but their fellow Cougs.”
Rolovich was the highest-paid state employee, making about $3 million. Rolovich said he would comply with the state mandate all preseason and into the regular season but never got vaccinated, instead hoping he would be given an exemption. When asked why he needed an exemption over the past two weeks, Rolovich declined to explain. A Washington State University committee is assigned to examining requests; the committee does not know who files the requests because it is a blind process.
Athletic Director Pat Chun said at a Monday night press conference that Rolovich’s “accommodation request” was denied, which leads to believe the religious exemption was granted. The second step of Washington State’s process if a religious exemption was granted would be for the supervisor to decide if accommodations could be made. Chun saying Rolovich’s accommodation request was denied indicates an evaluation was made beyond the initial exemption.
Rolovich’s vaccination status has overshadowed on-field performances by the Cougars all season. Rolovich was also the only Pac-12 coach to not show up at the conference’s media days in July in Los Angeles, instead connecting virtually. Washington State will host BYU on Saturday.
“The noncompliance with this requirement renders [Rolovich] ineligible to be employed at Washington State University and therefore can no longer fulfill the duties as a head coach of our football program effective immediately,” Chun said during a Monday night news conference. “It is disheartening to be here today. Our football team is hurting. Our WSU community is fractured. Today will have a lasting impact on the young men on our team and the remaining coaches and staff.”
NHL: Sharks Forward Suspended for Fake Vaccine Card
Posted: Tuesday, October 19
The National Hockey League suspended San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane for 21 games after he submitted a fake COVID-19 vaccination card in an attempt to avoid getting his shots.
The suspension is without pay, meaning Kane will forfeit about $1.68 million with the money going to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said before the season started that only four players had not been vaccinated.
“I would like to apologize to my teammates, the San Jose Sharks organization, and all Sharks fans for violating the NHL COVID protocols,” Kane said in a statement. “I made a mistake, one I sincerely regret and take responsibility for.”
The Sharks have not said what Kane’s status will be once he is eligible to play at the end of November. Using a fake vaccination card is illegal in both the United States and Canada, as well as against NHL rules.
“We are extremely disappointed by his disregard for the health and safety protocols put in place by the NHL and the NHLPA,” San Jose said in a statement. “We will not be commenting further on Evander’s status prior to the conclusion of the NHL’s mandated suspension.”
OLYMPICS: USOPC Confident in Vaccine Requirement and COVID Countermeasures
Posted: Monday, October 18
When Team USA heads to Beijing in February, U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee officials say they will be the most prepared team to deal with the uncertainties of COVID-19 that will make for a second consecutive Olympic and Paralympic Games staged under strict virus countermeasures.
Members of the U.S. team as well as coaches, administrators and support staff will be required to be fully vaccinated to compete, a more strict policy than the USOPC held during the recent Tokyo Games, where vaccines were encouraged. The only exemptions will be for those who can prove they have a medical restriction from getting a vaccine, based on measures already announced by Beijing 2022. In those cases, athletes will be required by Beijing organizers to quarantine for 21 days upon arrival to China before they can resume training or competing.

At the start of a two-day media summit in advance of the Games, USOPC Chief Executive Officer Sarah Hirshland said lessons learned from Tokyo will be carried over to Beijing. “We’re strong, we’re focused and if this summer is any indication, we’ll be the most prepared (National Olympic Committee) and (National Paralympic Committee) in Beijing.”
The U.S. expects to bring a delegation of more than 240 Olympians and 65 Paralympians to compete in Beijing, as well as an unknown number of coaches, support staff and administrators. There will be 187 medal events contested in Beijing, including new disciplines of women’s monobob, big air skiing and several new mixed-gender events.
Addressing another major expected storyline of the Games, Hirshland said the USOPC will be focused on giving Team USA athletes a chance to compete despite expected political protests or diplomatic boycotts of the Beijing Games over human rights issues in China.
“The athletes of Team USA and the athletes of the world have been preparing for the Games for years,” she said. “The opportunity to compete for the United States is a special one and a singular event for the great majority of Olympic and Paralympic athletes. We are focused on protecting that opportunity.”
A trio of USOPC medical experts also addressed the challenges ahead in Beijing both in terms of COVID mitigation and how athletes will adjust to the unknowns ahead from a mental health perspective as well.
Dr. Jonathan Finnoff, the USOPC’s chief medical officer, said the vaccine requirements that the USOPC and Beijing 2022 have put in place will make athletes safer and come from lessons learned in Tokyo. “These are challenging times but the vaccination policy we’ve put in place and China has put in place will make the Games as safe as possible,” he said.
Sean McCann, the senior sport psychologist for Team USA who will mark his 14th Games in Beijing with Team USA, said winter athletes may be better positioned to adjust to the potential isolation without family members in Beijing, who will be banned from attending just as they were in Tokyo. All foreign spectators have been banned from the upcoming Games, although spectators from China are expected to be allowed to attend.
“Winter sport athletes from the United States have a specific challenge in that most of their competition happen in Europe,” he said. “They are very familiar with being away from support systems, sometimes spouses, or kids in some cases, five months of the year. That’s always a challenge. In some ways I would argue our winter sport athletes are a little bit better prepared from being cut off from their support systems.”
FOOTBALL: Capacity Crowds Without COVID Outbreaks So Far This Season
Posted: Friday, October 15
When Texas A&M upset top-ranked Alabama last weekend, it was more than just a fantastic college football game — it was set in front of a raucous crowd in College Station, Texas, with just under 107,000 screaming Aggies fans on hand making it a hot topic on social media.
Last weekend’s college schedule, one that featured multiple upsets and wild finishes, brought out fans in some markets like seldom before this season. Kentucky had a season high 61,690 in its win over LSU to remain unbeaten and both BYU (63,470) and Iowa (69,250) had sellouts for its games. Auburn drew 87,451 in its rivalry game loss to Georgia, a season-high as well.

And despite concern about packed college football stadiums this fall, most college towns have not seen upticks in COVID-19 cases. University of Florida epidemiologist Cindy Prins, Ph.D., who tracks coronavirus trends nationwide, said “when we see these full stadiums, it makes people feel nervous because we’ve been avoiding crowds for such a long time. But some of these outdoor events really are not the super spreader events that people have worried they’re going to be.”
Prins said there are a variety of factors that go into not having localized spikes. The biggest is that the games are outdoors, where transmission has a much lower risk compared to what could happen in the winter with basketball and hockey games being held indoors.
“I would never say no one’s ever going to get COVID-19 at a football game, but I wasn’t very concerned about football games because of the outdoor factor,” Prins said. “A lot of epidemiologists have expressed some concern, and again, it just comes from the idea that you do have a lot of people gathering together.”
That all said, Prins still recommends people get vaccinated and “I would definitely wear a mask. I would certainly wear it while I’m waiting to get into the stadium with other people, I’d wear it when I was going to the concession stand. For me, I would still wear it during the game. Some people may feel more comfortable if they’re seated and they know that people around them are vaccinated, but otherwise, keep that mask in place and be vaccinated.”
The lack of outbreaks attributable to large football crowds has not meant that some colleges are stopping programs to increase vaccination among its fans. Notre Dame announced this week that it is partnering with the St. Joseph County (Indiana) Department of Health to offer free tickets for two games later this year upon getting their first dose of the vaccine and scheduling a second.
Individuals can choose to get tickets to either the November 6 game against Navy or the November 20 game against Georgia Tech.
“Notre Dame continues to look for ways to encourage members of our community — including our local fans — to get vaccinated against COVID-19,” said Notre Dame Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick. “We hope that the opportunity to secure complimentary tickets to a Notre Dame football game will provide an additional reason for residents of our broader community to become vaccinated.”
Capacity at Notre Dame Stadium is 77,622; the Irish had a sellout crowd for its last home game, a loss to Cincinnati, and were close to a sellout against Purdue on September 18. The team’s home opener on September 11 against Toledo drew 62,009, the smallest home crowd since the stadium expanded 25 years ago.
But capacity crowds have been commonplace in the NFL. Heading into the weekend, only two teams — New Orleans and Washington — have home attendance averages under 85 percent. New Orleans is at 74.1 percent but that is easily explainable because of having its home opener in Jacksonville, Florida, instead of the Caesars Superdome after a hurricane hit Louisiana. Washington is the lowest in the NFL, playing to 62.2 percent capacity at home, which has more to do with widespread fan apathy rather than anything else.
Meanwhile, there are 13 teams that have averaged at least 99 percent capacity this season with eight teams at or over 100 percent, led by the San Francisco 49ers playing to 101.3 percent of capacity through its first two home games.
The Arizona Cardinals are scheduled to play at the Cleveland Browns and its rowdy fans on Sunday afternoon and the Cardinals will likely have to do so with a less than full strength roster: Cardinals star defensive end Chandler Jones was put on the reserve/COVID-19 list on Tuesday after testing positive and showing symptoms in spite of being vaccinated. The team itself has two other positives among the coaching staff, meaning the team is one positive test from going into intensive protocols that would mean increased testing.
“Guys just try to mask up and we have the test to make sure that guys are good to go,” Cardinals offensive lineman Kelvin Beachum said. “We just try to do everything to make sure we’re safe. It’s unfortunate to have somebody of (Jones’) caliber test positive at this junction in the season, having the type of season that he’s having but as a team we’ve just got to find a way to stay safe and make sure that we don’t have any spreading going on in the locker room and in the building.”
Top 25 College Football Schedule
All Times EDT; Most Schools Encourage Mask Wearing by Fans
Friday’s Games
California at No. 9 Oregon, 10:30 p.m. (proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required for entry)
No. 24 San Diego State at San Jose State, 10:30 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
No. 11 Kentucky at No. 1 Georgia, 3:30 p.m.
Purdue at No. 2 Iowa, 3:30 p.m.
UCF at No. 3 Cincinnati, Noon
TCU at No. 4 Oklahoma, 7:30 p.m.
No. 5 Alabama at Mississippi State, 7 p.m.
No. 10 Michigan State at Indiana, 12 p.m.
No. 12 Oklahoma State at No. 25 Texas, 12 p.m.
No. 13 Mississippi at Tennessee, 7:30 p.m.
Auburn at No. 17 Arkansas, 12 p.m.
No. 18 Arizona State at Utah, 10 p.m.
No. 19 BYU at Baylor, 3:30 p.m.
No. 20 Florida at LSU, 12 p.m.
No. 21 Texas A&M at Missouri, 12 p.m.
No. 22 N.C. State at Boston College, 7:30 p.m.
NFL Schedule
All Times EDT; Most Teams Encourage Mask Wearing by Fans
Thursday’s Game
Tampa Bay at Philadelphia, 8:20 p.m.
Sunday’s Games
Miami vs. Jacksonville at London, 9:30 a.m.
Minnesota at Carolina, 1 p.m.
L.A. Chargers at Baltimore, 1 p.m.
L.A. Rams at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m.
Houston at Indianapolis, 1 p.m.
Kansas City at Washington, 1 p.m.
Green Bay at Chicago, 1 p.m.
Cincinnati at Detroit, 1 p.m.
Arizona at Cleveland, 4:05 p.m.
Dallas at New England, 4:25 p.m.
Las Vegas at Denver, 4:25 p.m.
Seattle at Pittsburgh, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Buffalo at Tennessee, 8:15 p.m.
NHL: Only Four Players Unvaccinated as Season Opens
Posted: Wednesday, October 13
The National Hockey League has perhaps the strictest conditions, per team, of any professional league when it comes to fans attending games this season — nearly half the league requires either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to attend games.
That emphasis on fan safety extends to the players and officials on the ice, as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said on Tuesday night prior to the league’s season opener against Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh that only four players are unvaccinated as the season is underway.
“Our vaccination rate is incredible,” Bettman said. “Four players, not four percent of players. All of our officials are vaccinated. All of the personnel that come into contact with the players are vaccinated.”
The reminders of what it will take still to get a full season without disruption came Tuesday when Seattle Kraken players Jared McCann, Jamie Oleksiak, Joonas Donskoi and Calle Jarnkrok along with Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon went into COVID-19 protocol. The Kraken had five players in the protocols ahead of their first game in franchise history on Tuesday at Las Vegas.
Even with the players in protocol, having only four unvaccinated players is a testament to the league’s strict regulations for those unvaccinated players that they will have to live by this season.
Those four players will not be able to go anywhere on the road except for the team hotel, practice facility and arena. When at a hotel, those players cannot have teammates or anybody else in their room and cannot eat at a hotel restaurant. Teams can also dock unvaccinated players one day’s pay for each day they would miss if they contract the virus and they must have daily testing compared to every third day for vaccinated players.
“Throughout all of this, we had great collaboration and cooperation with the players and Players’ Association,” Bettman said. “This doesn’t happen to get to this point without that collaboration and cooperation.”
NBA: Nets Tell Kyrie Irving to Stay Away Until He Gets Vaccinated
Posted: Tuesday, October 12
The Brooklyn Nets have told Kyrie Irving, the NBA’s most prominent anti-vaccination player, that he will not play or practice this season until he gets vaccinated. The move came after days of the team trying to figure out a solution, including the possibility that Irving could play away games since New York City mandates require home players to be vaccinated.
“Kyrie has made a personal choice, and we respect his individual right to choose,” Nets General Manager Sean Marks said in a statement. “Currently the choice restricts his ability to be a full-time member of the team, and we will not permit any member of our team to participate with part-time availability. It is imperative that we continue to build chemistry as a team and remain true to our long-established values of togetherness and sacrifice.”
The Nets are scheduled to open the home campaign on October 24. Irving would also miss any games the Nets are scheduled to play at the Toronto Raptors since Canada does not allow unvaccinated travelers to enter the country.
“It’s not something that I’ve experienced before,” Nets forward Blake Griffin said. “Whatever he decides, whatever the team decides, whatever agreement we come to or whatever happens, we’re just gonna support him. And when he’s here, we can use him. He’s amazing.”
The NBA and players association in September agreed that unvaccinated players will be fined 1/91.6th of their salary for each game they miss at home because of local health mandates, meaning Irving would lose tens of millions if he does not play this season.
The NBA Players Association has said that approximately 95 percent of players are vaccinated as the season openers approach. But that overwhelming majority has meant that the few who refuse to get vaccines, such as Irving and Orlando’s Jonathan Isaac, are taking up most of the attention. Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins previously was public about not wanting to get vaccinated but once his application for a religious exemption was denied in San Francisco, he got vaccinated.
The city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate prevented Irving from taking part in the team’s media day in late September. Irving ended up participating via videoconference from his home, constantly saying he wanted privacy about his status.
“I’m envisioning Kyrie being a part of our team,” said Kevin Durant, one of the Nets’ other big stars, on Wednesday. “Maybe I’m just naïve, but that is just how I feel. But I think everybody here has that confidence in themselves, in our group, that if we keep building, we can do something special.”
NHL: Kraken Without Five Players for Franchise Debut
Posted: Tuesday, October 12
The Seattle Kraken, ahead of its franchise debut on national television Tuesday night at the Vegas Golden Knights to kick off the NHL season, will be without five players because of COVID-19 protocols.
Forwards Jared McCann, Joonas Donskoi and Marcus Johansson, and defenseman Jamie Oleksiak were placed on the league’s COVID-19 protocol list on Monday. Forward Calle Jarnkrok has been in the protocol since late last week. Seattle general manager Ron Francis said at the start of training camp that the entire roster had been vaccinated.
“Things happen quickly and sometimes at inopportune times,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “There’s different challenges as you go throughout the season and this is one of them for us early on.”
WNBA: Changes May Be On The Horizon For League
Posted: Monday, October 11
The crowd was loud and hyped, but it did not matter for the Chicago Sky in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals in a nationally broadcast win over the host Phoenix Mercury on Sunday afternoon. The Finals are being held to finish a season in which the WNBA led professional sports by becoming the most vaccinated league in the world at 99 percent of its players.
The playoffs also come after a regular season that saw viewership increase 51 percent, the most watched WNBA season since 2008. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Englebert said the league is in the middle of a “five-year business transformation plan” with the growth of fan engagement as a key piece.
One of the other key pieces is expanding the league, a topic of intense focus among WNBA fans and something they have been wanting the league to do for years. COVID has delayed some of the planning with expansion; Englebert said on Sunday the league is doing a data analysis for expansion that is ongoing and involves approximately 15 separate market metrics.

“The data looks like it’s going to read out some interesting information for us to start having exploratory discussions with certain cities and make sure that we can find great ownership groups to support a WNBA team and great fan bases,” she said, without committing to a future number of markets to expand to or what season expansion would happen.
Englebert’s state of the league address before Game 1 on Sunday was lots of words and little firm commitments to what the future will hold. One of the top topics was the playoff format itself — the WNBA’s first two rounds since 2016 have been single elimination before the best-of-three semifinals and best-of-five finals.
Changing the format has been discussed, Englebert said, “and we are looking at finalizing a decision on updates to the playoff format at our upcoming postseason meetings.” But it appears clear from the player perspective that they would like to see changes.
“From the players’ standpoint we all would like the single elimination to be gone,” Seattle Storm star Breanna Stewart said Sunday. “You work all season for an opportunity and to have one game just kind of makes it over really quickly. Yeah, it’s the format for college, but this isn’t college. This is the WNBA. Also, I think extending the playoffs and making series out of all the rounds just makes for more viewers, more eyes to watch us and more people to be a part of it.”
With a potentially extended playoffs will also come into play potentially more issues with arena availability for WNBA teams. The Mercury had to play a single-elimination game against the New York Liberty at nearby Grand Canyon University with no WNBA branding on the court, and one of its semifinal series games against the Las Vegas Aces was held at Arizona State University instead of its regular home, the Footprint Center. Both times, the venue had already booked entertainment events on that day.
Engelbert said “it’s not a new issue for the WNBA and something we need to work on. We will work on it in the offseason, I assure you.”
NFL: Cole Beasley Says Bills Fans Boo Him For Anti-Vax Stance
Posted: Friday, October 8
The Buffalo Bills have won three consecutive games in dominant fashion, are leading the AFC East Division standings and remain one of the conference favorites to reach the Super Bowl after a spot in last year’s AFC Championship Game.
But the biggest news early this week after a 40-0 win over the Houston Texans was wide receiver Cole Beasley, known for his anti-vaccination views, claiming that fans are booing him because of his stance. Buffalo fans must be at least partially vaccinated to attend home games right now with full vaccination being the requirement starting October 31.
“Only place I get boo’d is at our home stadium. I thought bills fans were the best in the world? Where’d they go? If the vaccine works then why do vaxxed people need to be protected from unvaxxed? #letemin,” Beasley said on Twitter on Monday.
Beasley earlier this season told unvaccinated Bills fans that if they went to an away game, he would buy their ticket. Beasley’s feelings about COVID and vaccination run opposite of what the NFL has been trying to do with players — who they cannot mandate to get vaccinated — as well as team staffers and coaches, who they are (and did) mandate to become vaccinated. Last month the NFL released a public service announcement stressing the importance of symptom reporting to prevent the spread of COVID-19 featuring coaches Pete Carroll, Andy Reid, John Harbaugh and Ron Rivera. More than 93 percent of players are vaccinated.

The Bills are one of two NFL teams along with the Raiders to mandate proof of vaccination as a condition of going to games. The Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints allow fans to attend if they are not vaccinated but have proof of a negative COVID test within 72 hours of kickoff.
While he was vocal both on Twitter and in training camp press conferences about his anti-vaccination views, Beasley has been relatively quiet since the regular season got underway — until this week. The Bills play at Kansas City on Sunday night in one of the marquee games of the week.
The NFL this week has the first game outside of the U.S. in more than a year, with the New York Jets and Atlanta Falcons playing at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. After steadily increasing the number of games played abroad before the pandemic not only in London but with an annual game in Mexico City, that strategy was scrapped in 2020 and two London games are on this year’s schedule. After the Falcons face the Jets on Sunday, the Jacksonville Jaguars play the Miami Dolphins a week later.
The NFL did approve a resolution for up to four games per season starting in 2022 in the United Kingdom, Mexico and potentially Germany. Brett Gosper, NFL Head of UK and Europe, told The Associated Press that the league is finalizing a shortlist of German cities to host a game as early as next season. Eight cities expressed interest in becoming a partner city to host a regular-season game, he said.
The NFL played 28 regular-season games in London from 2007-19 and seven years remain on Tottenham’s 10-year contract to host two NFL games annually, Gosper said. After Germany, NFL analysis has shown that France would be the next logical European host, Gosper told the AP.
Whether in London — where the Jets and Falcons play on Sunday — or Germany or in their home markets, NFL coaches have to be vaccinated per league rules. That type of rule is not standardized throughout college football, although several prominent coaches have been vaccinated and have come out boasting about their teams’ collective vaccination rates.
And then there’s Washington State coach Nick Rolovich.
Rolovich did not show up at Pac-12 Media Days this summer in Los Angeles because he said that he was not vaccinated, the only coach in the league not to have gotten his shots. Throughout the preseason and into the early part of the season for the Cougars, the coach has repeatedly refused to engage with reporters about his vaccination status or if he plans to get the vaccine.
But there is a looming deadline that Rolovich faces that has implications for his employment. Monday was the last day for state employees such as Rolovich who are subject to Gov. Jay Inslee’s vaccine mandate to get their shot in order to be considered fully vaccinated by the October 18 deadline.
Yet, this week, Rolovich has deflected questions about the vaccine. When asked Monday whether he had gotten the shot, Rolovich replied, “I’m still following the process that’s been laid out. I’m going to leave it right there.”
Rolovich, who said personal reasons were the reason he was not vaccinated, is the highest paid employee in the state of Washington with his salary last year being $3,195,500.
Washington State has a policy that fans must either provide proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter games. Another school that has the same approach, the Southeastern Conference’s LSU Tigers, did so until today. The Tigers announced that with a reduction in the number of infections, it will do away with entrance-related procedures. All guests will still be required to wear masks in the indoor areas of the stadium.
“The COVID-19 rates in Louisiana have dropped dramatically across the state over the last couple of weeks, and today, the state has a positivity rate below five percent,” Dr. Catherine O’Neal, chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge and a member of the SEC’s Return to Activity and Medical Guidance Task Force, said in a statement. “Because of this success, we are able to lift the vaccine and testing requirements for entry into Tiger Stadium. By balancing mitigation efforts and risk in the ongoing fight to end the pandemic, we can protect our community and safely celebrate the traditions that bring us together.”
Top 25 Schedule
All Times EDT; Most Schools Encourage Mask Wearing by Fans
Thursday’s Game
No. 15 Coastal Carolina at Arkansas St., 7:30 p.m.
Friday’s Game
No. 5 Cincinnati vs. Temple, 7 p.m.
No. 22 Arizona St. vs. Stanford, 10:30 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
No. 1 Alabama at Texas A&M, 8 p.m.
No. 2 Georgia at No. 18 Auburn, 3:30 p.m.
No. 3 Iowa vs. No. 4 Penn St., 4 p.m.
No. 6 Oklahoma at No. 21 Texas, Noon
No. 7 Ohio State vs. Maryland, Noon
No. 9 Michigan at Nebraska, 7:30 p.m.
No. 10 BYU vs. Boise St., 3:30 p.m.
No. 11 Michigan St. at Rutgers, Noon
No. 13 Arkansas at No. 17 Mississippi, Noon
No. 14 Notre Dame at Virginia Tech, 7:30 p.m.
No. 16 Kentucky vs. LSU, 7:30 p.m.
No. 19 Wake Forest at Syracuse, 3:30 p.m.
No. 20 Florida vs. Vanderbilt, Noon
No. 24 SMU at Navy, 3:30 p.m.
No. 25 San Diego St. vs. New Mexico, 9 p.m.
NFL Schedule
All Times EDT; Most Teams Encourage Mask Wearing by Fans
Thursday’s Game
L.A. Rams at Seattle, 8:20 p.m. (Fans must provide proof of vaccination or negative COVID test)
Sunday’s Games
N.Y. Jets vs. Atlanta at London, 9:30 a.m.
Denver at Pittsburgh, 1 p.m.
Detroit at Minnesota, 1 p.m.
Green Bay at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.
Miami at Tampa Bay, 1 p.m.
New England at Houston, 1 p.m.
New Orleans at Washington, 1 p.m.
Philadelphia at Carolina, 1 p.m.
Tennessee at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.
Chicago at Las Vegas, 4:05 p.m. (Fans must provide proof of vaccination)
Cleveland at L.A. Chargers, 4:05 p.m. (Fans must provide proof of vaccination or negative COVID test)
N.Y. Giants at Dallas, 4:25 p.m.
San Francisco at Arizona, 4:25 p.m.
Buffalo at Kansas City, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Indianapolis at Baltimore, 8:15 p.m.
NBA: Los Angeles Vaccine Mandate to Affect Lakers, Clippers, Kings Games
Posted: Thursday, October 7
Already knowing that three NBA teams would be facing mandates to have players vaccinated because of local health regulations, the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers may be up next after the Los Angeles City Council announced sweeping measures that are some of the strictest mandates in the country.
The City Council voted in favor of an ordinance that will require proof of full vaccination for anybody entering indoor venues such as the Staples Center in downtown starting November 4. While it will impact fans going to NHL or NBA games, the Lakers and Clippers organizations have both said their teams will be fully vaccinated by the start of the season and the NHL is closing in on having its entire league fully vaccinated.
Los Angeles County’s own vaccine rules — which apply both in the city of Los Angeles and in surrounding communities — are less sweeping. The council decision comes with an eye toward the winter after the nation’s second-most populous city faced a huge rise in infections and hospitalizations last year over the holiday season.
The NBA said last month local laws do apply to players. Laws in New York City and San Francisco that require proof of vaccination for workers and customers impact the Golden State Warriors, Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks but not teams that play road games in those markets.
The Knicks have already announced that its roster is fully vaccinated and the Warriors say they will be soon after Andrew Wiggins, who initially refused to get vaccinated, received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The Nets, however, are a different issue with one of its trio of stars, Kyrie Irving, not disclosing his vaccination status — but also not with the team right now as it has started practicing in New York City, a sign that he is not vaccinated. ESPN reported on Tuesday night that the Nets are not clear on what Irving’s intentions are and whether it will allow him to participate as a part-time player this season.
“I’m envisioning Kyrie being a part of our team,” Kevin Durant told reporters after Wednesday’s practice. “Maybe I’m just naïve, but that is just how I feel. But I think everybody here has that confidence in themselves, in our group, that if we keep building, we can do something special.”
NHL: Fake Vaccine Card Investigated
Posted: Thursday, October 7
San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane is being investigated by the National Hockey League about potentially submitting a fake vaccination card to the league, reported Front Office Sports.
ESPN also reported the league is looking into if Kane submitted a fake vaccination card, which is against league rules let alone illegal in the United States and Canada.
Kane is remaining away from the team and its facility as the regular season nears. He was investigated in the offseason after allegations that he bet on games, including his own team’s. Kane is three seasons into a $49 million, seven-year contract.
NBA: Nets Not Worried While Minus Kyrie Irving Because of Vaccine Mandate
Posted: Wednesday, October 6
Kyrie Irving was the lone Brooklyn Nets player not to attend the team’s first practice on Tuesday in New York City, another reminder of his unvaccinated status during a standoff that for now the Nets are playing cool.
New York has a mandate requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for athletes who play in or practice in the city. Irving has avoided questions on his vaccination status, instead asking for privacy when pressed during the team’s media day on September 27 that he attended virtually instead of in person like every other Nets player.
“We support him, we’re here for him. When things change and there’s a resolution, we’re here for him,” Nets coach Steve Nash said.
Players in New York and San Francisco, which has a similar mandate soon going into effect, won’t be paid for the games they miss. The New York Knicks are 100 percent vaccinated and Andrew Wiggins recently became the last of the Golden State Warriors to get a shot.
The Nets open the NBA 2021–2022 season in two weeks at the reigning champion Milwaukee Bucks. Nash said the team will not hold practice outside the city even if it would ensure the entire roster would be available.
“This is our home and this is where we’re going to practice and we have almost the whole group,” Nash said. “So that’s a positive and we’re just working at getting better every day and focusing on the things we can control.”
OLYMPICS: Russian Vaccines Approved
Posted: Wednesday, October 6
Athletes who have been vaccinated with shots originating in Russia will have those vaccination records accepted for the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, the 2022 organizing committee announced.
Four coronavirus vaccines have been registered in Russia but none are recognized by the World Health Organization. Unvaccinated athletes going to Beijing will be required to spend 21 days in quarantine before competition as part of the plans unveiled by organizers last week that includes a ban on foreign fans.
“All vaccines recognized by the World Health Organization, relevant international organizations, as well as officially approved by countries or regions, will be accepted, so Russian vaccines are acceptable,” Beijing 2022 said.
The move by Beijing organizers come around the same time as news that local fans may be able to attend test events, according to the director of Beijing 2022’s Venue Management Department, Yao Hui, “if conditions allow.”
Beijing is scheduled to host a series of 10 international competitions in the coming weeks in a number of winter sports with an estimated 2,000 overseas athletes, team officials, technical officials and timing and scoring personnel coming to China.
Beijing’s previously announced “closed loop management system” will be used at the events. Huang Chun, deputy director of Beijing 2022’s COVID-19 Prevention and Control Office said, the number of overseas attendees “will undoubtedly and clearly increase the risk of the import and spread of COVID-19.”
TENNIS: Australian Open May Mandate Vaccination, Leaving Novak Djokovic With a Choice to Make
Posted: Tuesday, October 5
Novak Djokovic had one of the great individual seasons in men’s Open tennis history, falling one win short of the first Grand Slam on the ATP Tour in decades and also reaching the semifinals at the Olympic Summer Games men’s tennis tournament.
When Djokovic lost in the U.S. Open final, the question naturally would be if he could achieve the feat next year starting with the Australian Open — a tournament he has won nine times already, including the past three years. But now the question may be whether he plays in the tournament at all, and not because of injury.
The state of Victoria, home for the first Grand Slam of 2022, said that professional athletes must be fully vaccinated by the end of November to participate in the tournament after a breakout in the Delta variant of Covid-19 in the southern state. Along with the Australian Open, the measure pertains to the Ashes cricket event that is scheduled to start December 8.
“I think it is highly unlikely that the Commonwealth government will be letting anybody into this country that has not been double-vaxxed, certainly in the medium term,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said last week. “That might change over time.”
Djokovic has drawn controversy over the past year for his stance about COVID and vaccination. When the ATP Tour was first shut down during the pandemic, Djokovic said on a live stream with other Serbian athletes that would not want to be forced to get vaccinated. He organized his own tournament while the tour was shut down and later contracted COVID, as did his wife.
He has remained a skeptic about vaccination throughout the year, including the U.S. Open where at least partial proof of vaccination was required for fans to attend.
History would be on the line for Djokovic in Australia. He is tied with Roger Federer and Rafael Nada for the most Grand Slams in men’s tennis history at 20.
“It’s Novak’s decision if he wants to get vaccinated. It’s his choice to participate in the Open if there is a mandate,” said Australian tennis coach Craig O’Shannessy, who was a part of Djokovic’s staff from 2017 to 2019.
Djokovic is not the only player on either tour that will have to face a choice about vaccination to play in the Grand Slam. During the U.S. Open, reports emerged that — at best — half of the players on the ATP and WTA Tours were vaccinated, far below any other major professional league. While Federer and Nadal have been pro-vaccine, many younger players have followed Djokovic’s lead and been publicly dismissive of getting their shots.
Australia’s strict restrictions will also again require adjustments to the way players qualify for the event. Tennis Australia is planning to hold its qualifying events in Dubai and Doha for the second year in a row before the main draw starts in mid-January. Players and their coaches and support teams will possibly have to spend two weeks in a bubble again.
“There’s a lot of time between now and when we get going but, at this point in time, we’re planning on having a two-week bubble, where the players will be able to move freely between the hotel and the courts,” Tennis Australia’s Craig Tiley said at a recent event.
NBA: Vaccinations Remain Topic of the Day
Posted: Monday, October 4
The Golden State Warriors’ Andrew Wiggins asked for a religious exemption to stay unvaccinated before the team started training camp, which was denied. During his first appearance with the media at training camp, Wiggins reiterated his opposition to being vaccinated, even at the cost of losing half his salary.
“I’m just going to keep fighting for what I believe,” Wiggins said last Monday.
On Sunday, the Warriors announced that Wiggins had gotten vaccinated.
“Andrew got vaccinated,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “He just told me today that he was fine with us acknowledging it and that will be the end of it. I’m not going to answer any questions beyond that.”
Local laws in San Francisco and New York mean that players for the Warriors, Nets and New York Knicks have to be fully vaccinated to play home games, hence the rapid change in Wiggins’ stance. The spotlight will now shine even brighter on Brooklyn’s Kyrie Irving, who still refuses to be clear about his status and keeps asking for his privacy to be respected.
Phoenix’s Devin Booker is already in the league’s health and safety protocols, which indicates a testing or contact-tracing issue. Add to that Washington’s Bradley Beal saying he is unvaccinated and because the NBA’s vaccination rate is around 95 percent, according to multiple reports, the attention is mostly paid to those who have not gotten their shots rather than those who have.
The Spurs have a fully vaccinated roster, coach Gregg Popovich said, adding that he’s also received his booster shot. The New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers along with Utah, Portland, Houston and Charlotte said they were at the 100% mark. The Associated Press said Toronto, Atlanta and Miami will be by the season openers.
Given the high vaccination numbers, the tension is rising for those who have not gotten their shots, according to an ESPN article last week detailing the risks that are now involved for team staffers who as part of their jobs have to interact with potentially unvaccinated players.
“Everyone who is vaccinated should be pissed at those who aren’t,” one assistant coach told ESPN. “Not requiring NBA players to be vaccinated is (expletive).”
Assistant coaches are not the only ones unhappy with the few remaining players who are unvaccinated. Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar continued speaking his mind, telling Yahoo Sports “the ignorance that has been perpetrated and the misinformation that has been spread around everywhere has made it impossible for people to get an understanding of what is going on. People who say they haven’t finished doing the research yet, really haven’t done any research.”
Another Hall of Famer, Shaquille O’Neal, targeted criticism toward Irving and his actions — or lack of — during his own podcast: “I try not to belittle another man’s opinion. However, let me tell you what I think…. Once you sign up for this life, there is no privacy, and you have to accept it. … if you’re on my team and you can’t play home games, I don’t want you around. … Get your ass up outta here.”
OLYMPICS: Foreign Fans Banned by Beijing Organizers
Posted: Thursday, September 30
The organizers for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing have announced that no foreign fans will be allowed, a move long expected by observers of the Games, while also saying that unvaccinated athletes must quarantine for 21 days upon arrive into China.
“Beijing 2022 informed the (Executive Board) of the principles that will help deliver safe and successful Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games as scheduled,” the International Olympic Committee said in a statement. “Considering the above objective, the IOC and IPC fully respect the principles established by Beijing 2022.”
Chinese residents will still be able to attend events at the Games, which start February 4.

“This will facilitate the growth of winter sports in China … as well as bringing a favorable atmosphere to the venues,” the IOC said.
Among the Beijing safety principles are a “closed-loop management system” immediately upon arrival, within which vaccinated athletes will move freely. It covers all Games-related areas and stadiums as well as accommodation, food and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, served by a dedicated transport system. There will still be daily testing for all athletes.
The move last week by the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee to mandate vaccination for all athletes and members of a potential delegation to 2022 or any future Games was reinforced by Beijing’s announcement of an extensive quarantine should unvaccinated athletes arrive in China, although Beijing said athletes “who can provide a justified medical exemption will have their cases considered.”
The USOPC said before the Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo that out of more than 600 athletes who qualified for vaccination ahead of the Games, around 83 percent of them got their shots. The International Olympic Committee did not require vaccination for athletes who competed in the recent Games in Tokyo, which was held under strict health and safety protocols.
“While the pandemic is far from over, I would like to reassure you that together with our Chinese partners and friends, we are sparing no effort to make these Olympic Winter Games safe and secure for everyone,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in an open letter earlier in September. “As we did in Tokyo, we are putting in place rigorous COVID-19 countermeasures to ensure the health and safety of all Olympic participants in Beijing.”
Bach’s letter referred to “the athletes of these Olympic Games that will send this message of the unifying power of sport to the world,” but critics noted that it did not acknowledge global concerns about human rights issues in China. Activists have tried to brand it the “Genocide Games” because of China’s detention of Muslim minority Uyghur people in prison camps in Xinjiang province and the decision to ban foreign fans, for some Olympic observers, is as much about controlling the visuals of the Games than it is about health and safety.
The IOC included human rights requirements several years ago in the host city contract for the 2024 Paris Olympics, but it did not include the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for Beijing. Bach has consistently said the IOC is a politically neutral sports organization and has declined several recent calls to move the Olympics out of Beijing. His letter was published on the day Beijing organizers unveiled their Games slogan “Together for a Shared Future.”
COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Duke Ready to Place Fan Restrictions on Games
Posted: Wednesday, September 29
One of the biggest programs in college basketball is reportedly on the verge of putting in COVID-related mandates for fans to attend games this season.
Duke University, ahead of Mike Krzyzewski’s final season as head coach, plans to mandate either proof of full vaccination or a negative test within 72 hours of the start of the event. The Durham Herald-Sun first reported the development on Monday and said an official announcement would be imminent.
“I think there’s a really great opportunity here for letting people in who are vaccinated,” Dr. Cameron Wolfe, a Duke infectious disease specialist who chairs the ACC’s Medical Advisory Group, told the school’s Academic Council during its meeting last Thursday. “We should lead in that regard.”
Duke opens the season on November 12 against Army. It played all last season without fans at games at Cameron Indoor Stadium, normally one of the most raucous settings in basketball.
Duke will require vaccination for employment at the university starting October 1; vaccines are already mandated for the school’s students, faculty and staff. The school has a a mask mandate in place for all indoor spaces on campus, which includes volleyball games at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Befitting his stature within the college basketball coaching industry, Krzyzewski started last season seemingly reluctant for the Blue Devils to be playing. “I don’t think it feels right to anybody,” he said after a loss to Illinois early in the season. “I mean, everyone is concerned. … I would just like for the safety, the mental and physical health of players and staff to assess where we’re at.”
Krzyzewski later missed an ACC game on January 6 against Boston College due to COVID-19 quarantine protocol after a family member tested positive for COVID-19. Krzyzewski was vaccinated in early March.
NBA: Beal Backtracks Slightly on Vaccine as LeBron Confirms Vaccination
Posted: Wednesday, September 29
Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal says he still may get vaccinated, one day after he was heavily criticized for his viewpoints on not getting the vaccine to this point.
“I’m still considering getting the vaccine, so one thing I want to make clear is that I’m not sitting up here advocating that you shouldn’t get the vaccine,” Beal said Tuesday, adding that it was recommended he not get vaccinated yet because he is still within 60 days of having contracted COVID and missing the Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo.
The comments Tuesday contrasted with what Beal said Monday when admitting that he was not vaccinated, did not feel pressured to and said “I would like an explanation to people with vaccines, why are they still getting COVID? If that is something that [vaccinated individuals] are supposed be highly protected from, like it’s funny that it only reduces your chances of going to the hospital. Doesn’t eliminate anybody from getting COVID. Right?”
Beal said when he contracted COVID, “I didn’t get sick at all. I lost my smell but that was it for me.”
While Monday brought a storm of comments from Beal, Andrew Wiggins and Kyrie Irving casting doubt on vaccine effectiveness and avoiding questions about their feelings on vaccination, the biggest name in the NBA — LeBron James — confirmed that he is vaccinated.

“You’re always trying to figure out ways that you can just be available and protect one another and put yourself in the best possible chance where you are available to your teammates, available to what we need to do on the floor,” the Lakers superstar said Tuesday.
James had previously been evasive when asked about his vaccination status, saying in March “that’s all family talk.” On Tuesday, he admitted being “very skeptical” when vaccines were first available. Asked if he felt compelled to be a public advocate for vaccination against coronavirus, James said, “That’s not my job.”
NBA: Kyrie Irving, Andrew Wiggins Caught up in Vaccination Controversies
Published: Monday, September 27
With training camps starting this week in earnest in the NBA, the biggest question that each team will face will be what their player vaccination rate is — and while the NBPA says that approximately 90 percent of the league’s players are fully vaccinated, there are several high-profile names that are stealing the attention for their refusal to take the shot.
The biggest name is Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, whose vaccination status — or lack of — has been widely whispered in NBA circles. A piece published Saturday by Rolling Stone describes Irving — who has promoted the theory that world is flat — has been liking social media posts regarding “secret societies” that are “implanting vaccines in a plot to connect Black people to a master computer for ‘a plan of Satan.’”
Irving, attending the Nets’ media day remotely from Los Angeles, said Monday “I would love to keep (his vaccination status) private and handle that the right way with my team. Obviously I’m not able to be present there today.”
Nets General Manager Sean Marks said during the team’s preseason news conference last week that if practice was held this week in Brooklyn, “there would obviously be a couple people missing from that picture.” The Nets’ first preseason game in Brooklyn is October 8. The regular season home opener is October 24.
“That’s on Kyrie and that’s his personal decision,” Nets star Kevin Durant said Monday. “What he does is not on us to speculate what may happen. We trust in Kyrie and I expect us to have our whole team at some point.”
Along with the Brooklyn Nets, players on the New York Knicks and Golden State Warriors must be fully vaccinated to play in home games because of local health requirements; the orders do not apply to visiting players. The Knicks said Friday that their team is fully vaccinated.

“I think it’s a credit to our players, in particular, that they took this thing very seriously and took the responsibility to get that done,” Knicks General Manger Scott Perry said. “So, we’re very proud of that fact and we’re gonna move forward.”
Both the cities of New York City and San Francisco require people over the age of 12 to show proof of vaccination to enter arenas and other indoor venues. The Boston Celtics and Utah Jazz have already announced that fans to attend games must show proof of full vaccination or a negative test within 72 hours of tipoff.
The San Francisco order goes further and says there will be no exemptions granted at large indoor gatherings. One player for the Warriors, Andrew Wiggins, applied for a religious exemption but was denied by the NBA. San Francisco’s mandate does not take effect until the middle of October, so Wiggins has a short window of time to get vaccinated and be eligible to play and practice with his teammates.
Players are just about the only part of a NBA game that do not have a mandate for vaccination. Referees, coaches, stat-crew workers and anyone else who will be in close proximity to players on or off the court in arenas must be vaccinated.
In addition to Irvin, another All-Star, Phoenix’s Devin Booker, will miss the start of training camp after being placed in the NBA’s health and safety protocols. The 24-year-old Booker helped lead the Suns to the NBA Finals last season, averaging 25.6 points per game before joining the U.S. team that won Olympic gold in Tokyo this summer.
Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac told Rolling Stone that he is unvaccinated because “at the end of the day, it’s people,” Isaac says of the scientists developing vaccines, “and you can’t always put your trust completely in people.”
All the discussion around unvaccinated players has made one Hall of Famer very angry. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has done commercials promoting vaccination for the NBA, did not hold back to Rolling Stone:
“The NBA should insist that all players and staff are vaccinated or remove them from the team,” Abdul-Jabbar told the magazine. “There is no room for players who are willing to risk the health and lives of their teammates, the staff and the fans simply because they are unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation or do the necessary research.”
FOOTBALL: Gameday staffing an early-season issue for some college teams
Posted: Friday, September 24
As football season is underway and fans are coming back in the tens of thousands, one issue that some colleges and universities are running into is a shortage in gameday staffing that traditionally is filled by part-time workers that have not come back in the same numbers as before the pandemic.

One school that got attention for the wrong reasons was Virginia Tech, where the stadium’s wireless network had issues that led to long lines for entry into the stadium and students sitting in the wrong seats. People visiting concession stands discovered Virginia Tech had switched to cashless purchases, but staffing problems contributed to the long waits; the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch reported that the concession stands were only at 40 percent of its normal staffing.
Officials at Virginia Tech have apologized for the issues and said it would add beverage-only concession stands to relieve long lines for food, plus reduce the number of menu items.
Fred Demarest, N.C. State’s senior associate AD for communications and brand management, told the Winston-Salem Journal that his school learned last Thursday that its Saturday home game against Furman would be understaffed regarding ticket takers. The athletics department went public with the issue so fans would be encouraged to come early.
Attendance early this season has gone down compared to seasons past for Oregon and Oregon State, schools which both require either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test for entry. Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes told The Oregonian that the school gave either credits or refunded approximately 650 season tickets and resale market volume has dropped significantly.
“We are getting direct feedback that it’s the vaccine,” Barnes said, adding that the school has had part-time workers for games not showing “in the hundreds.” Reser Stadium’s capacity is 43,363; the team’s announced attendance for two games this season has averaged 27,279.
A big difference between college and pro football this season is not just in game staffing around the arenas but the vaccination policies; while schools are able to mandate it for all students, including football players, the NFL has to collectively bargain with the NFLPA and vaccination remains optional for players who agree to adhere to strict protocols reminiscent of last season.
But it also appears that some NFL players are taking a page from the broader society and looking to find a way to fake proof of vaccination. Defector this week published a story saying that while the NFL claims 93.5 percent of players were fully vaccinated by the season opener, there are whispers that some have been using fake vaccination cards.
“I think [fake cards are] a lot more common than people realize,” one agent told the website. Another agent texted Defector that “was told by a player tonight that a big-name guy on his team has a fake card. Players know.”
Defector also reported that two NFL agents had players that they represent ask for help in getting a fake card, which both agents declined.
Under this year’s NFL protocols, a game would be forfeited if a COVID-19 breakout occurs among unvaccinated players on a team. Only unvaccinated players are subject to being quarantined if they are deemed close contacts of those who test positive. Vaccinated players test once every seven days compared to daily testing for unvaccinated players. Unvaccinated players must wear masks when working out at team facilities and must adhere to social distancing in team cafeterias, among other guidelines.
The Athletic this week talked with Denzel Perryman, who said in July before Carolina Panthers training camp that he would not get vaccinated and was OK handling the league’s protocols. After being traded to Las Vegas in early September, after nearly two months of protocols, Perryman got vaccinated.
“I ain’t gonna lie,” Perryman told The Athletic. “Too many restrictions going on. Can’t even eat with my fellow brothers. I don’t like being an outcast.”
Top 25 college football schedule
All times Eastern; most campuses ‘encourage’ mask wearing by fans
Friday’s Game
No. 22 Fresno State vs. UNLV, 10 p.m.
Saturday’s Games
No. 1 Alabama vs. Southern Miss, 7:30 p.m.
No. 2 Georgia at Vanderbilt, 12 p.m.
No. 3 Oregon vs. Arizona, 10:30 p.m. (proof of vaccination of negative test required)
No. 4 Oklahoma vs. West Virginia, 7:30 p.m.
No. 5 Iowa vs. Colorado State, 3:30 p.m.
No. 6 Penn State vs. Villanova, 12 p.m.
No. 7 Texas A&M vs. No. 16 Arkansas at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, 3:30 p.m.
No. 9 Clemson at NC State, 3:30 p.m.
No. 10 Ohio State vs. Akron, 7:30 p.m.
No. 11 Florida vs. Tennessee, 7 p.m.
No. 12 Notre Dame vs. No. 18 Wisconsin at Soldier Field in Chicago, 12 p.m.
No. 14 Iowa State at Baylor, 3:30 p.m.
No. 15 BYU vs. South Florida, 10:15 p.m.
No. 17 Coastal Carolina vs. UMass, 1 p.m.
No. 19 Michigan vs. Rutgers, 3:30 p.m.
No. 20 Michigan State vs. Nebraska, 7 p.m.
No. 21 North Carolina vs. Georgia Tech at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, 7:30 p.m.
No. 23 Auburn vs. Georgia State, 4 p.m.
No. 24 UCLA at Stanford, 6 p.m.
No. 25 Kansas State at Oklahoma State, 7 p.m.
NFL Schedule
All Times Eastern
Thursday’s Game
Carolina at Houston
Sunday’s Games
Washington at Buffalo, 1 p.m. (fans must show proof of at least partial vaccination)
Chicago at Cleveland, 1 p.m.
Baltimore at Detroit, 1 p.m.
Indianapolis at Tennessee, 1 p.m.
L.A. Chargers at Kansas City, 1 p.m.
New Orleans at New England, 1 p.m.
Atlanta at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m.
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh, 1 p.m.
Arizona at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.
N.Y. Jets at Denver, 4 p.m.
Miami at Las Vegas, 4 p.m. (fans must show proof of full vaccination)
Tampa Bay at L.A. Rams, 4:25 p.m.
Seattle at Minnesota, 4:25 p.m.
Green Bay at San Francisco, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Philadelphia at Dallas, 8:15 p.m.
ENDURANCE SPORTS: Ironman Moving World Championships from Hawaii to Utah
Posted: Friday, September 24
Ironman will be moving its world championship event out of Hawai’i for the first time in the 40-plus year history of the event, relocating it to St. George, Utah, on May 7, 2022, because of COVID restrictions and accessibility to the state of Hawaii.
“We are fortunate to have built such a strong and trusted relationship with our friends in the greater St. George region over the past 10-plus years,” said Andrew Messick, president and chief executive officer for The Ironman Group. “St. George stepped up to ensure Ironman athletes will have a 2021 world championship, even if delayed into 2022. We all just witnessed why this special place has been dubbed the ‘Land of Endurance’ and we are confident that we will have an outstanding championship in May.”
The World Championship is the longest running and most distinguished endurance event in the world, but due to Covid-19 restrictions in Hawai’I, the event has not been held since 2019. The 2020 race was cancelled and the 2021 event, scheduled for October 9, was postponed.
“I think we understand the weight and responsibility we now have to carry forward the cherished significance of Kona and we don’t take that responsibility lightly,” said Kevin Lewis, director of the Greater Zion Convention and Tourism Office. “We have the deepest respect for the Ironman legacy and all that has gone on before … We now have the opportunity to truly honor that legacy in a place where the land holds a familiar spirit and the people comprehend what it all really means.”
The St. George area has become a regular stop for Ironman events. It is already scheduled to host the 70.3 North American championships in 2023 and 2025 plus the North American championship in 2024.
“Hosting the Ironman World Championship is yet another example of the Utah Sports Commission’s sport and Olympic legacy efforts that showcase globally why Utah is known as the State of Sport,” said Utah Sports Commission President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Robbins. “Together with our partners, we look forward to welcoming the world to Utah.”
The 2022 World Championship is slated to return to Kona in October 2022 as an expanded two-day event with women racing on October 6 and the men on October 8.
“Hawaii Island and Kona in particular have had a wonderful 40-plus year relationship with Ironman and its origins,” said Ross Birch, Island of Hawai’i Visitors Bureau Executive Director. “While the iconic event has provided long-lasting economic benefits to our island, what’s sometimes missed is the transformation of Kona as a lifestyle destination because of Ironman. We are in full support of Ironman’s change to host a two-day race format that enables the opportunity for all qualifying athletes from the past two-plus years to compete as well as giving the local economy a chance to benefit and recoup lost tourism opportunities.”
OLYMPICS: USOPC to Mandate Vaccination for Athletes
Posted: Thursday, September 23
The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee will mandate full vaccination for athletes, staff and those using USOPC training facilities by December 1 ahead of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
USOPC Chief Executive Officer’s Sarah Hirshland’s letter to athletes and others was obtained by The Associated Press that, starting November 1, the USOPC will require staff, athletes and others utilizing training centers and other USOPC facilities to be vaccinated. The requirement “will also apply to our full Team USA delegation at future Olympic and Paralympic Games,” the letter reads in part.
Hirshland said in the letter that there would be a process for athletes to apply for an exemption. The United States is expected to send around 240 athletes to the Winter Olympics, though the mandate will many more.
The USOPC differs from other professional sports organizations such as the NFL, NHL and NBA because those leagues have to negotiate collective bargaining agreements with their respective player unions. The NHL has an agreement to allow some of its players to compete in the Olympics; NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said he expects the league to be close to 100 percent vaccinated by the time the season starts in mid-October.
The USOPC said before the Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo that out of more than 600 athletes who qualified for vaccination ahead of the Games, around 83 percent of them got their shots. The International Olympic Committee did not require vacccination for athletes who competed in the recent Games in Tokyo, which was held under strict health and safety protocols. The IOC’s first playbook with health-related and other guidance for the Winter Games, is due next month and it is expected that Beijing’s protocols will be — at minimum — as strict as those in Tokyo, if not stricter.
“The stark reality is that this pandemic is far from over,” Hirshland wrote. “This step will increase our ability to create a safe and productive environment for Team USA athletes and staff, and allow us to restore consistency in planning, preparation and service to athletes.”
NBA: Nets Not Worried About Vaccine Mandate
Posted: Thursday, September 23
The Brooklyn Nets will start training camp in San Diego before coming back home to New York — where players will face a vaccination mandate that supersedes the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement with its players.
Along with the Nets, players on the New York Knicks and Golden State Warriors must be fully vaccinated to play in home games because of local health requirements; the orders do not apply to visiting players, however. The New York executive order went into effect on September 13 covers anyone over the age of 12 unless there is an approved medical or religious exemption.
Both New York City and San Francisco require people over the age of 12 to show proof of vaccination to enter arenas and other indoor venues. The Nets have already announced that team employees and fans must show proof of at least partial vaccination to attend games this season while the Warriors fans must show proof of full vaccination to attend games.
The Boston Celtics announced on Wednesday, along with the Boston Bruins, that fans wanting to get into TD Garden for games must present proof of full vaccination or a qualifying negative COVID-19 test per a City of Boston health order; the order also says that all fans “over the age of 2 are required to wear a mask except while actively eating or drinking as permitted.”
“A two-strike policy will be strictly enforced for all guests who attend events at TD Garden in relation to mask wearing,” TD Garden said in a statement announcing the protocols on Wednesday. “Guests failing to adhere to this policy will be subject to disciplinary measures including ejection.”
Nets General Manager Sean Marks said during the team’s preseason news conference that if practice was held this week in Brooklyn, “there would obviously be a couple people missing from that picture.” The Nets’ first preseason game in Brooklyn is October 8. The regular season home opener is October 24.
“We are supporting getting the vaccination,” Marks said, adding that he believes the team will have no issues by the time the regular season starts. “… we don’t see these — whether it’s a city-wide mandate or a league mandate to follow — being any sort of hindrance to us putting out a team.”
The NBA does not have a vaccine mandate for players; NBPA President Michele Roberts told Yahoo Sports in early July that the player vaccination rate was “at 90 percent, which I, frankly, think is much, much more than I would have predicted a couple of months ago.”
This season’s NBA health and safety protocols for players include testing for COVID at least once on game day, plus on days that a team either travels or practices.
OLYMPICS: Strict Protocols Expected in Beijing, IOC Says
Posted: Wednesday, September 22
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, in an open letter published by the IOC, said that those competing and attending the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing should expect the same level of COVID-19 health and safety protocols in place as were this past summer in Tokyo for the rescheduled 2021 Olympic Summer Games.
“While the pandemic is far from over, I would like to reassure you that together with our Chinese partners and friends, we are sparing no effort to make these Olympic Winter Games safe and secure for everyone,” Bach said about the Games in Beijing, which are scheduled for February 4–20. “As we did in Tokyo, we are putting in place rigorous COVID-19 countermeasures to ensure the health and safety of all Olympic participants in Beijing.”
Bach urged those who will be heading to Beijing to get vaccinated. Olympic teams were urged by the IOC to request more vaccines ahead of the 2022 Winter Games as about 100 countries are likely to compete in Beijing compared to 205 countries in Tokyo. Vaccination is encouraged but not mandatory for Beijing.
“I would like to encourage those National Olympic Committees who require additional vaccine doses … to inform our NOC relations department as soon as possible so that we can put the necessary arrangements in place,” Bach said in Friday’s letter.
Bach’s letter referred to “the athletes of these Olympic Games that will send this message of the unifying power of sport to the world,” but critics noted that it did not acknowledge global concerns about human rights issues in China. Activists have tried to brand it the “Genocide Games” because of China’s detention of Muslim minority Uyghur people in prison camps in Xinjiang province.
Human rights groups representing minorities in China have sent out a letter of its own — asking NBC and other worldwide broadcasters to cancel plans to cover and broadcast the Games in Beijing, telling broadcasters that they risk “being complicit” in the “worsening human rights abuses” in China.
The letter, obtained by the Associated Press, was sent to NBC Universal chief executive officer Jeff Shell and other international broadcast executives. NBC is paying $7.75 billion for the rights to the next six Olympics, which is estimated to account for up to 40% of the IOC’s total income.
The IOC included human rights requirements several years ago in the host city contract for the 2024 Paris Olympics, but it did not include the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for Beijing. Bach has consistently said the IOC is a politically neutral sports organization and has declined several recent calls to move the Olympics out of Beijing. His letter was published on the day Beijing organizers unveiled their Games slogan “Together for a Shared Future.”
SPORTS: Sellout crowds leave medical professionals uncomfortable
Posted: Tuesday, September 21
Protocols or not, attendance in the NFL has returned to pre-pandemic strengths — whether it be sellout crowds in Indianapolis, Cleveland, Miami and Kansas City in addition to near-sellouts for both the New York Jets and New York Giants with more than 74,000 tickets sold.
When TV cameras cut to fan reactions this season, few people are shown wearing masks — if any at all. There is no vaccine requirement for fans at all but two NFL stadiums, something President Joe Biden has urged sports and entertainment venues to impose. And as the fall continues and football games at both the pro and college level continue, the question of what the risk of going to a game is debated by health officials.

The risk of catching COVID greatly depends on where the stadium is and whether the game is outdoors, among other factors. Outdoor games are universally considered safer but epidemiologist Ryan Demmer of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health told The Associated Press there remains an “extremely high chance” an unvaccinated, unmasked fan could get COVID-19 if they sit next to an infected person for three hours or so.
“At any sort of large event like at a football stadium, without question there will be many infected people there,” Demmer said, who advises fans to not wander around the stadium or stand in lines that are long so that once inside the stadium, you minimize contact with people as much as possible.
Demmer told the AP there is no question that crowded stadiums this fall will lead to more infections, adding “I just wish everyone would get vaccinated and then we can really move past this once and for all.”
The number of venues that are requiring at least proof of a negative COVID test are increasing, seemingly by the week. Two NFL teams — the Las Vegas Raiders currently, and soon the Buffalo Bills — will require proof of full vaccination for entry into home games. Nearly half the National Hockey League will be at that level once the 2021–2022 season starts. Last week, a poll from Pew Research Center showed that 56 percent of America favor requiring vaccination as a condition of going to sporting events or entertainment venues.
“If you have a stadium full of people and many of them are vaccinated, they will be protected and others will be protected from serious illness,” Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, one of the creators of the Moderna vaccine, told USA Today Sports recently.
The one NFL team that is underperforming attendance-wise is Washington Football Team, which is averaging 51,435 in two home games (62.7 percent capacity). That figure could also come with a caveat with the low capacity possibly being more about the team’s struggles and fan dissatisfaction with ownership than any on-field performance.
Only two other NFL teams that have played true home games this season and drawn under 90 percent capacity; Cincinnati at 86.3 percent (56,525) and Jacksonville at 86.2 percent (58,461). New Orleans’ home opener was actually in Jacksonville, Florida, because of hurricane damage in Louisiana, making its ‘home capacity’ of 51.9 easily explainable. Including the Saints, six teams are yet to have played a home game this season.
But while the NFL has shown no signs of markedly decreased crowds early on, there have been Major League Baseball teams with significant declines in attendance this season. The Athletic recently reported that MLB overall attendance is down 36 percent from 2019 with six teams having drops of more than 50 percent: Philadelphia, Minnesota, St. Louis, San Francisco, Boston and the New York Yankees. Of those teams, only the Twins are not in the playoff race heading into the final two weeks of the season.
MLB will counter — and with some truth behind its stance — that attendance figures this year will be distorted because while each team has had fans at every game this season, many of them operated early in the season with capacity restrictions. Which is true: Each MLB ballpark was not at 100 percent capacity until sometime in mid-July. Its figures next season will be more of a truer comparison before and after the pandemic; the bigger test will be to see what NBA and NHL teams draw in the winter between the number of NHL arenas requiring full vaccination and depending on vaccination rates throughout the United States, given what happened last winter pre-vaccine with cases skyrocketing throughout the country.
RUNNING: Tokyo Marathon Postponed to 2022
Posted: Tuesday, September 21
The Tokyo Marathon scheduled for October 17 will not be on March 6, 2022, with the 2022 edition canceled due to the COVID-19 state of emergency in Japan’s capital, the Tokyo Marathon Foundation said. This is the second straight year the event has been affected by the pandemic, with last year’s marathon limited to elite runners.
“I would like to sincerely apologize not only to our runners and volunteers, but to everyone who has been looking forward to our event,” Race Director Tadaaki Hayano said in a statement.
NHL: Player Vaccination Rate Nears 100 Percent Before Preseason
Posted: Monday, September 20
When the National Hockey League released its health and safety protocols for the upcoming 2021–2022 season, it laid clear the incentives both financially and beyond for players to become vaccinated.
Those incentives have clearly made a difference with NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly saying on Thursday that there may be as few as 10 players overall — out of 736 in the league — that would not be fully vaccinated by the time the season starts October 12.
“That is subject to change, obviously, because it’s dependent on who makes the roster and who doesn’t make the roster and what the status of those players are, so it’s really a projection at this point,” Daly said at the NHL/NHL Players’ Association North American Player Media Tour. “But I think we’re safe in saying that it’s going to be less than 15 [players].”
Up to 25 of the league’s 32 teams could be fully vaccinated when the season opens, Daly added.
The 2019–2020 season was disrupted by the pandemic, with the season finishing in two secure bubble environments in Toronto and Edmonton with less than the full league participating; the 2021 season was shortened to 56 games and did not start until mid-January. The 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs did not end until July 7, pushing the start of the 2021–2022 season back about a week. The season will also have a break for the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing in February.
The NHL’s protocols this season include the ability to suspend unvaccinated players without pay if they cannot participate in hockey activities, while fully vaccinated players will have any COVID-19 positives treated as injuries and still be paid. Unvaccinated players also will undergo regular testing and have their movements restricted when on the road.
“We weren’t really trying to convince each other one way or the other,” Los Angeles defenseman Drew Doughty said. “But then I think when the NHL released that statement that you lose pay and stuff like that, that kind of changed some guys’ minds.”
There are 14 NHL teams that will have fan policies ranging from either full vaccination required to attend games to either having proof of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID test within 72 hours of the game. Team coaches and staffers must be vaccinated as a condition of employment; Columbus replaced assistant coach Sylvain Lefebvre because he declined to be vaccinated.
“We’re hopeful and expect to get an 82-game season in, we expect to play a full Stanley Cup Playoffs and we expect to finish close to kind of a normal calendar for the first time in three years,” Daly said. “And that all will be an accomplishment, and we’ll do that hopefully in an environment where we have full buildings in most of our cities, so we’re excited about that. But COVID continues to be a challenge.”
MULTI-SPORT: 2022 Gay Games Postponed to 2023
Posted: Monday, September 20
The 2022 Gay Games, scheduled for Hong Kong, will be postponed to November 2023 after the local organizing committee held talks with the Federation of Gay Games.
Gay Games 11, originally planned for November 11–19, 2022, will be held for the first time in Asia in 2023. The event is expecting 12,000 participants, 75,000 spectators and 3,000 volunteers from 100 countries competing in 36 events.
“The unpredictable progression of COVID variants and corresponding travel restrictions continue to make it challenging for participants from around the world to make plans to travel to Hong Kong,” said Dennis Phillipse, co-chair of the local organizing committee. “… With many parts of the world, including many across Asia, still struggling to contain the virus and facing uneven access to vaccines, we felt that delaying the Games until November 2023 will enhance the likelihood of delivering on our promise to have the Hong Kong Games serve as a beacon of hope for the wider community across the region.”
NFL: Bills Make Full Vaccination Mandatory for Fans
Posted: Friday, September 17
Another National Football League team has announced that all fans must be fully vaccinated to attend games this season, days after images showed a mask policy for indoor spaces was seldom adhered to and not enforced.
The Buffalo Bills and Erie County require all fans to be at least partially vaccinated to attend games at Highmark Stadium beginning with the September 26 game against the Washington Football Team. All fans 12 and over must be fully vaccinated starting with the October 31 game vs. the Miami Dolphins.

The move was also announced days after the Erie County Department of Health sanitarians cited eight food facilities for lack of mask wearing during Sunday’s home opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Scenes inside the concourses at the stadium showed most fans not abiding by an indoor mask rule. New York State Senator Sean Ryan retweeted a photo of himself not wearing a mask saying, ‘Yup that’s me with my mask in my hand about to put it back on.’
“If you do not want to get vaccinated … that does not give you a right to go to a football game or a hockey game,” Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz said. “If you want to go to the games, get vaccinated.”
Poloncarz floated the idea of having a fully vaccinated requirement for Bills fans in the spring but decided against it in the summer as Erie County cases began to decrease. With the region having its highest number of cases in April this past week and the photos that came out from the season opener, Poloncarz decided that going back to the original idea was needed. The policy will extend to the Buffalo Sabres’ home games later this year at the KeyBank Center.
The Bills had 69,787 fans attend their loss to the Steelers, 97.4 percent of the stadium’s capacity. The Bills join the Las Vegas Raiders as the only teams that mandate full vaccination to attend games; the New Orleans Saints and Seattle Seahawks also allow fans to attend if they have proof of a negative test within 72 hours of kickoff.
Masks will no longer be required for ages 12 and over once the new policy is in place. A physical vaccination card, New York state Excelsior Pass, clear digital vaccine cards and government digital vaccine proof from outside New York will all be accepted.
Fans are back as COVID-19 surges because of the delta variant, but President Joe Biden has encouraged sporting venues as well as other entertainment venues to require either vaccination or proof of a negative COVID test. While the NFL trumpeted having a million-plus fans at games for the opening weekend, it is worth noting that only three of the games were sold out (Kansas City, New England and Indianapolis).
Most of the home teams for Week 1 were more than 90 percent capacity except for the Saints, which is understandable having played at a neutral site. Outside of that, the Washington Football Team’s home opener was in front of 52,753 fans — only 64.3 percent of capacity at FedEx Field. Both the New York Giants and Cincinnati Bengals had 89.9 and 86.3 percent of capacity, respectively.
The Raiders had 61,756 for its Monday Night overtime win over the Baltimore Ravens, which is 95 percent of capacity. Almost at full capacity was SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, where the L.A. Rams drew 70,445 (98.5 percent) for its win over the Chicago Bears. The L.A. Chargers host their first game with fans at the stadium on Sunday when they host the Dallas Cowboys; the stadium falls under a plan by L.A. County to require proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test within 72 hours for attendees and workers beginning October 7.
Then there are the teams that play the games — and one in particular is already dealing with multiple COVID positive cases within the organization.
The New Orleans Saints have six offensive assistant coaches, plus a staff member and one player who have tested positive in the past week ahead of Sunday’s game at the Carolina Panthers. Positive cases are the latest in a series of off-field issues that the Saints have had to deal with since the preseason started; Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans hard, forcing the team to relocate practices to Texas before its season opener last weekend against the Green Bay Packers was moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where the Saints were able to put together an impressive 38-3 win.
“I said to [offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr., quarterbacks coach Ronald Curry and assistant offensive line coach Zach Strief], it’s like ‘Ted Lasso,’ the three or four of us,” Saints coach Sean Payton said. “The rest of ’em are all up in their hotel rooms and they’re doing the best they can with preparation. … Pete and I and Ronald has been here and Zach. Obviously we’ve got some young coaching assistants. We’re missing an O-line coach, a receiver coach, a running back coach, a tight end coach, the other tight end coach.”
Payton would not say who the player that tested positive was; the Saints did put star wide receiver Michael Thomas on the reserve/COVID list on Tuesday. Thomas is rehabbing an injury and not able to return to practice until at least week 7 of the season but is with the team at TCU’s facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Saints are using the NFL’s enhanced mitigation protocols with mandatory masking inside facilities, daily testing, no in-person meetings and grab-and-go meals. Payton said during the summer that the team’s coaching and personnel staffs were 100% vaccinated.
Top 25 College Football Schedule (times EST)
(most schools’ policy ‘encourage’ wearing face masks at games)
No. 1 Alabama at No. 11 Florida, 3:30 p.m.
No. 2 Georgia vs. South Carolina, 7 p.m.
No. 3 Oklahoma vs. Nebraska, Noon
No. 4 Oregon vs. Stony Brook, 7:30 p.m. (proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required)
No. 5 Iowa vs. Kent St., 3:30 p.m.
No. 6 Clemson vs. Georgia Tech, 3:30 p.m.
No. 7 Texas A&M vs. New Mexico, Noon
No. 8 Cincinnati at Indiana, Noon
No. 9 Ohio State vs. Tulsa, 3:30 p.m.
No. 10 Penn State vs. No. 22 Auburn, 7:30 p.m.
No. 12 Notre Dame vs. Purdue, 2:30 p.m. (Non-vaccinated attendees are “expected” to wear masks at all times)
No. 13 UCLA vs. Fresno St., 10:45 p.m. (face masks required except when eating or drinking)
No. 14 Iowa State at UNLV, 10:30 p.m. (face masks required except when eating or drinking)
No. 15 Virginia Tech at West Virginia, Noon
No. 16 Coastal Carolina at Buffalo, Noon (face masks required except when eating or drinking)
No. 17 Mississippi vs. Tulane, 8 p.m.
No. 19 Arizona State at No. 23 BYU, 10:15 p.m.
No. 20 Arkansas vs. Georgia Southern, 4 p.m.
No. 21 North Carolina vs. Virginia, 7:30 p.m.
No. 24 Miami vs. Michigan St., Noon
No. 25 Michigan vs. N. Illinois, Noon
NFL Week 2 Schedule (times EST)
(teams ‘encourage’ wearing face masks at games)
Thursday’s Game
N.Y. Giants at Washington
Sunday’s Games
Las Vegas at Pittsburgh, 1 p.m.
San Francisco at Philadelphia, 1 p.m.
Houston at Cleveland, 1 p.m.
Denver at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.
New Orleans at Carolina, 1 p.m.
L.A. Rams at Indianapolis, 1 p.m.
Buffalo at Miami, 1 p.m.
New England at N.Y. Jets, 1 p.m.
Cincinnati at Chicago, 1 p.m.
Atlanta at Tampa Bay, 4 p.m.
Minnesota at Arizona, 4 p.m.
Tennessee at Seattle, 4:25 p.m. (proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required)
Dallas at L.A. Chargers, 4:25 p.m.
Kansas City at Baltimore, 8:20 p.m.
Monday’s Game
Detroit at Green Bay, 8:15 p.m.
NHL: Predators Latest to Announce Fan Mandates
Posted: Thursday, September 16
Nearly half the National Hockey League’s teams have already announced policies that will at minimum require proof of a negative COVID-19 test, if not proof of full vaccination, to attend games this season.
The Nashville Predators became the 14th team to announce its policies this week, saying ages 12 and older must show either proof of full vaccination of a negative PCR or antigen test administered within 72 hours prior to the event.
Bridgestone Arena, home for the Predators, said the policy is effective October 2 and will remain in place at least through November 15. An announcement will be made at the beginning of each month reaffirming or altering procedures and protocols, the Predators said in a statement.
“Just two months ago, we believed that we were returning to a sense of normalcy, but unfortunately, with the impact of the delta variant, that has not been the case,” said Sean Henry, president and chief executive officer of Bridgestone Arena and the Nashville Predators. “We are united with health care professionals in our belief that the only way to end this pandemic is to get more people vaccinated. To that end, we want to do our part with these policies to make sure that our game and event attendees are as safe as possible and, at the same time, we will use our public platform to amplify the message of the importance of vaccines in hopes of encouraging more people to get vaccinated.”
The Predators will continue to partner with the Metro Public Health Department to offer free COVID-19 vaccinations at Bridgestone Arena in connection with every event.
ESPORTS: DreamHack Atlanta Postponed
Posted: Thursday, September 16
ATHLETICS: 2022 Cross Country Event Already Postponed
Posted: Thursday, September 16
The World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia, will be postponed from February 2022 to February 2023 “due to the biosecurity measures and travel restrictions currently in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in Australia,” according to a release from the local organizing committee and World Athletics.
The statement added that “while it is acknowledged that international events are currently scheduled for early 2022 in Australia, the 14-day quarantine requirements for international visitors to Australia are not practical for a one-day event.”
“Athletics Australia and the LOC are delighted that World Athletics and its partners have agreed to the postponement, which allows us to plan and deliver a world-class celebration of cross country running in February 2023,” said LOC Co-Chair and Athletics Australia Board Member Jill Davies.
The World Athletics Cross Country Championships, when held in 2023, will have more than 550 athletes from more than 60 countries. The event will comprise the U20 men’s (8km) and women’s (6km) races, the universal mixed relay (8km) and the senior individual men’s and women’s races (10km).
TAEKWONDO: Grand Prix Final Postponed to 2022
Posted: Thursday, September 16
USA Taekwondo will postpone the U.S. Grand Prix Final in Palm Beach, Florida, originally scheduled for October, with the hopes of having it in late January of 2022.
“With the delay of the World Taekwondo Championships due to Covid-19, rising infection rates in the United States and uncertainty surrounding the duration of the efficacy of the vaccines, USATKD has an opportunity to be cautious and has decided that it is the safest option not to take any risks with the health and safety of its participants right now and will take the time needed to stage this important event safely,” the National Governing Body said in a release.
NBA: No Vaccine Mandate for Players, Report Says
Posted: Wednesday, September 15
The NBA’s referees have agreed to a vaccine mandate and most NBA staff and team employees will be vaccinated as well ahead of the 2021–2022 season, but the league’s players themselves will not be mandated to get COVID-19 shots ahead of the season.
The ESPN report on Tuesday said that the league and Players Association are still working on the rest of the upcoming season’s health and safety protocols. An NBA spokesman told ESPN that approximately 85 percent of the league’s players are vaccinated already; the league has been running several public service announcements since the spring showcasing players throughout the league getting their vaccinations as well as many of the league’s legends including Julius Erving and Bill Russell.
Even if the league and NBPA do not come to an agreement on a vaccine mandate, there are three teams — the New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and Golden State Warriors — whose players must be vaccinated because of vaccine requirements in their respective cities unless they have an approved medical or religious exemption.
The NBA at least knows that the Toronto Raptors will be back at Scotiabank Arena after they played the entire 2020-21 season at Amalie Arena in Tampa Bay, Florida, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions between the US and Canada. It is unclear how many fans will be permitted for games. Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Raptors and the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, said in August that fans would be required to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative test result to enter its venues.
Raptors boss Masai Ujiri said when detailing his return to the franchise that the team is excited about playing at home again.
“We can’t wait to get back to Toronto here. We can’t wait to get back to playing. We can’t wait to get back to basketball, life,” Ujiri said in August. “We thank Tampa. They were incredible accommodating us in their arena. But man, it’s time to come home. It’s time to come home to these fans and everyone here.”
HOCKEY: PHF Makes Full Vaccination Mandatory for Players
Posted: Wednesday, September 15
The Premier Hockey Federation, which recently rebranded from the previous NWHL moniker, has announced that all players, coaches, officials and staff in both full- and part-time capacities must be fully vaccinated to participate in the upcoming season.
The league’s policy also applies to volunteers and rink partners who may meet each other on a daily or weekly basis. All signed athletes were notified about the policy in early September and had until last Friday to opt-in or opt-out of their contracts. Players who decide to opt out of the season will forfeit their salary. Medical and religious exemptions to vaccination were considered on an individual basis by the commissioner’s office.
“The health and safety of everyone associated with the PHF is a top priority,” said PHF Commissioner Tyler Tumminia. “In consultation with global healthcare leaders, vaccination for COVID-19 continues to be a critical component in promoting and protecting the health and safety of all players, staff, and their families.”
Additional protocols include weekly PCR testing during the preseason, regular season and postseason; temperature checks at home before coming to practice and game facilities and daily health surveys; and where social distancing cannot be maintained, all members will be required to wear a mask outdoors and in indoor settings except when actively participating in on-ice activities or other strenuous or high-intensity training.
The PHF season begins November 6. COVID-19 protocols pertaining to fan attendance will be announced later; the PHF has teams based in Boston; Toronto; Monmouth Junction, New Jersey; St. Paul, Minnesota; Danbury, Connecticut; and Buffalo, New York.
SOCCER: NWSL Team Forfeits Game for Protocol Breach
Posted: Tuesday, September 14
While the National Women’s Soccer League says that nearly 90 percent of the league’s players are vaccinated against COVID-19 and nearly all the staff members are throughout the league’s eight teams, one team had to forfeit a match over the weekend for “breaches of the league’s medical protocols,” the league announced.
The Washington Spirit were forced to forfeit its home game scheduled for Saturday against the OL Reign, which will go in the record books as a 3-0 Reign victory. A person familiar with the situation told The Washington Post that the breaches included at least one player violating isolation requirements.

Spirit president Ben Olsen — hired less than two weeks ago — released a statement saying, “Although we are disappointed in the NWSL’s decision to issue the Spirit a forfeit, we accept their decision. We apologize to our fans who we know are disappointed in us. Making this situation right and preparing for our remaining matches are the club’s highest priorities.”
According to NWSL protocols, a major infraction “directly risks the health or safety of personnel by increasing the risk of covid-19 exposure.” The Post’s report said that several Spirit players are unvaccinated. Vaccinated players are tested weekly and unvaccinated players are tested twice per week.
The Spirit has not played since August 29 after their game at Portland was postponed because of multiple Washington players testing positive. The league has not set a rescheduled date or said if a forfeit would be assessed for that game. Washington is not scheduled to play again until September 26 against Kansas City.
WINTER SPORTS: China Event Cancelled
Posted: Tuesday, September 14
The International Skating Union announced Monday that its Four Continents Championship scheduled for January 17–22 in Tianjin, China, was being canceled by the Chinese Figure Skating Association.
“Considering the complicated epidemic situation involving travel restrictions, quarantine requirements, safety concerns and logistical challenges, the organization of the event was extremely challenging,” the ISU said in a statement.
The ISU said it will meet on October 1 and consider late applications from interested destinations to host the event on its originally planned date.
BASEBALL: Red Sox Rocked by Another Positive Test in Middle of Wild Card Race
Posted: Monday, September 13
The Boston Red Sox are in a tight race for the American League wild card, heading into Monday’s games tied with the Toronto Blue Jays for the two spots with the rival New York Yankees only a game behind with less than 25 games to go before the end of the regular season.
The Red Sox are also the one team in Major League Baseball that has been hit harder than any other recently when it comes to players being on the COVID-19 list, having to put pitcher Chris Sale on the list the day before he was scheduled to start on Friday night against the Chicago White Sox.
Boston did find one silver lining, knowing that because Sale did not get on the team charter to Chicago once his initial positive was discovered, there was no spread throughout the rest of the active roster. From August 27 through September 5, the Red Sox placed 11 players on the COVID-19 injured list.
“At this point, nothing shocks me, to be honest with you,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “On a daily basis, we go through our process and we just hope for good news. This is where we’re at. It’s unfortunate, but (Sale will) be back. He feels good. He actually feels great and hopefully he can come back right away when his ‘X’ amount of days are done.”

Sale is 3-0 with a 2.52 ERA and 30 strikeouts in 25 innings in five starts this season, having missed most of the campaign after recovering from Tommy John surgery. The Red Sox are under the 85 percent vaccination threshold and with the spate of players going onto the COVID list, it certainly raised eyebrows when outfielder Hunter Renfroe said on Thursday on Boston local radio that MLB had told Boston not to test for COVID anymore.
“MLB basically told us to stop the testing and just treat the symptoms,” Renfroe said on WEEI’s “Merloni and Fauria” show. “And we were like, ‘No, we’re going to figure out what’s going on and keep trying to keep this thing under control.'”
Host Lou Merloni asked if Renfroe was saying MLB asked the Red Sox to stop testing and Renfroe said “yes.”
Renfroe’s comments were shortly refuted by his own team, with the Red Sox saying “we have been following MLB’s COVID-19 protocols all season long. We have consulted closely with them on everything we’ve done and continue to test and their medical staff has been very supportive.”
NHL: Another Team Makes Fan Vaccination Mandatory
Posted: Monday, September 13
The Ottawa Senators will mandate fans be vaccinated to attend games in the 2021–2022 NHL season, with the province of Ottawa and Ottawa Public Health agreeing that with the policy in place, the team will be allowed to have full capacity at games.
Opening night at Canadian Tire Centre is October 14 when the Senators host Toronto. The Senators said the arena will require proof of full vaccination plus masks worn except when eating or drinking at events starting September 18.
FOOTBALL: Daily Testing a Point of Contention Between NFL, Players Association
Posted: Friday, September 10
The idea of daily testing this season has been panned by the NFL other than for unvaccinated players. But as the season gets fully underway this weekend, the NFL Players Association has asked for it to be re-instituted and the union president, Cleveland Browns offensive lineman J.C. Tretter, reiterated the union’s contention that “at the moment, we are in a worse spot this year than last year because the NFL has backed off a key component of our previous success.”
Tretter, in his letter to players this week, made the case that without daily testing for all players, “when we don’t have our finger on the pulse of what is going on inside our buildings, we set ourselves up for failure.” He said that the Tennessee Titans had 14 positives between players and coaches at one point during training camp “and the team was 97% vaccinated at that time. It’s not hard to realize how devastating that would be during a week of the regular season.”
The letter referenced the NFL’s plans for this season when it comes to a potential outbreak within a team’s facility. The NFL says this season, unlike last year, a team unable to play on its scheduled date would forfeit the game.
“If a game gets cancelled, nobody gets paid – including the owners – for the revenues lost from that game,” Tretter said. “The players lose out, the fans lose out, and the owners lose out. It’s the worst-case scenario that we should all be actively working to avoid – and the fact that we aren’t continues to be a source of frustration for our union.
“… We have been warned by our experts that, because of our current testing cadence, we are at more risk of missed games this season than last season,” Tretter’s letter concluded. “If we continue to go down this path, I need everyone in the football community to be aware of what lies ahead.”
Days after Tretter’s letter was published came the revelation that as part of its preparations to try and get through the 2020 season, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had league schedule maker Howard Katz devise a contingency plan that called for a 10-game season that started on Thanksgiving Day with the Super Bowl pushed to the end of February because of concerns that the season would not be able to start on time because COVID-19.
“We didn’t want people to think that we were thinking about anything but starting on time,” Goodell told The Los Angeles Times. “I didn’t even reveal it to our clubs, because then they would have started talking about it and thinking about it.”
The story also recounts first-hand experiences of how the league had to scramble when it became clear the day before Thanksgiving Day that the game between the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers had to be postponed to the following Wednesday night with NFL executives that morning counting the number of available players on a white board to make sure the rescheduled game could be held.
It also describes how that game was postponed while a game that same week involving the Denver Broncos and New Orleans Saints was held as scheduled even though the Broncos had no eligible quarterbacks; the Broncos asked to have the game rescheduled but the league refused, making Denver play the game with a scout team wide receiver playing QB because video from the team facility showed the quarterbacks removed their contact-tracing devices and put them in the four corners of the meeting room, then sat together to watch film.
Those four QBs were ruled out as close contacts, a potential that still exists this season. The NFL protocols require unvaccinated players to quarantine for five days if they have close contact with an infected individual, which increases to 10 days should they then test positive. Multiple quarterbacks in the league have been in the spotlight during training camp for refusing to get vaccinated;
Indianapolis Colts starter Carson Wentz and Minnesota Vikings starter Kirk Cousins had quarantine during training camp and the preseason. Lamar Jackson, the 2019 league MVP for the Baltimore Ravens, tested positive for the second time in eight months, then said that he remained uncertain about vaccination. Cam Newton missed five days with the New England Patriots because of what the team called a misunderstanding about the protocols before Newton was waived as the Patriots finalized their 53-man roster.

“It’s a personal decision for me and my family,” Wentz said last week. “I respect everybody else’s decision, and I just ask that everybody does the same for me.”
Let alone a stadium full of players, the idea of having stadiums — college and pro — filled with fans has been almost universally panned by infectious disease experts. Dr. Anthony Fauci was on CNN this week, when asked about opening weekend crowds at college football games, said “I don’t think it’s smart. Outdoors is always better than indoors, but even when you have such a congregate setting of people close together, you should be vaccinated. And when you do have congregate settings, particularly indoors, you should be wearing a mask.”
One of the spotlight games of the opening college football weekend was Notre Dame’s overtime win at Florida State, where fans were asked to wear a mask at the games while Doak Campbell Stadium was at 100 percent capacity. While only 68,316 showed up to the game, about 10,000 under capacity, mask wearing was almost invisible during crowd reaction shots on television throughout the game.
“We were disappointed with the fact that a very low percentage of the fans, particularly our students, chose to wear masks,” Associate Athletics Director for Communications Rob Wilson said in a statement to the Tallahassee Democrat on Tuesday. “We will continue to work to educate our fans regarding the expectation that masks will be worn on campus and for all athletic events.”
According to the Democrat, Florida State reported 145 students and five employees testing positive out of 1,755 tests conducted for the week from August 30 through September 5, a positivity rate of 8.55 percent; the number of student positives was the highest total recorded since August 2020.
Several college football programs including the University of Washington, Washington State University, Tulane University and Syracuse University have policies that require fans to show proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test within 72 hours of kickoff. The University of Pennsylvania and College of the Holy Cross have gone a step further, requiring full vaccination for fans attending fall sports contests.
Within the NFL, the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints will be requiring either proof of full vaccination or a negative test. The Las Vegas Raiders remain the only NFL team to require proof of full vaccination for all fans ages 12 and older.
FOOTBALL: NFL Embarks on Second Virus-Affected Season in a Row
Posted: Thursday, September 9
Ready or not — and it insists it is ready — the National Football League will kick off the 2021 regular season with sold-out stadiums and teams that are mostly vaccinated but still with breakthrough cases that already have sidelined at least one Dallas Cowboys starter ahead of tonight’s game against the defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Dallas offensive lineman Zack Martin will miss the season opener after he tested positive on Sunday and landed on the reserve/COVID-19 list. Martin is vaccinated but per the NFL’s updated protocols this season, he has to wait for five days before returning to his team if he does not have symptoms following two negative tests separated by 24 hours.
The Cowboys have had nine players on the COVID-19 list so far since the start of training camp compared to last season when six players combined to miss seven games. Martin is the only Cowboys starter that will miss Thursday’s game.
“I’m not going to generalize them all, but I think some of the symptoms have been more like a general cold,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said. “I think our guys have done a great job. … As soon as someone feels something, we’ve been getting tested, so I feel our process is in order.”
Dallas’ players went through testing on Sunday and held meetings virtually on Sunday and Monday as well per the league’s protocols.
“The numbers are up in our society, so I think we understand what we need to do,” McCarthy said, “and I think we’re more rehearsed in the protocols and the adjustments, like we make an adjustment today with the team, it was pretty seamless.”
As the league fully opens the season on Sunday, only the Las Vegas Raiders are mandating proof of full vaccination for fans 12 and older. The Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints are mandating either proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test within 72 hours of kickoff. No NFL stadium will be open to less than full capacity this season in contrast to last season, where several teams did not have fans at all.
The NFL player vaccination rate has increased since the start of training camp and The Athletic reported Wednesday that 93.5 percent of players are vaccinated with 17 teams above 95 percent and no teams below 80 percent. While the numbers are impressive, the NFLPA has pushed for the resumption of daily testing given the number of breakthrough cases in training camp — unvaccinated players remain subject to daily testing this season but vaccinated players will be tested on a weekly basis.
The NFL said last month it would like to have a mandate for vaccines among all players which the NFLPA did not agree to. The league has mandated vaccination for coaches and Tier 1 personnel on each team who interact with players on a regular season.
“Our challenge right now … is certainly that we are in a major surge,” Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, told The Washington Post recently. “It’s no secret to any of you, nor is it a secret to any of us in medicine, with the impact that the delta variant is having.”
Given the protocols and seeing already how a positive test can rule a player out of a game this season, players around the league have been open about the idea of acting like last year’s protocols are still in place when it comes to not going outside a team’s training facility or their family home much, if at all. And with fans on hand this year in greater numbers than at any point in the pandemic, the theme of personal responsibility was emphasized over Labor Day weekend by Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady — who admitted that he contracted COVID shortly after Tampa Bay’s win in the Super Bowl and subsequent boat parade.
“I actually think it’s going to play more of a factor this year than last year, just because of the way what we’re doing now and what the stadium is going to look like and what the travel is going to look like and the people in the building and the fans,” said Brady, whose Buccaneers team is one of two in the league with a 100 percent player vaccination rate. “It’s not like last year, although we’re getting tested like last year. It’s going to be, I definitely think guys are going to be out at different points and we’ve just got to deal with it.”
NHL: Protocols Significantly Stronger for Unvaccinated Players
Posted: Wednesday, September 8
The National Hockey League already has five teams mandating vaccinations for fans to attend games this season — and now players know what the protocols for the 2021–2022 season will be based upon their vaccination status.
Players who are not vaccinated, according to ESPN and The Athletic, will not be able to go anywhere on the road other than the hotel, practices or arenas for games. Even when at the hotel, players who are not vaccinated cannot use the bar, restaurant, gym or pool and must not allow anybody in their rooms. They must quarantine for seven days before training camp and undergo daily testing; during the season, unvaccinated players are “encouraged” not to eat or drink on team flights, go to bars or eat indoors with people outside their families.

Teams can suspend unvaccinated players who are “unable to participate in club activities,” and those players will surrender a day’s pay for each day they miss.
The San Jose Sharks, Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets have all said that fans must be fully vaccinated to attend games. The Montreal Canadiens said Wednesday that not only will fans have to be fully vaccinated to attend games, the capacity for home games to start the season will be limited to 7,500. The NHL’s 2021–22 season, back to a full 82 games, starts October 12. The league will let players opt out of the season for health concerns by October 1.
The league’s protocols say any person whose job or access requires them to be within 12 feet of players must be vaccinated. It would allow fully vaccinated and masked media members into the locker room for pre- and post-game interviews, the first professional league to make that distinction.
The NHL’s virus protocols last week came while the league and NHLPA announced an agreement that will, as scheduled, allow NHL players to participate in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. The league’s 2021–2022 schedule had included an Olympic break when announced, but the league had maintained that no agreement had been officially made between it, the NHLPA, the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee.
ESPN did report that the NHL and NHLPA can pull out of the Games as late as January should COVID conditions worsen. If the league does not invoke the clause, 2022 would be the first time the NHL allows players to be in the Olympics since 2014 after skipping 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
COVID protocols had been a big point in negotiations; all players who go to Beijing must be vaccinated. But that was not the only sticking point, with the league wanting to have increased rights to media and advertising including the NHL having the ability to use Games highlights on its social media channels. But ESPN’s report said the IIHF and IOC held firm against the request, knowing that many NHL stars were vocal about playing in the Games along with the NHL losing a key partner in NBC, which broadcasts the Games but a network that the NHL did not renew its broadcast deal with ahead of this season, leaving the network for ESPN and Turner Sports.
NFL: Seahawks Require Fans to Show Proof of Vaccination or Negative Test
Posted: Tuesday, September 7
The Seattle Seahawks will require fans to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours prior to kickoff for entry to home games at Lumen Field, the team announced on Tuesday morning, saying it is taking the measures in collaboration with state and local public health and government officials.
The Seahawks will begin enforcing the policy starting with the team’s home opener on September 19 against the Tennessee Titans. Fans and staff will be required to wear masks at all times except while actively eating or drinking, regardless of vaccination status.

Guests must be fully vaccinated for entry which is defined as a minimum of two weeks following the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or a minimum of two weeks following the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Those who have only received one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or are not yet beyond the two week fully vaccinated window must provide a negative COVID-19 test result for entry.
“The health and safety of our guests, players and staff is always our top priority and we remain committed to doing what we can to keep our community safe,” said Chuck Arnold, president of the Seattle Seahawks and First & Goal Inc. “These measures will allow us to continue with plans to host a full stadium of fans, while still providing a safe and fun experience for our guests. We urge everyone who is eligible to please get vaccinated.”
To verify COVID-19 vaccination, fans age 12 and older will be required to display one of the following before entry into the stadium:
- An official CDC-issued (or foreign country equivalent) vaccination card with your name and dates of doses, including the date the last dose was administered printed on the card.
- A photo or digital version of an official CDC-issued (or foreign country equivalent) vaccination card with your name and dates of doses, including the date the last dose was administered printed on the card.
- Fans can also upload proof of vaccination to CLEAR Health Pass in the CLEAR app for verification.
Unvaccinated fans must bring a printed or digital version of a negative test taken within 72 hours prior to kickoff that includes name, the date of the test and the lab location where the test was taken. At-home, self-administered tests will not be accepted.
The Las Vegas Raiders are requiring proof of vaccination for fans to be at Allegiant Stadium this season. Multiple teams including the New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons and Pittsburgh Steelers are encouraging fans to wear masks but are not requiring proof of vaccination or a negative test for entry. L.A. Rams and L.A. Chargers fans must wear masks because of county health regulations.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Georgia Coach Worried About COVID Spike
Published: Tuesday, September 7
The University of Georgia turned in a dominant defensive effort in college football’s most highly-anticipated season opener on Saturday night, shutting down Clemson in a 10-3 win at a raucous Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The win puts the Bulldogs, already ranked No. 5 at the start of the season, on track to go even higher in the rankings after one week and ahead of the team’s home opener against the University of Alabama-Birmingham. But with Georgia ready to host a sold-out crowd at Sanford Stadium, the team itself will be less than full capacity.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart said on Monday that up to four players are sidelined with COVID-19. The team’s sports medicine director, Ron Courson, was not with the program during Saturday’s win because he tested positive as well.
Smart said during the SEC Media Days that more than 90 percent of Georgia’s players, coaches and staff members had been vaccinated. On Monday, his tone was even more serious.
“I’m as concerned as I’ve ever been, because we have three or four guys out with COVID and we have a couple staff members that have been out with COVID here recently,” Smart said on Monday. “People are talking about vaccinations, well these are people that are vaccinated. We’re talking about breakthroughs and so that concerns you not only for the players on your team that are unvaccinated, that are playing and not playing, because we want everybody to be safe. But it concerns me for the players that are vaccinated that we could lose them.”
Smart filmed a video for the Georgia Department of Public Health urging fans to “say yes” to getting vaccinated. Georgia is not requiring fans to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to attend games at Sanford Stadium, which has a capacity of 92,746.
“This is the highest we’ve been since fall camp right now,” Smart said. “I think there’s this relief that you guys feel like everything’s back to normal, well it’s really just not for us right now.”
SPORTS VENUES: Workers Strike Over COVID Concerns
Posted: Tuesday, September 7
A group of concession workers at Oracle Park, home to Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants, have voted to strike in part because of COVID-19 safety concerns that have lingered this season.
UNITE HERE Local 2 claims at least 20 concessions workers have contracted COVID-19 this season and that 96.7 percent of active stadium workers voted to strike. While the vote was announced on Saturday, a strike could happen at any time, the union said. The workers are employed by Bon Appetit, a company that is contracted by the Giants.
“Bon Appétit Management Company and Local 2 are currently engaged in collective bargaining negotiations,” the Giants told ABC7 News. “We encourage both sides to work productively to reach an agreement as soon as possible. The Giants make the health and safety of everyone working and visiting Oracle Park a top priority. We operate our venue in compliance with local and state health requirements.”
NFL: Player Cuts Renew Vaccination Debate
Posted: Friday, September 3
Player vaccination has been a hot topic again in the National Football League as team rosters had to be cut down to 53 active players with Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer saying on Monday that vaccination status was considered by his staff on determining the 53-man roster — which is supposed to be against the rules, prompting a NFLPA investigation.
At the same time, Meyer may have only slipped in saying publicly what many coaches are thinking privately. One coach, though, steadfastly refused to say if vaccinations had any part to play in roster cuts and that one is to nobody’s surprise — Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who faced questions after releasing Cam Newton on Wednesday, one week after the quarterback was out for five days due to NFL health and safety protocols over what was termed a “misunderstanding” that led many to believe that Newton is not vaccinated.
Belichick said one word — “no” — when asked if vaccination status was a factor in Newton’s release. After another question, Belichick then said “your implication that the vaccination solves every problem … has not been substantiated. The number of players and coaches and staff members who have been infected with COVID after being vaccinated is a pretty high number. I wouldn’t lose sight of that,” although his answer was quickly fact-checked by NFL reporters.
Another team under the COVID microscope, the Indianapolis Colts, had three players including quarterback Carson Wentz come off the reserve/COVID list on Thursday after missing five days as a close contact, which per NFL protocols is an indication they are not vaccinated; the only way a vaccinated player would be put on the list is if they test positive themselves.
The Colts have had multiple players go on and off the list throughout training camp and while the team’s general manager refused to say what the active roster’s vaccination rate is, he made it clear those who are unvaccinated are a source of frustration.
“There’s consequences to not being vaccinated,” GM Chris Ballard said. “Do I think everybody should be vaccinated? Absolutely. I’m for the vaccine. [Coach] Frank [Reich] is for the vaccine. We have a lot of guys on our team who are for the vaccine. Is it 100% perfect? No. But it’s a good thing. It can help you from ending up in the hospital in a critical situation. And it helps stop some of the spread and those are positive things. But for the guys who have chosen to not get vaccinated, they still understand they’re still part of this team, it’s their decision, but they’re still part of our team and they have to take care of the team.”
The Colts reportedly have one of the lower team vaccination rates in the NFL, but Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians said his team is 100 percent vaccinated, joining the Atlanta Falcons as the only teams at that mark.
BASEBALL: Red Sox Trying to Play Through Outbreak
Posted: Friday, September 3
Eleven players and coaches on the Boston Red Sox are currently out because of either testing positive for COVID-19 or being a close contact, but the team says there are no plans yet to postpone games while in the thick of a wild-card race.
Boston is two games ahead of Oakland for the final wild card spot entering the last month of the regular season. The first in a series of positive tests was last Friday and highlighted by star shortstop Xander Bogaerts getting pulled from Tuesday night’s game against the Rays after the first inning.
“I’m just tired, to be honest with you,” said Boston manager Alex Cora, whose team is now wearing masks in the dugout. “You know, to be thinking about it the whole time and have to deal with this before a game and during the game and all that. Honestly, that’s how I feel right now. The season part and all that stuff, that’s the easy part for me. But to have to deal with everything that has to do with this — it’s not easy. It’s not easy.”
Boston’s Chief Baseball Officer, Chaim Bloom, admitted the Red Sox are below the MLB threshold of 85 percent vaccinated. Some of the players currently in protocols have been vaccinated; Bloom said Red Sox staffers are required to be vaccinated.
“I wish everyone in our organization was vaccinated,” Bloom said. “Everyone in this organization that isn’t vaccinated pains me.”
Boston’s issues in the dugout come on the same week that a longtime former MLB player and manager has reportedly resigned from his front-office role with the Washington Nationals rather than be vaccinated. ESPN reported Wednesday that Vice president Bob Boone will not comply with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all non-uniformed employees.
The Nationals’ policy went into effect August 12. Boone was a player for three teams in an 18-year career and managed the Kansas City Royals and Cincinnati Reds from 1995 through 2003. He is the father of New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who said in March that he was vaccinated and whose team has had to deal with multiple outbreaks since the All-Star break.
SOCCER: Capacity Increases Approved in Spain
Posted: Friday, September 3
La Liga teams in Spain will be able to increase capacity at home games to 60 percent after the country’s greater population reached 70 percent vaccinated. Teams were limited to 40 percent capacity before this week, although some teams did not even reach that number — even Barcelona, one of the most popular teams in the world, had two home games that fell short of its 29,800 cap with attendances of 20,384 and 26,453.
Those attending games must continue to wear masks, with compliance to be monitored. Restrictions on the sale of food and beverages on match days remain in force, with the consumption of tobacco and related products also banned.
NBA: Three Teams Must Have Vaccinated Players, Says League
Posted: Thursday, September 2
With less than 50 days before the 2021–2022 NBA season starts, three teams’ worth of players will have to be vaccinated to play home games this season according to a league memo on Wednesday.
In a memo obtained by CNBC and multiple other outlets, the NBA told its teams that players on the New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and Golden State Warriors must be fully vaccinated to play in home games unless they are able to get an exemption for medical or religious reasons — but players on visiting teams will not face the same requirement.
Two of the teams mentioned in the memo have already released strict health and safety protocols for fans this season. The Warriors said fans 12 and older must show proof of vaccination for games this season at the Chase Center in San Francisco and the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets, will require employees and fans age 12 and up to be vaccinated.

Training camps for NBA teams start on September 28 for the 75th anniversary season starting October 19 with the Nets playing at the Milwaukee Bucks and the Warriors playing at the Los Angeles Lakers. The memo said players on the three teams may face fines or suspensions if they refuse to get vaccinated without a valid exemption.
The cities of New York and San Francisco have been strict about vaccine and masking requirements in the past several weeks as COVID-19 cases throughout the country have spiked because of the delta variant. New York requires proof of at least partial vaccination to enter indoor businesses while San Francisco asks for proof of full vaccination. In New York, a change in COVID protocols forced the U.S. Open to mandate proof of at least partial vaccination for all fans attending the event with the announcement made less than four days before the final Grand Slam of the tennis season started.
The NBA last week agreed to a deal with the National Basketball Referees Association that requires all referees to be vaccinated this season, and those working games will receive booster shots once they become recommended.
“This agreement was a win-win,” the NBRA said in a statement. “It will support the NBA’s objective of creating a safer on-court environment and continuity of play while protecting the health and well-being of the referees.”
The NBA also has told its teams that anyone within proximity of players and referees will also have to be vaccinated. That mandate covers coaches, support staff traveling with teams, locker room attendants and those working at official scorer’s tables in NBA arenas. Player vaccination, with the apparent exception of the three teams mentioned in Wednesday’s memo, is collectively bargained between the league and NBPA, whose executive director, Michelle Roberts, told Yahoo Sports during the NBA Finals that the league’s player vaccination rate was around 90 percent.
The NBA, for its part, has proposed strict protocols for unvaccinated players in a memo to the NBPA, according to ESPN on Thursday morning. Within the memo is a proposal for unvaccinated players to be separated from their teammates in the locker room as well has having separate areas for eating, flying and taking buses on road trips. Unvaccinated players would have to be tested the morning of practices and games while vaccinated players would only be tested if they have symptoms or are exposed to someone who has tested positive. ESPN also reported that in the proposal, an unvaccinated player deemed a close contact would have to quarantine for seven days but vaccinated players would not quarantine as long as they do not test positive.
VENUES: United Center Implements Vaccination Policy
Posted: Thursday, September 2
Vaccinations — or a negative test within 48 hours of tipoff — will be required for fans to attend either Chicago Bulls or Chicago Blackhawks games at the United Center, the venue announced on Thursday morning.
The decision is part of a “continued commitment to providing the best environment for a safe return for all fans and employees.” Arena and team employees will also have to be fully vaccinated, the venue said: “As final NBA and NHL health and safety guidelines have yet to be announced, these protocols are still subject to potential league requirements, and the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks may communicate additional details to their fans as the season approaches.”
TENNIS: Player Vaccination a Topic of Debate
Posted: Thursday, September 2
While fans must show proof of partial vaccination to attend the U.S. Open, reports before the Grand Slam indicated that between the ATP and WTA Tours, player vaccination was hovering in the region of 50 percent — shockingly low compared to many other professional sports.
Some of the biggest names in the men’s tennis world — Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal — are not at the Open because of injuries but throughout the year have endorsed vaccination to return to normal life. Another big name on the ATP Tour, Andy Murray, also is pro-vaccine, saying this week “I guess the reason why all of us are getting vaccinated is to look out for the wider public. We have a responsibility as players that are traveling across the world to look out for everyone else as well. I’m happy that I’m vaccinated. I’m hoping that more players choose to have it in the coming months.”
But for each men’s player endorsing vaccination, there have been other high-profile players vocal in their questioning of vaccination including top-five seeds Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev. The number one seed on the men’s side, Novak Djokovic, has been a notable vaccine skeptic, refusing to say if he has been vaccinated; Djokovic tested positive for coronavirus last year after an exhibition event he organized in Croatia during the height of the pandemic.
While the women’s side has not had as much public back-and-forth about vaccination, former World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka did speak out after her second-round victory on Wednesday, saying it was “bizarre” that fans have to be vaccinated while players do not and adding she believes it will soon be mandatory for players to be vaccinated.
“I don’t see the point of stalling it, because we all want to be safe, we all want to continue doing our jobs, and I know there is a lot of discussions about it,” she said. “If you actually have decent knowledge and looked into research and have your facts and stats and research, that’s a different conversation. But I feel that that part of conversation that, really, you need to be knowledgeable to what you’re saying is missing in a lot of players.”
NFL: Titans Coach Back to Work After Quarantine
Posted: Thursday, September 2
Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel was allowed to return to his team’s facility after 10 days of self-isolating from a positive COVID test, while the team itself still has nine players on the NFL’s reserve COVID list including starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill.
Tennessee opens the season on September 12 against Arizona. The Titans practiced Monday but Vrabel scrapped scheduled practices Wednesday and Thursday to focus on meetings, conditioning work and weightlifting instead.
“The more I thought about it I think that this is going to be best for our football team and then be able to take a few days off this weekend, come back Monday and really focus in and have a great week,” Vrabel said. “But it’s a long week. And we have plenty of time.”
CYCLING: New Mexico Cycling Race Postponed Again
Posted: Wednesday, September 1
The Tour of the Gila, one of two UCI stage races scheduled to be in the United States this year, has been cancelled because of the number of rising COVID-19 cases in the state of New Mexico.
The event was scheduled to be held from September 29 to October 3 in and around Silver City, New Mexico. The other UCI stage race this year in the U.S. is the Joe Martin Stage Race that is being held this week in Arkansas.

“I am saddened and emotional about making this decision, but I know it is the right decision,” Race Director Jack Brennan said. “The health and welfare of our participants and community is paramount. With the rise in COVID and our area being ranked at the highest transmission rate, it would not be wise to continue.”
The Tour of the Gila organizers were forced to call off their events last spring due to the outbreak of COVID-19. This year’s event was rescheduled for a later date in the hopes of the pandemic being past the region.
“With the serious rise in cases again, the decision I made about cancelling is really a community decision,” Brennan said. “In early August, when the Delta Variant started infecting parts of our country, I reached out to our medical and health care community and asked for assistance. At that time Grant County was doing well. Our positivity rate and the case per 100,000 were low and we were ranked by the state of New Mexico as low transmission status. However, things have changed in the past few weeks. Infection rates are increasing throughout New Mexico and in Grant County. Our county is now ranked at the highest transmission status.”
Brennan said that the 2022 race is scheduled to start April 27 and he will be contacting each person who registered for this year’s event to offer either a spot in the 2022 event or a refund.
“Wherever you are, please support your medical and health care professionals,” Brennan said. “… We sincerely hope that you will appreciate our careful decision to cancel this event due to the changing situation with COVID.
BASEBALL: U-12 World Cup Rescheduled
Posted: Wednesday, September 1
The World Baseball Softball Confederation will reschedule the U-12 Baseball World Cup in Tainan, Taiwan to the summer of 2022. Originally scheduled for the summer of 2021, the youth world championship was first postponed to later this year due to the ongoing pandemic. There will be no exception to the age bracket and players born in 2010 and 2011 will be eligible to be selected onto their respective national teams. Tainan will host the next four editions of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup at Tainan Asia-Pacific International Baseball Stadium.
NFL: Another Starting QB Heads to COVID Reserve List
Posted: Tuesday, August 31
Another big name in the NFL is in contact tracing protocols and will miss five days of practice and team activities as the regular season looms in less than two weeks. Indianapolis quarterback Carson Wentz was one of three Colts players added to the reserve/COVID-19 list on Monday just as he was about to make his return to practice after foot surgery at the beginning of August.

Wentz is the third high-profile quarterback to run into COVID contact tracing issues this preseason. Minnesota starting QB Kirk Cousins had to miss five days at the start of August after coming into contact with a Vikings staffer who tested positive and New England’s Cam Newton had to miss five days after a “misunderstanding” of COVID protocols after he left training camp for a team-approved medical appointment that was away from the team facility; Newton was waived by the Patriots on Tuesday morning.
A five-day absence and being put on the COVID list as a close contact is a sign that a player has not been vaccinated; vaccinated players would only be placed on the list for a positive test result.
Along with Wentz, Pro Bowl center Ryan Kelly and receiver Zach Pascal are on the reserve/COVID-19 list, the team announced. Indianapolis’ camp has been marred by COVID issues. Pro Bowl guard Quenton Nelson came off the COVID list on Monday after he was a close contact of somebody who tested positive. Five other players have spent time on the list during camp and both head coach Frank Reich and defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus tested positive in August.
The Colts reportedly have one of the league’s lower percentages of vaccinated players. When asked earlier in camp if he was vaccinated, Wentz replied “That’s a personal decision.”
Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay, however, made his frustrations known before camp even started.
“You get vaccinated. It’s the best choice,” Irsay said. “… you could take this topic to Harvard and Yale debate club, and whoever got the side of arguing that vaccination is the most intelligent and logical thing to do at this point, I don’t think you could argue against that. There is always risk in everything in life, but getting vaccinated is the right thing to do.”
The NFL and NFL Players Association have agreed to increase testing for fully vaccinated players from every 14 days to every seven days, a concession made by the league although the NFLPA has asked for daily testing to resume as was the case last season. Fully vaccinated players will be offered the option of testing twice a week if they choose.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: No Masks Needed at Chick-fil-A Game
Posted: Tuesday, August 31
The Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game on Saturday between No. 1 Alabama and No. 14 Miami, as well as the Labor Day game between Louisville and Mississippi, will take place under an open roof at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which means officials will not require masks in the seating bowl, concourses and suites with doors to the open air.
Mask wearing is “strongly encouraged” throughout the stadium and will be required in any enclosed spaces including club spaces, press box, retail store and other enclosed rooms. Mercedes-Benz Stadium will provide contactless payment options at all concessions and retail locations and stadium staff will be required to wear masks at all times.
“Our policy decisions were made after careful consideration and discussions with Mercedes-Benz Stadium and our participating teams,” said Gary Stokan, chief executive officer and president of Peach Bowl, Inc. “These protocols are consistent with all other recent events hosted at the stadium, and fan response has been very positive.”
NBA: Refs, Others Must Be Vaccinated
Posted: Monday, August 30
The NBA has struck a deal with the National Basketball Referees Association that requires all referees to be vaccinated this season, and those working games will receive booster shots once they become recommended.
The NBA’s agreement with the referees was revealed one day after the league told its teams that anyone within proximity of players and referees will also have to be vaccinated. That mandate covers coaches, support staff traveling with teams, locker room attendants and those working at official scorer’s tables in NBA arenas. Team employees and referees who have a documented medical or religious reason to not be vaccinated may seek an exemption.
Two teams’ fans will have to be vaccinated to attend games for the 2021—2022 season. The Golden State Warriors said fans 12 and older must show proof of vaccination for games this season at the Chase Center in San Francisco and the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets, will require employees and fans age 12 and up to be vaccinated.
Players are not required to be fully vaccinated, though many were last season after the league agreed to relax some health and safety protocols for those who were including fewer mandated tests, no quarantine requirements following contact tracing issues and more freedoms on road trips.
HOCKEY: Another Team Makes Fan Vaccination Mandatory
Posted: Monday, August 30
Another NHL team has announced that fans will have to show proof of vaccination to attend games for the 2021—2022 season.
San Jose Sharks fans will need to show proof of vaccination at the SAP Center this season, the venue and team have jointly announced. The protocol will extend to any event at SAP Center, including the upcoming Gold Over America Tour Starring Simone Biles on September 26. Guests under the age of 12 will not be subject to the policy.
The policy was announced after new health and safety directive from the San Jose City Council. The Sharks are partnering with CLEAR, the identity-verification program, so fans can show proof of full vaccination via the Clear Health Pass Account. Fans could also show physical proof of vaccination before entering the venue for games.
The Sharks are the first U.S.-based team to announce a mandatory vaccination policy, following similar announcements by the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets.
COLLEGE SPORTS: Penn Mandates Fan Vaccination
Posted: Monday, August 30
The University of Pennsylvania will require all fans ages 12 and up to provide proof of vaccination to attend any home fall sport competition, whether indoors or outdoors.
All spectators must also register their contact information in the event of a COVID exposure where follow-up from contact tracers is needed. Face coverings are required for all fans at all indoor and outdoor venues. The school also asks spectators to RSVP, attest to vaccination requirements, and perform a daily symptom check the day of their intended attendance at non-ticketed fall sport competition.
When available at Penn athletic events, concessions will be wrapped in individual containers and only available for purchase to spectators at ticketed events. Fans are permitted to bring their own food and beverages into all other athletic facilities but are asked to physically distance themselves from others when removing face coverings to eat and drink.
TENNIS: U.S. Open Protocols Changed as Fans Need Vaccination Proof
Posted: Sunday, August 29
While there has been a rise in the past two weeks for sports venues requiring fans to show either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test, the last Grand Slam of the tennis season had decided not to do that — before a late change of plans only four days before the tournament’s first serve.
U.S. Open spectators must show proof of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to attend matches, a change announced by the U.S. Tennis Association on Friday after the New York City mayor’s office decided to require proof of vaccination to go into Arthur Ashe Stadium, the main arena at the National Tennis Center. The USTA then opted to extend that rule to cover all ticket holders who are 12 and older and enter the grounds during the two-week Grand Slam tournament that begins Monday.

The tournament’s organizers had said during a Wednesday conference call that they were comfortable with the health and safety protocols in place after they were signed off by the New York City’s department of health.
“The goal is not to prevent all cases of COVID. The goal, really, is to be certain that we don’t have an outbreak of COVID that’s going to be unusual or that we would regret,” Dr. Brian Hainline, a USTA vice president and member of its medical advisory group, said on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday.
The protocols are in contrast to the strict bubble environment under which the 2020 event was organized. Players faced possible fines and expulsion if they exited the tournament bubble without written consent as they were kept largely sequestered. This year, they will be able to dine at restaurants and move freely outside their hotel rooms.
“We are absolutely confident in the 2021 COVID protocols that have been developed,” tournament director Stacey Allaster said. “We have that confidence because here in New York City, because of New Yorkers, how they have managed the virus, the vaccination rate in this community is almost at 70 percent. We heard loud and clear the athletes’ mental health through these last 12 months, the isolation in the bubbles, was important, that they could have some flexibility.”
Mike Dowse, the USTA’s chief executive officer and executive director, said last year’s bubble environment included 14,000 COVID tests with 99.97 percent coming back negative. “Hands down it was run in a very, very safe way,” he said, adding that the decision to have the event without fans last year left the USTA with a $180 million budget deficit for 2020.
Organizers were also questioned about player vaccination and testing. This year, players and support team members will be tested upon arrival, and then every four days after that during the tournament. Allaster said no matter what round — whether it be the first or a championship match — “in the event that an athlete tests positive, that athlete will be taken out of the competition.”
The U.S. Open will not have an on-site vaccination spot for players or fans because of the number of locations in New York City that vaccines can be administered. Several high-profile players have been vaccine-resistent during the past year-plus, most notably Novak Djokovic; the third-ranked player on the ATP Tour, Stefanos Tsitsipas, said that he hasn’t gotten the vaccine in part because there is no reason for a person in his age group to get it.
The weekend brought reports that as few as 50 percent of players on the ATP and WTA Tours have been vaccinated.
Hainline said if given the chance to talk with Tsitsipas, he would recommend he get the vaccine and pointed to his collegiate background: “When we go across the NCAA, we’re at close to 85 percent vaccination. … There’s a major push to get our young individuals vaccinated. I would strongly encourage that. And I have been with all athletes.”
After the U.S. Open is completed, the next Grand Slam will be the 2022 Australian Open in late January. Craig Tiley, the tournament director, has said that players are unlikely to have as strict a quarantine as they did in 2021 but they still have to be in a two-week bubble while crowds are also expected.
“At this point in time we’re planning on having a two-week bubble, where the players will be able to move freely between the hotel and the courts,” Tiley said at a TV event. “They’re protected, they’re kept safe among themselves and safe from the community as well. And after those two weeks, they’ll come out and be able to compete in the Australian Open in front of crowds.”
NFL: More Players Landing on COVID List Before Season Kickoff
Posted: Friday, August 27
The NFL team that had the first sustained outbreak during the 2020 season, necessitating that two of its games be rescheduled, is having an outbreak before the 2021 regular season even gets underway.
Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill is among seven players who have been placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list this week in addition to head coach Mike Vrabel, who tested positive over the weekend. Other Titans on the COVID list include Justin March-Lillard, Geoff Swaim, Jeremy McNichols, Anthony Rush, Harold Landry and Nick Dzubnar.
Tennessee General Manager Jon Robinson said the Titans have a 97 percent vaccination rate among players. Tannehill is fully vaccinated and per NFL rules will need two consecutive negative PCR tests over a 24-hour period in order to rejoin the team as long as he is asymptomatic.

The Titans finish the preseason on Saturday against the Chicago Bears. The NFL Network reported that the Titans have done “widespread testing” over the week and held meetings virtually on Wednesday. When the Titans’ season was disrupted by an outbreak last year, the team had to close its facility at one point and the team later was fined $350,000 for violations of NFL COVID-19 protocols.
The NFL’s chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, told reporters on Thursday afternoon that nearly 93 percent of the league’s players are vaccinated and that after more than 7,000 tests since August 1, there have been 68 positives. He also said that the NFL’s testing shows seven times more positive tests among unvaccinated players compared to vaccinated.
Questions about the frequency of testing and vaccine mandates have been debated for months within pro football. The NFLPA has asked that all players and personnel be tested daily just like last year, while the league is proposing vaccinated players and personnel be tested once per week, an increase from the current once every 14 days. The NFL has proposed increasing testing cadence for vaccinated players to every seven days while unvaccinated players are tested daily.
The NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported on Thursday that the league has sent written warnings to more than 100 players around the league for not wearing a mask or tracking devices in team facilities — with those who continue to not follow the rules after a written warning find $14,650. Buffalo wide receiver Cole Beasley, outspoken about his refusal to be vaccinated, was fined for a violation caught on video Tuesday and teammate Isaiah McKenzie was fined on Thursday, tweeting “They got me! @NFL you win!” after he was seen violating protocols this week NFL officials in Buffalo to give a presentation on — you guessed it — the league’s COVID-19 rules.
Beasley also went on Twitter about his fine, saying he wore a mask the whole day and then took it off “literally 5 steps” from the entry door to the locker room. Beasley has been told to stay away from Buffalo’s facility for five days after being one of six players deemed a close contact of a staff member who tested positive.
Another player who has become famous in the preseason for avoiding vaccination is Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. Cousins chooses “to keep my medical history private,” and was deemed a high-risk close contact when rookie QB Kellen Mond tested positive earlier this month. That designation, per NFL policy, is reserved for unvaccinated players. Cousins said after returning that he would go so far as to set up Plexiglass around himself for team meetings or ask that all meetings be held outdoors, which would be quite the scene during Minnesota winters.
Vikings Coach Mike Zimmer has advocated for the vaccine and been vocal about his displeasure with unvaccinated players. The team brought in Dr. Michael Osterholm, a renowned epidemiologist, Monday to educate players about the vaccine. When asked about the meeting, Cousins replied: “Informative. It was what it was.”
NASCAR: Vaccination is a Dirty Word for Some Cup Series Drivers
Posted: Thursday, August 26
With less than two weeks until the NASCAR playoffs begin, the talk around the garage has expanded from who may get in and what drivers would potentially switch teams in the offseason to include the rising numbers of COVID-19 cases around the country and what would happen if another Corey LaJoie situation occurs.
LaJoie missed last Sunday’s race at Michigan because the rules state that competitors who have not gotten vaccinated but are exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 must quarantine for seven days. With the playoffs approaching, a title-contending driver could see his chances end simply by being exposed to a person with COVID. LaJoie said on Sirius XM NASCAR radio that a person inside the studio where he tapes his weekly podcast tested positive, which was enough to force him out Sunday.

The winner at Michigan, Joey Logano, said that he canceled three public appearances this week and got his first COVID vaccination to take every precaution.
“There’s one thing I learned when we won (the championship): it affects so many people’s lives with bonuses and other stuff,” he said. “If I get COVID and miss the race, then I’m taking away food from other people’s families.”
“Under normal circumstances, I don’t think I’d ever miss a race, but definitely the Corey LaJoie piece, how he’s not sick and he’s not here today, is very, very frightening,” said Christopher Bell, who is on the cusp of beginning his first championship bid.
William Byron confirmed he got vaccinated earlier this year in part because he wanted to prevent putting his mother, Dana, at risk while she is treated for a brain tumor. But for many drivers, the protocols are an annoyance — and so is being asked whether they are vaccinated.
“That’s like me asking you if you’ve had a vasectomy,” said Aric Almirola when asked last weekend about his vaccination status. Added Martin Truex Jr.: “There’s no real facts that say vaccinating or unvaccinated is really any different these days. I’m really happy that they haven’t went down the mandatory road (of vaccinations) because I don’t think that’s fair from any perspective at all.”
“I look at all of that stuff as very personal, very choice-driven and nobody needs to know what people’s choices are,” two-time Cup champ Kyle Busch said. “But now everybody’s asking for vaccination status cards and everything and where you go, so I guess HIPAA doesn’t exist anymore,” he said, referring to the federal law restricting release of medical information which many athletes have consistently misunderstood when evading questions about vaccinations.
NASCAR does not have a vaccine mandate for its competitors. While it had strict protocols to resume competition three months into the pandemic last year, officials started loosening those restrictions this season and fully reopened garages to guests in late May with nearly every race held under capacity crowd conditions.
NASCAR began retightening its rules last week as the number of virus cases has surged. Reporters were required to wear masks everywhere when interviewing drivers and the series’ hauler limited inside occupancy to four people because of social distancing.
INTERNATIONAL SPORTS: Junior Pan Am Games Allowing Fans
Posted: Thursday, August 26
The inaugural Junior Pan American Games, scheduled to be held in Cali, Colombia, has announced that with three months to go before the opening ceremony, it will allow fans from across the world to attend, becoming the first multisport event in the world to allow fans in stadiums since the pandemic began.
“We have decided together with the Colombian authorities to allow 50 percent capacity in the sports venues,” said Panam Sports President Neven Ilic. “However, those who enter must comply with a series of biosecurity measures such as vaccination certificates, mandatory use of face masks, social distancing and hand washing, among other things.”
More than 3,800 athletes from 41 countries will compete in 39 sports across 10 days.
“We will require a vaccination card to enter, but this will once again give athletes the true sense of sport and being encouraged by their families, friends and the general public,” added the Governor of Valle del Cauca, Clara Luz Roldan. “It will be a great sports festival, I have no doubt.”
SOCCER: Standoff Looms Over World Cup Qualifiers
Posted: Thursday, August 26
FIFA is facing a backlash in England over its decision to squeeze in more World Cup qualifiers in the coming weeks while no longer allowing exemptions for players to opt out of the trips if they are forced to quarantine on their return to countries to resume club duties.
The Premier League announced that no players will be released to play for countries on England’s “red list” which also features several South American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. Nearly 60 players from 19 Premier League clubs were due to travel to 26 red-zone countries. Shortly after the Premier League’s statement, Spain’s La Liga announced a similar decision.
It is the biggest and most recent skirmish in the growing clash between club teams and national federations. More than ever before, club teams hate the idea of losing players for international duty given the distances that some of them travel in the global game; the more nuanced view of the Premier League’s decision is laid bare further down in its statement, when it points out the quarantine players would have to undergo would mean missing up to four games.
CONMEBOL is trying to complete most of qualifying in time for the planned draw in April for the men’s World Cup in Qatar next year and was granted approval for the triple-headers by FIFA earlier this month. FIFA not only organizes the World Cup, which generates most of the governing body’s revenue of $6 billion in the four-year cycle, but it also regulates the game globally and oversees the international calendar. On top of that, South American countries have been granted three additional days with players by FIFA in both September and October so three qualifiers can be played in each window.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: LSU Announces Stringent Fan Policy
Posted: Tuesday, August 24
Only a few days after two Pac-12 schools, Oregon and Oregon State, announced that local health orders would mandate either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to attend football, the home to one of the Southeastern Conference’s most rabid fan bases has done the same.
LSU announced Tuesday morning that it will require all Tiger Stadium guests 12 years of age and older to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours prior to entry. The school says the decision comes after consultation with Governor John Bel Edwards, LSU President William F. Tate IV, LSU’s Board of Supervisors, Tiger Athletic Foundation and Director of Athletics Scott Woodward.
“As the flagship institution of the state of Louisiana, our foremost responsibility is to ensure the safety of our students, our supporters, and our community,” Tate said. “While we are aware of the diverse perspectives across the nation regarding masks and vaccinations, we must take all reasonable measures to protect our campus and community, not only on gamedays, but long after guests have left Tiger Stadium. The current threat to our lives, our health, and to our medical systems due to COVID-19 is overburdening our hospitals, and we must do our part to stop the spread.”

Tate earlier this month said all LSU students will have to show proof of COVID-19 vaccines or get tested for the virus once the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the vaccine, which happened on Monday. New Orleans was the first southern city to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for all outdoor gatherings and indoor venues of more than 500 people, including games for Tulane football and the New Orleans Saints at the Caesars Superdome.
LSU coach Ed Orgeron said earlier this month that the Tigers were fully vaccinated as a coaching staff and “I think we’re down to one (player), and he may have gotten vaccinated.”
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said during the conference’s football media day that if a school cannot field a team because of COVID-19 for games this season, they will forfeit.
“It’s a competitive advantage that we have to get vaccinated,” Orgeron said. “If we don’t, we’ll forfeit. Our guys know that.”
LSU, ranked No. 13 in The Associated Press preseason Top 25, opens the season September 4 at the Rose Bowl against UCLA before its home opener on September 11 against McNeese State.
“We have the best fans in college football, and we are doing everything we can to ensure their experience in Tiger Stadium this fall is safe and enjoyable,” Woodward said. “When our fans arrive on Saturdays to cheer on the Tigers, they will have confidence that we have taken measures to mitigate their health risks. Our football team has reached 99.1% vaccination, and we are incredibly proud of them for doing their part to protect their team and their community. We are confident our fans will do the same, and I encourage all Tiger fans to receive vaccinations today.”
NFL: More Cowboys Added to COVID-19 List
Posted: Tuesday, August 24
The Dallas Cowboys have added three players to the COVID-19 list and went to a virtual format over the weekend after two other people, defensive coordinator Dan Quinn and defensive tackle Carlos Watkins, tested positive and were sent home before the team’s Saturday preseason game against Houston.
Among the three new additions on the COVID list is second-year wide receiver CeeDee Lamb. The Cowboys say 93 percent of their players are fully vaccinated, which would account for 80 of 86 players on the roster.
“I think just like most things we do, we’re just being cautious and want to make sure we contain this outbreak and just be smart with that,” Dallas coach Mike McCarthy said.
The entire coaching staff and support staff needed to be fully vaccinated before the start of training camp per the NFL’s rules for team employees, which are different than those collectively bargained with the NFL Players Association.
McCarthy said the Cowboys planned to practice Tuesday and Wednesday before Sunday’s preseason game against Jacksonville.
“We all understand the protocols,” McCarthy said. “I addressed it in the locker room after the game. We have everybody going through the proper testing both yesterday and today and we’ll do so again tomorrow.”
NHL: Two more teams mandate fan vaccination
Posted: Tuesday, August 24
Two more Canadian teams announced mandates for fan vaccinations ahead of the 2021–2022 NHL season, making for a total of four out of the country’s six NHL teams that have announced plans.
British Columbia’s COVID-19 proof of vaccination program was endorsed by Canucks Sports & Entertainment, owner of the Vancouver Canucks. Guests, employees and event staff must provide proof of full vaccination prior to entry to Rogers Arena for NHL games and Abbotsford Centre, where Vancouver’s American Hockey League affiliate will play.
The announcement in Vancouver camehours after Calgary Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Calgary Flames, the Western Hockey League Hitmen and the Canadian Football League Stampeders, said fans, staff and employees will also have to be fully vaccinated starting September 15.
The owners of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets previously announced plans to require proof of full vaccination for fans ahead of this season. The only Canadian teams that have not announced similar plans as of yet are the Montreal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators.
NFL: Cam Newton to miss time because of COVID protocols
Posted: Monday, August 23
Quarterback Cam Newton must stay away from the New England Patriots for five days this week after traveling to a team-approved, out of town medical appointment over the weekend that the team has termed a “misunderstanding about tests conducted away from NFL facilities.”
The team said in a statement Monday that Newton went to the appointment Saturday and tested negative each day for COVID-19. But due to required by NFL and NFLPA protocols, he has been subjected to a five-day, re-entry cadence before he can return to the Patriots’ team facilities.
According to the NFL’s COVID-19 protocols that were most recently updated on July 27, only unvaccinated players are subject to the five-day re-entry cadence that requires daily testing. Fully vaccinated players are required to test once every 14 days.
Asked this month whether he has been vaccinated for COVID-19, Newton said “I think it’s too personal for each and every person to kind of discuss it, and I’ll just keep it at that.”
Newton missed a game early last season after a COVID-19 diagnosis. He is trying to retain the starter’s position this season after the Patriots drafted Alabama quarterback Mac Jones in the first round of this spring’s draft.
Newton’s news came the day after a former Patriot turned head coach, Mike Vrabel of the Tennessee Titans, said he had tested positive and was quarantined. The Titans beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 34-3 in a preseason game Saturday night. They traveled to Florida on Tuesday and practiced jointly with the Buccaneers on Wednesday and Thursday.
“This isn’t the first time that we’ve gone through this, so whatever the protocols are we’ll follow them exactly how they’re laid out,” said Vrabel.
Under NFL protocols, Vrabel must have two negative test results within 48 hours to go back to work or remain in quarantine for 10 days. The Titans open the season at. Home on September 12 against the Arizona Cardinals.
The Titans had the first COVID-19 outbreak during the NFL season last year, forcing the postponement of two games. The team was later fined $350,000 when it was discovered that during the outbreak, several players organized voluntary practices away from the team’s training facilities. Vrabel said this spring that he had been vaccinated.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Two Schools Require Fan Vaccination, Another Goes Fan-less Entirely
Posted: Monday, August 23
The University of Oregon will require fans ages 12 and older to provide proof of being fully vaccinated or having a negative test taken within three days of games. Acceptable proof of vaccination includes a vaccination card, a photocopy of the card or a photo of the card on a mobile device. The university said it reached its decision after consulting with the local public health authority. All fans must wear masks at indoor games as well.
“The health and safety of you, our student-athletes and our staff will always be the top priority for Oregon Athletics,” the school said in an open letter to fans. “… These changes include new health and safety protocols developed in consultation with local health authorities, as well as the use of new technologies that will improve the gameday experience.”
Shortly after Oregon made its announcement, Oregon State followed suit and said all fans ages 5 and up must wear masks at games through the end of September even if they are fully vaccinated. Benton County’s board of commissioners issued the order mandating masks at any outdoor event where six feet of distance cannot be maintained. The order stipulates spectators must wear the mask even while seated.
Oregon State begins its home schedule at Reser Stadium on September 11 against Hawaii — whose fans, regardless of vaccination status, will not be able to attend home games. The Rainbow Warriors said that at minimum, the team’s home opener September 4 against Portland State will be held without fans after instructions from city and county officials because of the recent rise in cases and overwhelmed hospital capacities on the islands.
Hawaii is playing home games this season at the 9,000-seat Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex as construction continues at the Aloha Stadium Entertainment District. The school says that the decision will be re-evaluated in the “coming weeks” whether fans will be able to attend future home games.
“We are disappointed because we were looking forward to playing in front of our fans again,” Hawaii Athletic Director David Matlin said. “However we understand the decision was made in the best interest of public safety and can only hope the restrictions will be lifted when the time is right.”
While Oregon, Oregon State and Hawaii are not in the Big Ten, that league is the latest conference ahead of the season to announce that a team will forfeit games if it does not have the minimum number of available players because of COVID-19. If both teams are unable to compete on the date of a scheduled conference game because of COVID-19, and the game can’t be rescheduled, it will be considered a “no contest.”
The Power Five conferences appear headed toward having similar forfeit policies, except the ACC is charging both teams with a forfeit if neither can play because of the virus. The SEC has not released its policy, but Commissioner Greg Sankey has warned that teams that can’t play will forfeit and games will not be rescheduled.
SOCCER: FIFA May be on World Cup Collision Course with Olympic Games
Posted: Monday, August 23
Because it did not have a World Cup scheduled during the pandemic, FIFA’s finances are in much better shape than most sports organizations. It projects total revenues of $6.44 billion from 2019 through 2022 ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
But just because it did not take a massive financial hit does not mean that FIFA would not turn down the chance to make more money. As FIFA President Gianni Infantino himself said at a recent FIFA Congress, “You don’t need to be an Einstein to know that if you have the World Cup every two years you double the revenue.”
And that is why, after nearly a century of tradition, there is a movement to play the men’s World Cup every other year instead of every four years — with the women’s World Cup in years there is not a men’s tournament.
The idea could win support if taken to a vote of FIFA’s 211 members — that is how the men’s World Cup was expanded from 32 to 48 teams starting with the 2026 event in North America, which will assuredly mean hundreds of millions more in revenue but likely be not nearly as competitive as tournament’s past. Similarly, the Women’s World Cup will expand to 32 from 24 teams when it is co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand in 2023 — while FIFA promoted the decision as giving more opportunities to female players, they did not deny that financial motivations were also front of mind.

Saudi Arabia’s national federation asked at the May congress to explore World Cups being staged every two years. The South American confederation, CONMEBOL, and France have promoted the idea. Countries from the Confederation of African Football, CAF, have been trying to get public sentiment toward expansion as well.
“With the World Cup being played every four years the opportunity to have this experience is too rare and spread over too great a time,” Nigeria Football Federation President Amaju Pinnick said. “Whole generations of players miss out, sometimes because of one match, potentially decided on one incident.”
Revenue is one thing, but the potential decision would also have major international sports implications. Doubling the number of World Cups between men and women would guarantee that the sport goes head-to-head every four years with the Olympic Summer Games, which would set up some intriguing meetings at the International Olympic Committee — with Infantino, among several others, being IOC members while potentially guiding FIFA into the Games’ calendar.
Pinnick has downgraded the conflict, calling the decision to avoid competing at the same time as the Olympics as “absurd.” In his view, “we can add one more month every four years to organize the most beautiful competition in the world and find ways to protect the players, clubs, leagues, federations and Confederation’s interests and this is neither irrational nor absurd.”
While he believes that adding another month to the tournament is no big deal, there are plenty of club managers in world soccer that would recoil at the idea. Player health will be a key topic, no matter whether that matters compared to the chance to double FIFA’s revenue. Spanish teenager Pedri played 77 games in 314 days as he went through the entire 2020–2021 La Liga season for Barcelona, then went and played for Spain in the Euro 2020 tournament, then went to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic Summer Games, and then back to the 2021–2022 La Liga season that just started. After playing in Saturday’s second league game of the season for Barcelona, the team said the teenager would be given a two-week break for exhaustion.
Speaking of Euro 2020, it was at that event in which restricted numbers of fans were allowed to attend every game and in London, the number of fans increased exponentially as the tournament went on, which led to a near-capacity crowd as Italy beat the hosts in penalty kicks to win the championship. Now two months later, Public Health England said 2,295 people were likely to have been infectious with a further 3,404 people potentially acquiring infection at the July 11 championship match.
Overall, more than 9,000 COVID infections were linked to Euro 2020 games monitored for the government’s mass events test scheme and while the report’s authors did not describe it as such, many newspapers in England pointed out those numbers amount to the tournament having been a superspreader event.
“The Euro 2020 tournament and England’s progress to the Euro final generated a significant risk to public health across the UK even when England played overseas,” the report stated. “This risk arose not just from individuals attending the event itself, but included activities undertaken during travel and associated social activities.”
The study said spectators became less compliant on masks as the tournament progressed while the final was marked by mass disorder, including ticketless fans storming the gates and filling the stairways to watch the game. The study was a sobering moment for those who follow the game in England since the Premier League has had full capacity crowds since it started earlier this month; many of the teams are requiring proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test within 48 hours of kickoff.
OLYMPICS: Beijing Plans Strict Protocols for 2022 Games
Posted: Friday, August 20
Given the drawn-out process that resulted in no spectators in Tokyo this summer for the rescheduled Olympic Summer Games, the quick turnaround to the upcoming Winter Games — along with a multitude of issues, both health-related and political — could likely result in the banning of all foreign spectators for a second consecutive Olympics.
Beijing’s top official promised strict anti-coronavirus measures at next year’s Winter Olympics, now less than 200 days away with a growing multitude of sponsors and people around the Olympic world expecting there to be another ban on foreign spectators. China’s emphasis on the Games is “simple, safe and exciting,” Cai Qi, the city’s Communist Party chief and president of the Beijing organizing committee was quoted as saying by state media.
Cai emphasized strict measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during a tour of venues this week and said each must adopt their own specific measures. Cai did not say whether general spectators would be permitted in the stands; while the decision for Tokyo organizers was made after months of drawn-out leaks and postponed announcements, there is widespread anticipation that any decision would be made swiftly by Beijing organizers.

There are significant health concerns around whether there will be any movement or interaction between journalists, IOC VIPs and athletes in Beijing. Cases have risen in multiple parts of the world and depending on vaccination rates and the delta variant, memories are not short when it comes to the worldwide jump in COVID cases last winter.
The New York Times detailed earlier in August some of the measures that Beijing organizers are already planning. The story said that Beijing plans to allow fewer than 30,000 people, including accredited participants, into China compared to the 42,000 that were allowed into Tokyo for the Summer Games. The Times also reported the following:
“For the Winter Games, to be held from Feb. 4 to 20, the authorities intend to wall off China’s 1.4 billion people from essentially all athletes, judges, drivers, guides, journalists and others associated with the event. … When the Games end, practically everyone involved will be required to leave China or endure several weeks of total isolation in government-run quarantine centers, undergoing numerous medical tests, according to people familiar with Beijing’s preparations. … That will include thousands of Chinese staff, who will have to live in the bubble throughout the Games and then “re-enter” the rest of China after a lengthy quarantine. No decision has been announced on vaccination requirements for participation in the Games, or on the shorter quarantines for people arriving for the Olympics from overseas. … No information has been released about Olympic quarantine facilities. But, in general, China’s top medical experts have concluded that hotels, while comfortable, do not provide sufficient infection control. So they have invented new approaches. For example, nearly 2,000 prefabricated, stackable metal containers for individual quarantines were built during an outbreak early this year in Shijiazhuang, about a four-hour drive south of Beijing. … Britain plans to send a group of its sliders to Beijing as early as October. They have been told to expect to stay there for more than a month in conditions described as a “severe lockdown.”
While China has not announced its formal policy yet on spectators, it is all but certain that foreign journalists will face restrictions as strict — if not stricter — with their movements around the Games as there were in Tokyo. That, however, is as much because of political reasons as it would be for health reasons.
The peril for journalists was evident earlier this month when foreign reporters covering floods in central China were targeted. The Communist Youth League, an arm of the Chinese Communist Party, asked social media followers to locate and report a BBC reporter on assignment. That expanded into broader accusations against foreign reporters for “slandering” China with coverage that could be seen as critical rather than focusing on government rescue efforts. China last year expelled more than a dozen American reporters working for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
“China demands complete adherence to its position on a number of issues,” Oriana Skylar Mastro, who researches China security issues at Stanford University, told The Associated Press recently. “It demands this from governments, but also corporations, media, and individuals … So, do I think China is going to go after anyone, including sports reporters during the Olympics, that deviate from the ‘acceptable’ script? Yes, I absolutely do.”
The IOC has declined several recent demands to move the Olympics out of Beijing. China is accused by some foreign governments and researchers of imposing forced labor, systematic forced birth control and torture upon Uyghurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group. A vice president of Intel, one of the IOC’s top 15 sponsors, said he agreed with a U.S. State Department assessment that said China was committing genocide against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.
China has denied committing genocide against the Uyghur people, calling such accusations “the lie of the century” and that any threatened Olympic boycott “is doomed to failure.”
In countless interviews about China and its preparations for the Winter Olympics, IOC President Thomas Bach has not mentioned the situation of the Uyghurs. Nor has he said it was a topic covered in meetings of his executive board.
“Our responsibility is to deliver the Games,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams told The Associated Press. “That is our responsibility. It is the responsibility of others — the United Nations, who have been very supportive of the Olympic Games, and governments to deal with this — and not for us.”
Vaccination Mandates Expand Throughout Sports at All Levels
Posted: Thursday, August 19
The National Football League this year has an official policy called the “Fan Health Promise,” which in part makes ticket holders agree to not attend a game if they’ve had a positive COVID test in the previous 14 days and have not been vaccinated.
But between citywide health orders that will make mask-wearing mandatory at outdoor venues in Los Angeles including SoFi Stadium, Banc of California Stadium, the Rose Bowl and Dodger Stadium, to the mandatory vaccination policy announced by the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday night, vaccination incentives for fans to attend sporting events this fall are trending more toward requirements as cases continue to surge in the U.S. — regardless of whether that’s what fans want.

The other NFL team that has a stadium entrance policy, the New Orleans Saints, is not as strict as the Raiders; because of a city order, fans entering the Caesars Superdome must have either proof of a single vaccination dose (even if done on the day of a game) or a negative COVID-19 test. But even with that less-strict policy, the Saints said Thursday in a statement they have received “less than 120 requests for ticket refunds” because of fans who refuse to adhere to the policy. The Saints said they do plan to refund season tickets for fans, meaning some now face a decision: Get vaccinated, or lose tickets they’ve had for years knowing the wait list that exists to purchase tickets in the first place.
There are differences between the professional and college sports scenes, obviously. While most pro sports leagues have been able to mandate coach vaccinations, that is not the case collegiately. When Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Wednesday that all teachers and school personnel in the state must be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment, most national attention mentioned one name prominently — Washington State football coach Nick Rolovitch, who has been public about his refusal to get vaccinated to the point that he virtually attended the Pac-12 Media Days in Los Angeles since having been vaccinated was one of the conditions for in-person attendance.
That type of mandate, frankly, would never happen in the South, where four of the five states with the lowest percentage of fully vaccinated people in the United States are Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, the collective home to six of the Southeastern Conference’s 14 teams. The SEC has tried to use football as an incentive to get fans vaccinated; the conference has threatened forfeits for teams that cannot suit up the minimum required number of players this year. Commissioner Greg Sankey recently went on Twitter pleading with fans to be vaccinated and hinted at the roadblocks his conference faces legally, saying “State policies limit the SEC’s ability to establish Conference wide mandates. We need individuals — our fans — to join in accessing the vaccine, reducing COVID-19 spread, limiting the chances for more variants to emerge … and enjoying a full year ahead for college sports!”
Several of the league’s prominent coaches including Alabama’s Nick Saban, LSU’s Ed Orgeron and Mississippi’s Lane Kiffin have been publicly supporting vaccination. Kiffin made national news promoting his Rebels team as being 100 percent vaccinated in a state where only 34 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and multiple field hospitals have opened because of a surge of COVID patients. While Kiffin promotes the need for vaccines, the state medical center’s leader, LouAnn Woodward, says the situation in Mississippi is a “disaster of our own making. … We as a state, as a collective, have failed to respond in a unified way to a common threat, we have failed to use the tools that we have to protect ourselves.”
While not of legal recourse for fans, the ability for colleges to mandate vaccine requirements was boosted by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s recent denial of an emergency application to bar Indiana University from requiring faculty, staff and students be vaccinated. While it lacks the impact of a full Supreme Court ruling, should Barrett’s views reflect a majority of the justices, vaccine directives will be seen as lawful conditions. While the NCAA has issued a series of recommendations for testing, quarantine and isolation, the Division I Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference has announced that all athletes and athletic personnel in the conference must be vaccinated against COVID-19, following an earlier announcement of a similar policy by the Division II Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
Massive participatory sporting events are starting to gain momentum for vaccination requirements as well. The Chicago Marathon on October 10, organizers announced this week, will be only for registered participants able to show they are fully vaccinated or have a negative COVID test within 72 hours of participating. All attendees are required to wear face coverings at indoor event venues and participants are encouraged to wear face coverings in Grant Park prior to starting the race.
“Individuals unable to prove full vaccination or negative test will be barred from entering the Health & Fitness Expo and unable to pick up the necessary race materials that allow for participation in the event,” organizers said.
And perhaps with memories of last fall going into the winter as cases surged, and with the medical statistics showcasing the differences between vaccinated and non-vaccinated people being hospitalized with COVID-19, there appears to be no slowing the movement of vaccination requirements in sports — whether for athletes to compete and, in growing numbers, for fans to attend.
ENDURANCE SPORTS: IRONMAN Adjusts Schedule
Posted: Thursday, August 19
Travel and border restrictions are expected to prevent as many as half of the athlete field from being able to attend the 2021 Intermountain Healthcare Ironman 70.3 World Championship presented by Utah Sports Commission in St. George, Utah, meaning the event will shift to a one-day event on September 18 for both men and women.
Additionally, the 2022 Ironman 70.3 World Championship that was set to be held in Taupō, New Zealand will be held in St. George, giving the travel-restricted athlete community an opportunity to race with a two-day format from October 28-29, 2022.
“We have continued to monitor border and travel restrictions closely, and it is increasingly clear that these restrictions are not likely to be relaxed in time for most international athletes to be able to race in St. George,” said Andrew Messick, president and chief executive officer for The Ironman Group. “We have a special host partner in St. George and its surrounding communities, and we are looking forward to being able to host a full international two-day race in 2022.”
“Navigating the twists and turns of a global pandemic has been daunting, but at every turn our community has been able to look around the corner and find a positive path to a brighter horizon,” said Kevin Lewis, director of the Greater Zion Convention & Tourism Office. “The dedication and commitment that the Ironman team has made to ensure success is inspiring. Working together, we’ve put together what will be an amazing world championship event this September, and we are thrilled at the opportunity to host the world here again in 2022.”
New Zealand and Ironman officials are committed to discussing how to bring the 70.3 World Championship event to Taupō in a future year. The 2023 World Championship taking place in Lahti, Finland will continue as planned.
AUTO RACING: Japanese GP Canceled
Posted: Wednesday, August 18
Less than a month after the Olympic Summer Games were held in Japan and as the Paralympics approach in the country, Formula 1 organizers said Wednesday that the October 10 Japanese GP in Suzuka will not be held because of COVID-19 conditions.
The race in Suzuka had been scheduled between events in Turkey and Austin, Texas. Previous races scheduled in Australia and Singapore have been cancelled and the Chinese GP in Shanghai is still listed as being postponed indefinitely.
“The decision has been taken by the Japanese government to cancel the race this season due to ongoing complexities of the pandemic in the country,” F1 said in a statement. “Formula 1 is now working on the details of the revised calendar and will announce the final details in the coming weeks.”
SOCCER: Second USL Match Postponed
Posted: Wednesday, August 18
The USL Championship has postponed the second consecutive match involving San Antonio FC after “multiple covered individuals” from the club have tested positive, the league said. The team’s game August 14 at New York Red Bulls II was postponed as well as this coming Saturday’s home game against Real Monarchs. The home game will be rescheduled to September 1.
The United Soccer League announced on Monday that 987 tests were administered to players and club staff from the 31 Championship clubs between August 9 and August 15, with three individuals from three clubs testing positive.
San Antonio had a home match on May 29 this season where all fans were able to get their first of two doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine as part of a promotion by local provider Livingston Med Labs, with fans also being able to then schedule their second dose after the gameday shot so that they would be fully vaccinated.
NFL: Raiders Owner Explains Why Fans Must Get Vaccinated
Posted: Wednesday, August 18
After having four major events with fans at Allegiant Stadium and trying to enforce mask policies throughout the stadium with nothing close to 100 percent success, the Las Vegas Raiders decided to take the step and become the first NFL team to require vaccination of all fans going to games this season, explaining in more detail on Tuesday what brought them to the decision.
The Raiders’ initial announcement late Monday night was the most aggressive step in an increasing number of teams and venues that are trying to incentivize vaccination among fans as the delta variant continues to spread throughout the United States, leading to a rise in COVID-19 cases.

Raiders Owner Mark Davis said on Tuesday that the team would offer either full refunds to season-ticket holders who choose to not get vaccinated or rollovers to next season. But he will not back down from his decision.
“I don’t know what else we can do for (hesitant fans),” Davis said. “When you look at it, it’s not about you. It’s about the person sitting next to you and that’s who we’re trying to protect as well.”
The Raiders are partnering with CLEAR to confirm a person’s vaccination status. Fans will have to download the CLEAR app and then upload their vaccine card, driver’s license and a picture of themselves. Then fans can open the app at Allegiant Stadium and tap the health pass digital vaccine card to display a QR code along with their photo for a stadium worker to allow entry. The app says that it has fraud protections tied to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We don’t have another game for a month, so that gives our fans time to go through the process of the CLEAR signing-up,” Davis said.
The Raiders decided on the vaccinated-only policy after an emergency directive on Monday from Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak. The mandate says that large venues with more than 4,000 fixed seats have the option of opting out of a mask mandate by requiring proof of vaccination; if they don’t, they can continue to host events, but all attendees must wear masks.
The policy will take effect for the Raiders’ home opener on September 13 against Baltimore. There is no negative COVID test option for Raiders fans as opposed to those going to Saints games at the newly rebranded Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
The Raiders will offer vaccinations at Allegiant Stadium on game days so fans can attend, although they will have to wear a mask once inside since they will not be fully vaccinated. Vaccinated fans will not need to wear masks at games; children between the ages of 2 and 11, since they are not yet eligible to be vaccinated, can attend games as long as they wear a mask.
“I support the decision that was made,” Raiders Coach Jon Gruden said after Tuesday’s practice. “I know it’s a touchy subject for a lot of people, but I do support the direction we’re heading and I encourage everybody that I know to get the vaccine and come and join us.”
Masks will be required at large outdoor events in Los Angeles County starting Thursday regardless of COVID-19 status, which will affect games at Dodger Stadium and SoFi Stadium just for starters. Fans will also have to adhere to the new guidelines at Banc of California Stadium, which hosts the Major League Soccer All-Star Game next week, as well as the Rose Bowl and L.A. Memorial Coliseum. Guests at outdoor events of more than 10,000 people or indoor events of more than 5,000 people (including the Staples Center) will have to wear the masks except while actively eating or drinking.
Policies for fans such as these are happening north of the border as well; Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment said fans will have to provide proof of vaccination of a negative COVID test to attend games. The organization owns owns Scotiabank Arena, the home of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs and NBA’s Toronto Raptors, and operates BMO Field, the home of the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts and Major League Soccer’s Toronto FC.
HOCKEY: Still No Decision on NHL in Beijing
Posted: Wednesday, August 18
While the NHL has released a regular season schedule for the upcoming season and last week announced start times for all the games, the question remains of whether the schedule that was released will be the schedule that is played because of ongoing uncertainty about the league’s participation in the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
“No final agreement or decision has been made to this point regarding the possible participation of NHL Players in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics,” the NHL said last week. “Talks remain ongoing. … If, for whatever reason, there is no NHL Player participation in the Olympics, a revised Regular Season schedule will be released which, to the greatest extent possible, will adopt the dates and games reflected in the schedule contemplating Olympic participation.”
With no decision still made on the 2022 Games, teams are waiting to see what they should be doing when it comes to ticket sales since a late decision against having players in Beijing would necessitate the NHL releasing a new version of its 2021–2022 schedule. The schedule that was released includes an Olympic break from February 7—22. ESPN reported at least two NHL teams have told fans a final decision would be made by the end of August. ESPN also said no fans they surveyed have received a promotional schedule for the upcoming season because should the NHL not participate in the Games, many of those dates could potentially move in a reshuffled schedule.
The NHL has taken another step in trying to recoup revenues that were lost during the pandemic, allowing teams to have advertising on the front of team jerseys starting with the 2022—2023 season. The NHL has allowed ads on practice jerseys since 2010 and this past season allowed helmet advertising, which NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said was worth more than $100 million in revenue.
Bettman had said in June that the NHL would not dismiss the chances of having ads on jerseys in the future, a stark contrast to when he said in 2015 that “you’d have to drag me kicking and screaming” to permit them. Whether it was kicking or screaming, the fact that the NHL lost reportedly $3.6 billion in revenue during the 2020–2021 season because of attendance restrictions certainly eased Bettman’s reluctance.
NFL: Raiders Become First Team to Mandate Vaccination for Fans
Posted: Monday, August 16
The Las Vegas Raiders are the first National Football League team to announce that fans at Allegiant Stadium will be required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination ahead of the season opening in less than a month.
The Raiders said Monday night that fans can attend games without a mask if they can show proof of vaccination through CLEAR’s free mobile app and Health Pass feature. The policy will take effect for the season opener on September 13 against the Baltimore Ravens. The Raiders will offer the opportunity for fans to receive vaccinations at Allegiant Stadium prior to home games, permitting newly vaccinated fans to enter wearing a mask.
“Health and safety has always been our number one priority,” said Raiders owner Mark Davis. “After consultation with Governor (Steve) Sisolak and other community leaders, this policy ensures that we will be able to operate at full capacity without masks for fully vaccinated fans for the entire season,” Davis said.
The Raiders announced a policy requiring all full-time employees on the business and football staffs of the organization to be vaccinated in May. Stadium management company ASM and stadium concessionaire Levy also have implemented mandatory vaccinations for all full-time staff at Allegiant Stadium.
The New Orleans Saints on Friday announced that fans will be expected to always wear masks except when eating or drinking during games at the Superdome per new health protocols announced by the city. The Superdome is an indoor facility like the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium.
The National Football League said in the spring that it was expecting to have sellout crowds at stadiums in the fall for the 2021 season and Commissioner Roger Goodell is sticking with that belief while acknowledging that rising COVID-19 numbers throughout the United States has raised concerns that the league may have to scale back its plans.
“We’re comfortable that local regulations are going to allow us to have fans at all 32 stadiums,” Goodell said Saturday on the NFL Networks’ Inside Training Camp Live. “We’ll still be smart. We’re still going to be willing to adapt. We’re still going to do everything to make sure our fans are safe when they’re there. But we expect full stadiums.”
There were 13 preseason games over the weekend in the NFL and other than the Chicago Bears, who drew 33,069 at Soldier Field for its game against the Miami Dolphins, every game had a minimum of 47,000 fans on hand — including seven games that had announced crowds of 64,866 or higher.
“You know, the fans want to come back,” Goodell said. “That’s the No. 1 thing we hear. We’re seeing that in our ticket sales. Fans just want to be a part (of) and have that collective experience. Doing that around an NFL game is fun.”
While the Golden State Warriors have already announced that only vaccinated fans will be allowed at home games ahead of the 2021–2022 NBA season, those who want to go to a San Francisco 49ers game at Levi’s Stadium will be able to go without a mask while outdoors at home games. But indoors in club spaces and other spots, fans will be expected to have masks on regardless of vaccination status.
The 49ers announcement, along with those within the past week by the Atlanta Falcons and Pittsburgh Steelers and Monday’s announcement by the Raiders, increase the number of NFL stadiums where fans will be — at minimum — expected to put masks on while in indoor spaces but allowed to have them off while sitting outdoors during the game.
An email sent to Steelers season-ticket holders on Monday said: “The Steelers and Heinz Field Management are requiring that all guests, staff and vendors at Heinz Field, regardless of their vaccination status, wear a mask while visiting all indoor areas of the stadium.” It said that fans will not have to show proof of vaccination status to attend games.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium implemented an updated mask policy when the Falcons opened the preseason on Friday, requiring masks in enclosed areas such as club spaces and retail stores. Masks are “strongly encouraged” for fans and employees in all other areas of the stadium but the Falcons said “at this time, Mercedes-Benz Stadium will not go back to a limited seating capacity unless mandated by MLS or the NFL.”
The mask policy update in Atlanta comes as the Falcons told ESPN on Monday that the team is 100 percent fully vaccinated, the first NFL team to reach that benchmark.
The NFL Network reported last Friday that player vaccination rates are up to 89 percent with at least one shot and 22 of the league’s 32 clubs reaching 90 percent partially vaccinated. Along with health and safety protocols that will be updated throughout the season depending on conditions throughout the country, Goodell — while not being able to mandate players be fully vaccinated — has done whatever he can to make it near-mandatory, notably saying that teams will forfeit games this year if they have an outbreak among unvaccinated players and cannot suit up the minimum number of players.
“I think the increasing (vaccine) numbers are indicating with people getting more comfortable, understanding better that they are effective, that they are safe and that they are the best way to keep yourself and your family and everyone around you safe,” Goodell said. “… I think we’re in a place where I think we can keep our personnel safe and have limited disruptions.”
NFL: Mask Up to Cheer Saints in Superdome, Says New Orleans
Posted: Friday, August 13
As the delta variant has surged cases throughout the Southern part of the United States, the past week-plus has served as perhaps a turning point where vaccinations are not only encouraged by professional and collegiate leagues and teams, but the destinations that host them will make it mandatory to enjoy going to games again.
The number of professional sports venues that will put forth requirements for fans this season continues to rise each day. The Buffalo Bills said Wednesday that masks will be required of all people in indoor spaces at Highmark Stadium and those who do not have proof of full vaccination must wear masks outdoors as well. Chase Center in San Francisco, home of the Golden State Warriors, said Thursday on Twitter that all fans ages 12 and up must show proof of vaccination to attend games this coming season and “proof of a negative COVID-19 test will no longer serve as an accepted health pass for fans.”
A second NFL venue, the Superdome in New Orleans, will also make fans show proof of vaccination or a negative test within 72 hours of kickoff to attend games as part of Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s city-wide measure for all restaurants, bars and entertainment venues. Masks will also be required at all times except when eating or drinking.
“We are committed to doing everything we can in the current environment to protect your health and safety while at the same time providing the best game day experience in the NFL,” the Saints said in a statement. “We understand some will be frustrated, as are we, that we find ourselves in this position. We, as a community, have overcome so much in our history and come back stronger every time. … We need you in that number – both on game day and in defeating this virus.”
The team also said that it will provide vaccinations on gamedays outside of the stadium as well as non-gameday vaccination events throughout the region in the fall.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made it clear the league has leeway for team outbreaks, saying in a memo that any team could face a forfeit if it cannot play due to a COVID-19 cluster caused by unvaccinated players or staff and the league cannot reschedule the game.
“These operating principles are designed to allow us to play a full season in a safe and responsible way and address possible competitive or financial issues fairly,” Goodell wrote. “While there is no question that health conditions have improved from last year, we cannot be complacent or simply assume that we will be able to play without interruption — either due to Covid outbreaks among our clubs or outbreaks that occur within the larger community.”
The league’s incentives — although some players who are vaccine-resistent think of it in other terms — have seemed to increase the player vaccination rate markedly since the start of training camp. NFL.com’s Judy Battista said on Thursday that 15 teams have 95 percent of more vaccination rates among players and that 91.7 percent of all players are at least partially vaccinated, far exceeding the national average of 71 percent among adults.
“I would say go do it, get the vaccine, to decrease the risk of getting COVID or spreading it to someone who is going to have an adverse reaction like myself,” Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett told USA Today this week. Garrett missed two games last season after testing positive for COVID.
“Personally, it whipped my ass,” Garrett said. “It took me out. … I couldn’t smell, and what I could smell was like an iron, like a metallic sensation in my nose. It felt like it was burning. Like sometimes for 30 minutes, an hour. It made my head hurt. My eyes watered. Stuffy. Had phlegm. Felt weak.”
While player vaccination cannot be mandated because of collective bargaining, the NFL did mandate all Tier 1 employees — coaches, front-office executives, equipment managers and scouts — get vaccinated. That is not the case in college football, where things are much murkier and depend much more on what each state’s protocols are and whether the school is public or private. In the ACC, for example, six of the 14 football members have a vaccine mandate for students: Boston College, Duke, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Virginia and Virginia Tech, the latter two of which are public universities.
The SEC is an entirely different matter. While football coaches ranging from Nick Saban in Alabama to Lane Kiffin in Mississippi have been publicly encouraging for vaccinations — the Rebels announced they are 100 percent vaccinated among players and staff earlier this week and the Crimson Tide are near 100 percent — four of the five states with the lowest percentage of fully vaccinated people in the United States are Alabama (35%), Mississippi (35.2%), Arkansas (37.7%) and Louisiana (37.7%), home to six of the league’s 14 teams.
“I do hope people will see what our athletes are doing as an example to be followed,” Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin told Yahoo Sports this week. “I hope they are following what our athletes are doing, setting a great example for the rest of our communities. SEC sports play a huge role in the cultural fabric of what we do. But so many people have politicized taking the vaccine. One thing you see often is people don’t want their sports and politics to mix.”
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is trying to encourage the issue among the general public, coming out strongly for vaccination during his State of the League address earlier this month at SEC Media Days. On Tuesday, he posted on Twitter saying “State policies limit the SEC’s ability to establish Conference wide mandates. We need individuals — our fans — to join in accessing the vaccine, reducing COVID-19 spread, limiting the chances for more variants to emerge … and enjoying a full year ahead for college sports!”
Whether those words will lead to actions, though, is a different topic.
SOCCER: Premier League Requires Full Vaccination for Fan Attendance
Posted: Thursday, August 12
With the Ligue 1 in France already underway and the 2021–2022 seasons in Germany, Spain and England about to kick off on Friday, each country’s league will have to abide by health and safety protocols that are different depending on the country and region in which they play in.
The English Premier League will allow clubs to welcome full-capacity crowds for the first time since March 2020 — but fans must either be fully vaccinated or have had a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of the game. Fans were permitted in limited numbers toward the end of last season as certain COVID-19 restrictions were lifted and London’s Wembley Stadium during this summer’s Euro 2020 tournament held tens of thousands of fans at games, including a near-sellout in the championship loss to Italy.
The Premier League will also introduce a code of conduct for fans that will include wearing masks in indoor areas, avoiding close contact with people they do not know and following one-way signage around stadiums. Fans will also subject to random spot checks of their COVID-19 status in the opening few weeks of the new season with stewards asking fans to show they have been fully vaccinated or have received a negative test in the previous 48 hours, via the NHS Covid pass.
“Even though the UK is reopening, the government has made it clear that this pandemic is still far from over,” the Premier League said. “It is possible the safety measures for matches could be subject to change at short notice. Fans should continue to follow the latest public health guidance and guidance from their club. However, even in these uncertain times we are optimistic that by continuing to work together with fans, supporter groups, football stakeholders, national government and local authorities, everyone can enjoy full and vibrant stadiums while staying safe from COVID-19.”

Teams in the German Bundesliga will be allowed a maximum of 25,000 for games. Germany’s 16 states will allow sports stadiums to admit fans at 50% capacity, up to a cap of 25,000 spectators. However, COVID-19 infection rates must not exceed 35 per 100,000 people over the previous seven days or a limit of 5,000 fans will be imposed. Only fans who can prove they have been vaccinated or can present a negative test will be allowed to attend.
In Spain, La Liga matches will be played in front of 40 percent capacity at all stadiums, per Spain’s Ministry of Health. One exception will be Barcelona, which will be at 30 percent instead based off the Government of Catalonia’s own health regulations. That will leave the team playing in front of a maximum of 29,803 fans when it opens on Sunday against Real Sociedad in Barcelona’s first game without Lionel Messi, the superstar who left as a free agent and will be playing with Ligue 1’s Paris Saint-Germain — a team that will for its home opener on Saturday against Strasbourg be able to play in front of a sellout crowd of 49,700 at the Parc des Princes, provided each fan provide proof of full vaccination or a negative test within 48 hours of kickoff.
It will be interesting to see if more venues, teams and even leagues in North America will emphasize a vaccination requirement for attendance. The New York Knicks, should it had advanced to the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, said it was going to require proof of vaccination for fans to be at Madison Square Garden; those plans were not needed after the team’s first-round elimination at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks. The NHL’s Winnipeg Jets announced it will require proof of full vaccination of fans to attend home games at Canada Life Centre this season, saying on Wednesday that season-ticket holders canvassed for opinions said that was their preference. Fans will also be required to wear masks in the arena. The Jets also said that children ages 12 and up must be fully vaccinated to attend games as well.
But five teams in California announced jointly on Wednesday that they will require full-time employees at their offices to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment: The Los Angeles Lakers, L.A. Kings, Anaheim Ducks, L.A. Galaxy and L.A. Chargers announced its policies in a statement Wednesday from AEG, the parent company of the Kings and Galaxy and the Staples Center landlord of the Lakers. The requirement would include “limited exceptions as required by law,” and does not apply to athletes of those teams. The agreement also covers live entertainment companies and events AEG, Live Nation Entertainment, Goldenvoice, the Coachella music festival and ticket-buying platform AXS.
MLB: Unvaccinated Yankees Test Positive After Florida Trip
Posted: Tuesday, August 10
One of the first Major League Baseball teams to have reached a high threshold of vaccinated players — thereby allowing for relaxed health and safety protocols the rest of the season — has had another player hit the COVID-19 list in the second half of the regular season.
Newly acquired first baseman Anthony Rizzo positive after Saturday’s game against the Seattle Mariners. Rizzo joins catcher Gary Sanchez and starting pitchers Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery on the COVID-19 list in the past week. Rizzo, a cancer survivor, said in June he wanted to see more “data” before deciding whether to get vaccinated.
Players who test positive are sidelined for a minimum of 10 days before they are allowed to return, per MLB protocols. In addition to the four most recent positive tests, five other players including All-Star outfielder Aaron Judge have tested positive since the All-Star break.

Rizzo, acquired by the Yankees from the Chicago Cubs before the trade deadline, has three home runs and six RBIs in nine games with the Yankees. The Yankees’ latest outbreak occurred after six games against the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins in Florida, where COVID-19 cases are surging.
“I think a lot came out of Florida where we were in this wave of them,” Yankees Manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s a little of you don’t know when and where it’s spreading.”
The Yankees were one of the first teams in MLB to have reached the 85 percent vaccination rate but having had several unvaccinated players contract COVID leaves the question of whether the league’s protocols will be tightened as the regular season continues.
Major League Baseball says 85.5 percent of Tier 1 individuals — players, coaches, support staff and those in direct contact of players — are vaccinated. Of the league’s 30 teams, 23 have an 85 percent vaccination rate, a number that has not increased since June.
“We constantly monitor the latest COVID developments and are in contact with the CDC and other top infectious disease experts,” a league spokesperson told The Athletic on Friday. “We adjust our protocols accordingly.”
NFL: Ravens QB, After Second COVID Fight, May Not Get Vaccinated
Posted: Monday, August 9
Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who has recovered this week from his second bout with COVID-19 in the past year, said Monday that he is still unsure of if he will be vaccinated before the NFL season gets underway.
Jackson, the 2019 NFL Most Valuable Player, returned to practice Monday after a 10-day quarantine the league requires for any unvaccinated player who tests positive for COVID.
“I got to talk to my team about this and see how they feel about it,” Jackson said about getting vaccinated. “Keep learning as much as I can about it. We’ll go from there. … I feel it’s a personal decision. I’m just going to keep my feelings to my family and myself. I’m focused on getting better right now. I can’t dwell on that right now … how everybody else feels. Just trying to get back to the right routine.”
Jackson says he suffered from fatigue both times he caught the virus and slept a lot. Jackson is not worried about long-term health consequences, saying he slept a lot both times he has contracted COVID. Jackson was one of 20 Ravens who spent time on the reserve/COVID-19 list last season, as the Ravens endured an outbreak during which at least one player tested positive on 10 consecutive days in November, forcing the team’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers to be postponed nearly a full week.
The league does not require players to be vaccinated but those who do not are under strict protocols and teams who cannot play due to a COVID-19 outbreak among their unvaccinated players may also have to forfeit games.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Alabama, Florida Using 2020 Virus Protocols to Avoid Outbreaks
Posted: Monday, August 9
In the Southeastern Conference, the saying goes, it just means more.
Well, two teams are going the extra mile during preseason — by trying to keep its players away from the general population to reduce the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak.
Alabama will return to the same protocols it used in the 2020 season for at least six weeks with students returning to Tuscaloosa as the delta variant is hitting the state, Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban said Thursday.
Only 35 percent of Alabama’s eligible population is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. Last week’s 14-day average case rate in Tuscaloosa County was up 164 percent, according to the New York Times; students going to Alabama this fall are not required to be vaccinated when classes begin August 18.
“We’re still going to be very cautious indoors and meetings and so forth on trying not to have an issue with the COVID,” said Saban, who missed his team’s game against Auburn last season after contracting COVID.
Florida, meanwhile, will spend at least part of its training camp in a hotel as coach Dan Mullen searches for ways to avoid another outbreak within the program. Last year the Gators had two games rescheduled after Mullen, at least two assistants and approximately 30 players tested positive following a game at Texas A&M.
“We’re going to have some protocols that we put in place,” Mullen said Thursday. “… When you look at our protocols, how we’re going about it within the ability to wear a mask, when we’re wearing them, what situations, indoor compared to outdoors, how we’re managing guys that have been vaccinated compared to non-vaccinated, I think we’re just a lot more educated on how we adjust within what we’re doing to keep everybody as safe as possible.”
Alabama’s move is being made after Saban said nearly the entire roster and coaching staff have been vaccinated. Mullen says the Gators “are probably over” the 85 percent vaccination threshold the SEC requires, but admitted he wasn’t sure about the exact number. Programs reaching 85 percent vaccination rate will not require players and coaches to test regularly or wear face coverings inside team facilities.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said during his SEC media day address that the league will have teams forfeit games this fall instead of rescheduling them. The SEC had 16 games cancelled last season, including one November weekend when four out of a seven scheduled games were not played.
“COVID-19 vaccines are widely available, they’ve proven to be highly effective and when people are fully vaccinated, we all have the ability to avoid serious health risks, reduce the virus’ spread, and maximize our chances of returning to a normal college football experience and to normal life,” Sankey said. “It’s not a political football and we need to do our part to support a healthy society.”
Sankey’s plea for increased vaccinations was not just to each of the league’s schools but their respective fan bases. While the SEC last season had some of the larger crowds for the college football season, none of its stadiums allowed more than 25 percent capacity overall.
In Mississippi, which the CDC says is last in the U.S. in percent of residents receiving at least one vaccination dose at 41.6 percent, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said Sunday there is a 100% vaccination rate among players, coaches, staff members and everybody within the program.
“It’s pretty amazing and great motivation for our fans and the state,” Kiffin told ESPN.
Georgia and Louisiana account for nearly 40 percent of all the nation’s hospitalizations. While Alabama’s vaccination rate is one of the lowest in the country, Louisiana and Georgia are not far behind with 38 percent of their populations inoculated. Florida is closer to the national rate at 49 percent.
The Crimson Tide’s first home game is September 11 against Mercer and there are no plans to limit fan capacity. Saban appeared in a PSA in May to encourage fans to get vaccinated, saying it was important to have a full stadium in the fall was his pitch.
“We’re hoping to be able to have full capacity in the stadium,” Saban said Thursday. “I’m hoping more and more people will get vaccinated so we’ll have the opportunity to do that. I know it means a lot to our players.”
There’s no doubt that in Florida, there will be no capacity restrictions for sporting events (or anything, really). Mullen last season lobbied to “pack the Swamp” and was criticized heavily for that stance, especially after he announced he had contracted COVID shortly after that statement. His stance was much more nuanced when asked about fan capacity last week; the Gators are scheduled to open September 4 against Florida Atlantic at home.
“You know, I mean, I coach football,” Mullen said. “I’ll be honest with you, that’s probably way above me. … There’s some people that would have better answers on that stuff.”
NFL: Unvaccinated QB Promises He Will Follow Protocols
Posted: Friday, August 6
As the NFL preseason heads into the first weekend of games, the debate and storyline among the Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback situation due to COVID-19 will not rest.
Kirk Cousins, Nate Stanley and Kellen Mond were all sidelined last weekend, leaving only Jake Browning available for the team’s open practice in front of fans. Mond tested positive for COVID and both Cousins and Stanley were deemed high-risk close contacts and had to isolate for five days before returning to practice.
Cousins, in his first public comments about the issue on Thursday, said the size of Minnesota’s quarterback meeting room was the issue and “had we met in a larger room, I would not have missed practice. Because I was not a close contact as deemed by actually being in contact. So it was disappointing to miss practice. In my entire college and pro career, I have not missed four practices. So to miss four practices in one week and not have COVID was frustrating, disappointing.”

According to The Associated Press, about 65 percent of the team is fully vaccinated — the lowest percentage of all 32 teams in the league, per the report.
The Vikings’ reportedly low vaccination rate has become not only a concern to the coaching staff but the team ownership. Mark Wilf told The Associated Press this week “we’re very concerned,” about the low number.
When asked if he was vaccinated, Cousins said it was “a very private health matter.” Cousins also disputed a comment made by Vikings Coach Mike Zimmer, who told local radio station KFAN-100.3 FM that he had spoken with Cousins about the league’s protocols, which Zimmer said the quarterback “doesn’t believe in.”
But Cousins said “I very much believe in the protocols,” and he may set up plexiglass in the meeting room to isolate himself from other quarterbacks or insist on all meetings be held outdoors — a novel concept to do in the Minnesota winter months.
Sixty-five players and staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 since training camps opened, according to the NFLPA, including 32 vaccinated individuals. The Washington Post reported that the NFLPA told membership this week that it will propose re-tightened protocols including that vaccinated players and staffers be tested for the coronavirus each day they enter a team facility.
Under current protocols, vaccinated players and staffers are tested once every 14 days, while unvaccinated personnel are subject to daily testing. The NFLPA reportedly also is asking that the number of people allowed into the locker rooms be reduced and cited updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on masking to reduce the spread of the delta variant.
“We have consistently stated that football will go the way of our communities,” the NFLPA wrote, “and multiple cities and states are experiencing record surges in infections and hospitalizations due to the Delta variant.”
The NFL has told teams that they could be forced to forfeit games this season if they have an outbreak attributable to unvaccinated players or staffers as part of several inducements to encourage vaccinations. The league says more than 90 percent of players have either begun or concluded the vaccination process. Twenty-seven teams are above 85 percent and nine teams have more than 95 percent vaccination.
“We all have the same goal,” said Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. “Which is to create the safest possible environment for our players, coaches and staff. … As we collect that data and analyze it, if we think we need more frequent information vis-a-vis more frequent testing, then we’ll discuss that, again, with the NFLPA and make that decision jointly.”
The NFLPA proposal drew criticism from one player in particular — Chicago Bears tight end Jimmy Graham, who tweeted “Was basically forced into getting the vaccine. Now I’m just confused @NFLPA.” In a later tweet, Graham added “I’ve done everything I’ve been asked and now I feel like I’m being punished. If I miss a test that you are proposing every day I’ll be fined a max 150K! How does this make sense. How’s the punishment 100X worse than last year and I’m vaccinated now?”
At least there’s better news in Washington, where several players were on the COVID-19 list last weekend. The low rate of vaccinated players at the time irritated coach Ron Rivera greatly; since then, the jump has jumped to at least 84 percent of the team having at least one shot thanks in part of last Sunday, when the team scheduled appointments for all players who wanted a shot.
“It was a good step in the right direction, and we’re continuing to trend up,” Rivera said.
The question is if every team feels as confident.
NCAA Releases COVID-19 Guidance for Fall Sports
Posted: Thursday, August 5
After a 2020 in which fall sports looked nothing like it used to before, the 2021 fall collegiate sports season will be held under two sets of rules for athletes and officials — those who are vaccinated, and those who are not.
The NCAA released its guidance for fall training and competition amid the COVID-19 pandemic on Wednesday with many collegiate conferences preparing to release its own rules in the weeks to come. The NCAA 2021 Fall Training and Competition document includes testing, quarantine, isolation, and other athletic and nonathletic activity considerations for unvaccinated and fully vaccinated Tier 1 individuals such as student-athletes, coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists, medical staff, equipment staff and officials.
The NCAA recommends each school implement its own COVID-19 prevention and management strategies “in conjunction with federal, state and local public health guidance.” But at the same time, its medical teams have established guidance for testing, quarantine and isolation for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
Those who are vaccinated will not have to undergo regular testing unless they exhibit symptoms or have been in close contact with someone who tested positive. Unvaccinated individuals could be tested as many as three times per week and are expected to wear a mask and practice physical distancing while vaccinated individuals are recommended to wear masks indoors and during team travel.
“Current vaccination rates remain inadequate to provide community-level immunity,” NCAA Chief Medical Officer Brian Hainline said. “It is essential that member schools work in concert with federal, state and local public health officials to develop COVID-19 prevention and management strategies that make sense for them.”
Commissioners from the Big 12, SEC and ACC have urged vaccination rates to increase among member universities and the cities where they are located. While last year was full of postponements across college football, no conference has yet said they would have a similar policy this year, instead threatening to have teams unable to field a minimum number of players to forfeit scheduled games.
NASCAR: Masks Required in Garages
Posted: Thursday, August 5
NASCAR is adjusting its health protocols beginning with this weekend’s events at Watkins Glen International in New York as the auto racing series is requiring all personnel wear a mask in enclosed areas at all times, regardless of vaccination status.
Enclosed areas include haulers and buildings, restrooms, the infield care center, race control and suites. NASCAR said the update was being implemented on the advice of its consulting physicians and recently issued medical guidance.
Masks will not be required outdoors at NASCAR events, most of which have been held without attendance restrictions this summer. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo lifted COVID-19 restrictions in mid-June and Watkins Glen International announced three days later that its grandstands would be fully open to spectators.
RUGBY: World Cup Event Postponed
Posted: Thursday, August 5
The Rugby League World Cup has been postponed to 2022 after two of its biggest names, Australia and New Zealand, both said it would not participate in the event in England because of COVID-19.
The two nations pulled out two weeks ago, citing safety concerns amid the pandemic. New dates will need to be found for the tournament, which would be in 2022 held around the same time as the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Venues will also need to be rebooked.
The decision to postpone is set to affect the men’s, women’s and wheelchair competitions, all of which were due to be held in October and November. The Rugby League World Cup is an international tournament run by the International Rugby League; only Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand have ever won the event, with Australia winning 11 of the 15 tournaments all-time.
NFL: Vikings’ QB Issue Brings Back Memories of Last Year
Posted: Tuesday, August 3
One of the harshest realizations of what COVID-19 can do a National Football League team’s roster was when the Denver Broncos, without a single quarterback because of contact tracing, had to play a practice squad wide receiver at the QB position against the New Orleans Saints on short notice.
As this season starts to approach, any player that is not vaccinated can run the risk of ruling out several teammates through contact tracing. The Minnesota Vikings know that better than anyone after this past weekend’s open practice for fans turned into a showcase for QB Jake Browning — the only available player at the position after the other three quarterbacks were ruled out.
The Vikings put Kirk Cousins, Kellen Mond and Nate Stanley on the COVID-19 reserve list after Mond tested positive and Cousins and Stanley, who have not been vaccinated, were deemed close contacts. Each of them has to isolate for five days before being able to return to practice.

The situation has vexed Vikings coach Mike Zimmer, who had plenty to say about the issue on Monday.
“Going through all the things you had to do last year with masks, protocol, traveling, can’t leave for a day, can’t go out and see your family and all the things — can’t go out to dinner on the road, have to wear masks on the plane, all that stuff. It was just difficult,” Zimmer said. “I just don’t understand. … I talked to the team, and like I said before, there are quite a few guys that are just against it. I’m not going to be able to change their mind, so, it’s like half the country, I guess.”
Browning is the only Vikings QB that is currently vaccinated. Zimmer said the team may have one QB quarantine away from the team all season so that if there is another breakout within the position, at least one would be clear to play. If the team does not do that, it — like any other team — would run the risk of playing the game short-handed or maybe even have to forfeit the game per the NFL’s rules this season.
“These guys, some of them just won’t do it,” Zimmer said of players getting vaccinated. “I shouldn’t say it, but some of the things they read is just, whew, out there.”
Another team that has been in the spotlight during training camp the most for its low player vaccination rate is the Washington Football Team, which after the weekend had six players on the reserve/COVID list. The team earlier this summer had a vaccine researcher talk to the team about the safety of vaccination; it seems as if many were looking at their phones instead, which has frustrated coach Ron Rivera.
“I said ‘Here’s a what-if scenario,’” Rivera told reporters on Saturday. “’What if this had been game day Sunday for the opener?’ Even though it’s only contact tracing for some of them, that’s five days. So if this is the opener, imagine this: Open against [the Chargers], Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, playing Thursday night against the Giants. Those guys would not be eligible. So, to me it brings the reality of what the rules are, and I hope it helps.”
While the NFL cannot mandate that players get vaccinated, one prominent former NBA player turned TV analyst has endorsed it: Charles Barkley said on HBO’s “Back on the Record with Bob Costas” that any athlete that doesn’t get the shot is “selfish.”
“Every job you go to has rules,” Barkley told Costas. “I think there should be mandates to get vaccinated. And if you don’t want to live by the rules at your job, you have the right to get fired. You do have rights. But there’s certain things I can’t do at my job. There’s certain things you can’t do at your job. I think in all sports it should be mandated that you have to get vaccinated. And if people don’t like it, they have the right to walk away.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said employers could mandate workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 to return to the office but any mandate must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act.
In Major League Baseball, the New Yor