I, as well as many others across the country, stayed up until the early hours of the morning last night to watch ESPN’s broadcast of the Samsung Lions against the NC Dinos, the first live sporting telecast in what seemed like years.
The two teams are part of South Korea’s Korean Baseball Organization, a 10-team league with a rich history of sending players overseas to play in the MLB.
ESPN’s broadcast of the game is the first broadcast of one of the four major sports– baseball, basketball, hockey and football–and was a welcome sight for sports fans nationwide.
There are three main takeaways from the broadcast related to how likely it is that a college football season will happen in some capacity this fall.
First, the demand for live sports is there more than it’s ever been, even if it’s played without fans.
The first pitch of the game last night was at 1:30 a.m. EDT, well past a normal time for sports to start and well past the time most of America is fast asleep.
Nevertheless, people stayed up to watch the spectator-less baseball game and for the first time in months sports Twitter was running at full force as people came together to share an experience for the first time in a long time of watching live sports.
In a study published by ESPN yesterday 76 percent of 1004 respondents said they would welcome a return of sports even if it had to occur without fans in attendance.
Last night’s broadcast supported their findings as I’m sure sports fans across America will find team allegiances and become big-time KBO fans until American sports are able to return to our lives.
So, if health experts decide that a college football season can happen only if there are no fans in attendance at first it’s clear that the news won’t stop consumers nationwide from supporting the return of football and making the spectator-less broadcast worthwhile for the teams involved and the television networks airing the games.
The second takeaway from the event is that masks in the dugouts and on the faces of umpires were required, and it didn’t take anything away from the product on the field.
Picture a scenario where Paul Chryst, Jim Leonhard, the rest of the team employees and the officials are wearing masks during the contest. Yes, it looks weird and will make for interesting television. But in all it didn’t take anything away from the product on the field and the broadcast of the game.
Football is obviously a much different sport than baseball with a lot more human contact and moving parts. But, if health experts decide that it is okay to have a college football season from a health perspective but require those not in action to wear masks on the sidelines, it won’t be something that has a drastic effect on the product on the field and the broadcast of the game.
The third takeaway from last night is the fact that the KBO is having their season occur with the players getting their temperature tested twice per day.
Yes, South Korea is way ahead of the United States in terms of virus response and health experts declaring their country ready to open their economy. But there are still four months before the college football season is supposed to begin and by that time, hopefully, we as a country will be in a similar position to where South Korea is now in terms of what our health experts allow to happen.
The KBO season starting now both gives officials around the college football world loads of time to create a plan for how they will monitor the players and coaches when the season is able to begin and also gives them a possible blueprint as to how to operate their season safely.
Many things obviously have to fall in line for the 2020 college football season to get underway in the fall. Overall, though, the start of the KBO season and its broadcast on ESPN is great news for the prospects of the football season and hopefully will become the first domino of many to fall in the restarting of the sporting world.