In a world with canceled or postponed sports during what would have been the first week of the 2020 NCAA basketball tournament, Paul Finebaum said he’s “worried about sports fans from a psychological standpoint.”
As the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, continues and the sports world pressed pause in an attempt to “flatten the curve,” what normally offers fans an escape is absent from our daily lives. And we have no real idea when it’s returning.
The ESPN and SEC Network college football analyst spoke with the Knoxville News Sentinel on Wednesday and described the progression of the mood of his radio show’s callers from anger to confusion and a “level of almost psychological disorientation.”
“People really are hurting, and they’re struggling with this,” Finebaum said on The Volunteer State podcast. “And I’m not going to let somebody say, ‘Well, sports don’t matter.’ Sports do matter. They matter a lot.”
Finebaum said on Monday or Tuesday — he wasn’t sure exactly — when he was at work in a building typically filled with hundreds of people, he looked out the window and the only people he saw were security guards.
“I really for the first time in my life, felt like the world was coming to an end,” the 64-year-old analyst said. “It was somewhat maddening.”
But he also shared an optimistic outlook for the sports world. Although it remains unclear when exactly organizations like the NBA, NHL or MLB will resume, Finebaum said he thinks sports fans’ outlook will be significantly different.
More via the Knoxville News Sentinel:
“I think they’ll return bigger in some ways because I think — it’s a cliche that everyone has uttered at some point in their life — but I think until you don’t have something, you don’t realize how much you miss it or appreciate it. And I think maybe we will come back and appreciate it a little bit more.
“Because right now, I’m as bad as anyone when I say, ‘Hey, Tennessee’s got some terrible game on today, why watch it?’ I’d give anything right now for that game that I was turning my nose at a couple of weeks ago or months ago.”
Every day without sports, fans are learning and discovering new reasons why they love them, he added.
During a press conference this week,Tennessee men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes said, via 247Sports.com:
“I think some of us will find out we can live without watching sports. We can find out there’s something else there and maybe we’ve put too much time here or too much time there.”
When the Knoxville News Sentinel asked Finebaum about that sentiment, the ESPN personality didn’t quite agree, again citing the escape sports can offer people who might be struggling with something else in their lives. Speaking about the impact of particularly college sports on American culture and what that means now, Finebaum said:
“I don’t know if we’re going to find that out or not. But right now, I think we are going to miss it terribly. And part of the reason why we enjoy it so much and I think are going to miss it so much is it takes our mind off other things.
“Let’s say you’re down and out about whatever in your life and you put on a basketball game, you forget everything. You’re screaming and hollering and jumping up and down. On a Friday in March when the temperature finally hits 75 for the first time, you head down to Kansas and sit there and watch a baseball game or softball game or a tennis match. It’s an escape, but it’s also a lot our identity.
“I would be the last person in America to say people don’t wear their school colors on their sleeve in terms of their self-worth because I’ve experienced it [for] a pretty significant period of time. And that’s what I do. I talk to people about their emotions and why they like things and don’t like things. I know where Rick’s coming from, but I don’t think it’s that easy when sports is such a big part of our lives.”
Listen to more of the Knoxville News Sentinel‘s interview with Finebaum here.
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