Updated: Sep 30, 2020 7:33 pm
This lockdown has given us so many of the bad things we never really thought we’d see: widespread job loss, rampant hospitalization and deaths, and the major, sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb kind of problems in society. But, if there’s something that everyone felt, it’s the loss of sports. Many people said that sports is only important to sports fans, but it’s becoming more evident that the purpose of sports isn’t just exclusively athletic. Now, it seems like sports is a major event in our daily lives that most of us took for granted. Now that it’s temporarily gone, it’s like it left a hole.
It’s hard to look for a silver lining, even if you were never in danger of these things. It shows that even if nothing happens to you, if it’s happening everywhere, life will still affect you. Stuck in your den with your laptop? Don’t doubt that the pandemic will reach you, one way or another. With sports, it will probably never look the same again.
New Everything
Have you noticed the way you dress lately? All comfort, no style? That’s an effect of the lockdown. Your heightened sense of germaphobia even if you’ve never been the Purell-every-five-seconds kind of person? That’s fear of coronavirus, albeit in a small dose. Your grocery runs that usually only covered a week, but now, you can’t come out of the store without having supplies for at least three weeks? That’s the fear of being stuck inside the house, brought to you by the one and only.
So, you can imagine what happens when in sports, an industry by itself, is disrupted, all manner of things will change. Now slowly seeing what things could be in the new normal: socially distant fans in arenas, athletes being protected like a stack of gold bars, and safety measures up to everyone’s neck. We still don’t know what sports will be when it’s all said and done, but one thing’s for sure, what we know is not going to be it. It’s going to be a completely different experience.
Organizations may even change how they look, now that they’re afforded some freedom and distance from the press. There’s nothing more exciting to sports fans, and before long, people will be lining up for those new shorts, jerseys, and Bogner men’s jacket sales.
And let’s not forget face masks. Society will be seeing these tiny pieces of fabric protection for the foreseeable future.
There’s Nothing Like an Arena Experience
Everyone who has ever been to a game seven of an NBA Conference Finals or a rival hockey city coming to town or when rowdy tailgating fans pull up to your local football stadiums, it makes for an experience like no other. It’s incomparable. And to lose it is like losing a limb to sports fans and the economy that surrounds it. It really is, because there’s nothing that can replace that kind of atmosphere.
It’s sad losing it, even for a time. But, much like most things that have been affected by the coronavirus, sports will bounce back. Fans will bounce back, and so is the energy that we’ve been missing and will miss until the end of the year. If nothing else, it’s something to look forward to when the restart finally comes.
