A World Suddenly Without Sports: How Should We React?
The NBA pulled the plug on its season in an instant. The NCAA announced it would cancel March Madness. The Pac-12 tournament held four games and discontinued play. The University of Washington has suspended all athletic events, activities and workouts until at least March 29.
Welcome sports fans -- who are all of us -- to the new normal.
Not since World War II have we had had such a disconnect to an American institution such as this. Our fascination with sports. Back then, events disappeared overnight as well or were greatly watered down by the global threat of wartime conflict.
The novel coronavirus is similar in scope, threatening our health and wellbeing, and consequently denying us our traditions and passion.
On this video, Sports Illustrated and CBS Radio broadcaster Robin Lundberg, who makes a living talking about sports, weighs in on our current societal state. He considers this a wake-up call for everyone.
"All bets are off in how this will play out," Lundberg says.
While these sporting competitions are somewhat meaningless in terms of the big picture of the world, they nonetheless draw our interest, make us feel good, help us get through the daily grind and give us an escape from all of the stressful things in our daily lives.
For now, we'll have to go without our daily ration of watching our heroes in action and the sporting drama play out. But as Lundberg reminds us in his commentary, it's just not that important when compared to dealing with the pandemic concerns now sweeping the world.
"We're going to have to get through this together," he said.
