It’s no secret that the landscape of sports has dramatically changed since the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Many leagues were forced to shut down for an extended period of time earlier this spring, throwing schedules and postseason plans into peril.
While the majority of these leagues were able to complete their respective seasons, it came with a trade-off. Fans, typically a big part of sporting events, were not allowed to pack stadiums as play resumed.
For Major League Baseball, this held true until the National League Championship Series and World Series, when a limited amount of fans were able to attend games at Globe Life Field.
What next season might entail remains to be seen, but there is hope that fans will gradually be welcomed back to ballparks by the end of summer 2021.
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the likelihood of that happening will depend on the number of people who get vaccinated in the months ahead, via Henry Bushnell of Yahoo! Sports:
“We’re gonna be vaccinating the highest-priority people [from] the end of December through January, February, March,” Fauci said. “By the time you get to the general public, the people who’ll be going to the basketball games, who don’t have any underlying conditions, that’s gonna be starting the end of April, May, June. So it probably will be well into the end of the summer before you can really feel comfortable [with full sports stadiums] – if a lot of people get vaccinated. I don’t think we’re going to be that normal in July. I think it probably would be by the end of the summer.”
There was a positive breakthrough this week in that the FDA approved two coronavirus vaccines with high efficacy rates for emergency use. As the vaccines become more widely available to the general public, it bodes well for the chance of fans returning to sporting events at some point next season.
Los Angeles Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten had previously said the team was planning on welcoming fans back to Dodger Stadium next season.
Spring Training, 2021 season could be delayed
Even with the good news that vaccines will soon be available to anyone that wants one, coronavirus cases continue to soar across the country.
This has worried MLB officials that Spring Training could be delayed, which in turn would push back the start of the 2021 regular season as well.
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