Major sports leagues look to return from lockdown

Although concerns of a second coronavirus wave have risen, professional sports leagues continue to push to return from lockdown. Yahoo Finance’s Dan Roberts joins The Final Round to break down the details.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: Well, many of our viewers likely saw what happened in the golf world over the weekend, and we continue to hear the drumbeat of sports returning. NBA is slated to come back in late July. MLB maybe getting closer to something. And of course, everyone waits for news as the NFL starts to get its procedures underway. Dan Roberts, you have a roundup today for Yahoo Finance of kind of where everything stands on this June 15, which really feels like this is the end of the beginning for the sports world? I don't know exactly how you'd kind of frame that. But as you see it right now, where is everybody?

DAN ROBERTS: Yeah, I'm with you, Myles. There's a lot to unpack. It does feel like a pivot point. I guess I would say, to me right now, this week feels like the start of the return. Now, of course, some sports have already returned. You and I are golf fans. PGA Tour is back. That went well. That started this past Thursday, so we had the first PGA Tour event. You know, went into a playoff hole, so that was exciting. NASCAR's back and combat sports-- UFC has been back for a little while now and pro boxing is back.

But all those sports are kind of already well tuned to do social distancing, right? I mean, those are individual sports. I'm sure NASCAR people would say, no, no, there are teams. Sure, there are racing teams, but it's an individual sport and you're in your car. Now we're going to start to anticipate seeing the actual team sports return or try to return, and that is when I think it'll get very interesting.

So I won't go through every sport, but you know, first of all, a lot of media outlets were reporting last week, oh, MLS will be the first league to return-- not quite right. NWSL will be the first, the National Women's Soccer League. That is set to come back June 27, so NWSL. And then next up, from the big men's leagues, the MLS-- MLS is set to start on July 8 with its tournament at Disney World. And almost every league is currently planning to play it in either Utah or at Disney World.

Now, of course, the difference for MLS, its plan at Disney World is not to end the season there. It is to bring a tournament at Disney World and then, assuming that COVID-19 cases allow it, MLS plans to continue with its regular season after its Disney World tournament. And by the way, tonight, ESPN-- good timing for us to get this roundup up because ESPN has a special with every single commissioner. So I also think that the larger sports world-- I do feel like right now is this kind of turning point moment where we're about to start coming back.

Now, you mentioned Major League Baseball, you know, NBA, end of July, July 31. NBA has a very specific plan. Major League Baseball right now, there's just no plan, and it is-- the optics are very bad. Now, supposedly, the worst-case scenario would still see the season come back. It would be a 50-game season. Because based on the March agreement between the players and the owners, you know, they agreed to a contingency plan because of coronavirus where they would at least, like at the very least, play 50 games.

But now even that might be in jeopardy because the players aren't happy. There's all kinds of balls in the air here. And you know, it behooves the owners and the league to delay further, and then they can say, well, see, now we only can play 50 games. But the league tried to say let's play more games but not give the players their full pro-rated salaries. So especially after the Astros scandal, the fact that MLB has all these problems with getting its plan in order, it's just a bad look for that league.

MYLES UDLAND: And then, of course, I mean, really, the only American sport that everyone knows is football. And they're are a few months away I think from-- a few weeks away from having to have firm, concrete plans. But I mean, it seems from my vantage point like they have enough time that they're just going to play a full season. It might be weird, but they're just going to go ahead and do it.

DAN ROBERTS: Well, so I mentioned my roundup. Football kind of stands apart because both college football and the NFL haven't yet had to delay in any way yet because of coronavirus, you know, unlike all these other leagues that have to suspend or delay the start of their season. As of now, both of those things should hypothetically start on time. But as players return, both for college football and NFL players, we're hearing about a number of players test positive for COVID-19, asymptomatic players.

And what's interesting is the response from the NCAA schools and the NFL has been, well, that's OK. We expected that. We planned for that. We'll isolate people who test positive for 14 days. But as the numbers pile up, it starts to feel like, well, is it really OK? I mean, it's not nothing that a number of players are testing positive. And you wonder how many positive tests you'd have to see for it to matter and for it to delay the season.

But you're right. As of now, the NFL looks like it's in good shape, college football in good shape. The big question will be, can they have fans in the stands and how many? Because for the schools, a huge bulk of the revenue comes from ticket sales. So if colleges have to have no fans in the stands, they're going to lose a lot of money.

MYLES UDLAND: Certainly a different world than when one positive test, the NBA shuts down-- the whole world shuts down because of Rudy Gobert. We're not going to see that coming back.