The NFL may play, but will the teams be recognizable?

The NBA and NHL resume their 2020 seasons this week, and both will be playing all their games in a bubble and/or in relative safety from the coronavirus. Baseball is already iffy, and the NFL looks vulnerable but has the best chance of surviving a full season.

Pro football teams are losing players left and right who are opting out for $350,000 if they have pre-existing medical conditions or $150,000 if they just take the season off while COVID 19 rages on. Opt-outs have their contracts frozen and resume for the next season.

The NFL will do everything possible to play, with bigger practice squads to get guys ready to come up when others test positive. But conditions are no better, perhaps even worse, for players who will not be practicing in a bubble, can leave their stadiums every night, and once the regular season starts will travel or play at home against a different opponent each week.

As colleges still try to figure out how to open, the NFL is acting like America is counting on it to go on with attendance protocol determined by each franchise. And without full stadiums, teams can be looking at the biggest television audiences in history.

Think about how the NFL could take over if college ball isn’t played like normal. We’ll have pro football spread out on Thursday night, maybe Friday night, some games on Saturday, full schedule on Sunday and Sunday night and at least one game on Monday night.

With fewer regional telecasts, and more national TV games, the networks will have to pay a bigger rights fee for the larger, starving audiences almost every game will command. And that’s the way the NFL could make up for a significant portion of the lost gate revenue.

Despite the opt-outs, so many of these guys were either drafted or made their rosters as free agents after being stars in college. So there will be plenty of talent waiting for the opportunities to take the field when they might have never gotten that chance during a normal season.

The NFL will play on, for sure, and challenge the virus head-on.

 

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