As the Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA Championship, sports fans won something too — a chance to watch an NBA final with live spectators and, for those who bought tickets, see the game in person. This final stands in stark contrast to the finals from last year, where NBA players gathered in a “bubble” in Orlando, Florida for three months. There, they were able to finish the rest of their regular season and the entirety of the 2020 playoffs, but remained isolated from the rest of the world with limited media, few guests, and no fans.
The state of the NBA has been reflective of the state of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the entire crisis. As the pandemic progressed and became more serious, so did the NBA’s actions, resulting in stopping the season altogether, only to eventually resume in the bubble. As the United States started to emerge from the crisis, the NBA returned too, slowly reintroducing in-person seating for the 2020-2021 season. By the time the playoffs arrived, stadiums had increased to full capacity. Cheering crowds and relaxed social distancing measures signaled the pandemic was nearing the end of its course, or was at least close to ending.
The actions of the NBA mirrored the progression of the pandemic, and beyond basketball, sports often reflect the state of society. They can offer valuable insights into comprehending a crisis and its effects. Sports also play the role of offering relief for viewers from the broader circumstances. It allows people to come together to collectively celebrate and focus on achievement. Politicians, scientists, and average citizens have examined the COVID-19 crisis through the lens of politics and health; examining it through the lens of sports offers new insights into the role of sports in society during a crisis.
Compared to the NBA Finals, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics presented athletes and fans with a different set of circumstances. What is normally a joyous event for a country to celebrate its most elite athletes and compete for titles on a global stage has instead created challenges for both the city of Tokyo and athletes alike due to COVID-19. Countries normally invest billions of dollars into building the necessary sporting and housing infrastructure, only to have revenues generated from television, sponsorships, and ticket sales not cover the full cost. This loss from hosting the Olympics was amplified by Tokyo’s decision to not allow spectators. Additionally, the Olympics lacked the support of locals in Tokyo with 83 percent of citizens opposing the games due to rising COVID-19 cases.
The wider organization of the International Olympic Committee has had trouble finding a way to quarantine and test the more than ten-thousand participants arriving at the Olympics from more than 200 countries. Almost thirty athletes staying in the Olympic Village and 350 organizers have tested positive, highlighting the difficulty in managing prevention of disease spread, even with the policies and financial commitment of an established organization such as the IOC.
Focusing on these challenges is meant to highlight that the fight against COVID-19 is far from over. Tokyo’s daily COVID-19 cases reached a record high during the Olympics, and countries have been fighting the spread and resurgence of a new strain, the Delta variant. In the United States, the Center for Disease Control updated its recommendations to encourage fully-vaccinated people to wear masks again. The Delta variant accounts for more than 80% of cases in the U.S., and there have been surges across the country as more unvaccinated people test positive.
The fight against COVID-19 currently looks bleak, as cases rise and the pace of vaccinations stagnate. One role that sports does play, however, is to act as a relief during a moment of crisis. Sports are a reaffirmation of key societal values, such as team work, dedication, and achievement. They allow people to come together and celebrate achievement collectively, giving people a chance to momentarily cast aside disagreements, especially with something as politicized as COVID-19, and appreciate the high level of achievement from athletes.
Players on the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2020 NBA Finals against the Miami Heat noted how playing the 2020 basketball season was a unique challenge, but gave the players a chance to play for the fans and for themselves. In a postgame interview after the third game in the series, Dennis Schroder said how he was going to “come back here and give everything because we owe the fans more … I want to be here and win a championship.” In an interview with NBC News, Olympic medalist Katie Ledecky commented on how being able to compete in the Olympics in Tokyo is still “a really beautiful thing.” Athletes and fans alike have rallied around sports and the commitment to maintain them.
The pandemic Olympics and NBA Finals have not been the first instance of sports offering a panacea during a time of crisis. During the fall of 2001, the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks competed in the baseball World Series. As the teams were competing, the 9/11 attacks occurred, changing the world. In the months after, and especially in the immediate weeks that followed, sports offered a safe space for a nation to come together and grieve simultaneously. Everything from foreign policy to air travel to prejudices towards Muslims changed quickly, but sports stayed mostly the same, offering comfort and consistency in a time of distress. To commemorate the role sports played in the aftermath of the attacks, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum created a special exhibition called “Comeback Season: Sports After 9/11.”
Another interesting aspect of sports during the pandemic is the opportunity to test out different strategies to battle COVID-19 itself. Looking at the NBA bubble, the protocols that were implemented have helped people and scientists understand the nature of the disease. In the NBA bubble, detailed levels of information about players’ diets and pre-existing medical conditions in a controlled population allowed scientists to understand if there was a genetic component to the severity of the symptoms of COVID-19. Additionally, the bubble offered an opportunity for improving contact tracing and studying whether certain ventilation systems in hotel rooms were better at preventing the spread of COVID-19.
The NBA Finals and the Tokyo Olympics offered the world a break from the grim reality of the fight against COVID-19, while giving policymakers a chance to understand what procedures are necessary to organize events of these magnitudes and what challenges societies might continue to face in ending the pandemic. The value in sports remains somewhat intangible, but as the pandemic hopefully winds down, more information and studies will come out of the experience of sports during the pandemic that society can continue to learn from.
Image by JC Gellidon is licensed under the Unsplash License.
