NFL Maintains Some Normalcy in Sports During COVID-19
By: Tripp Vistica
April 17, 2020
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, most people are now forced to work from home. It seemed nice at first but having no live sports to watch is starting to make sport’s fans go stir-crazy. We don’t have the luxury of watching live sports to take our mind off COVID-19, but there is one aspect of sports that hasn’t really changed much. Thankfully NFL free agency is still moving along. Fortunately, it’s also been one of the most crazily exciting and unpredictable free agency periods the NFL has even dealt with.
ESPN’s NFL Nation Pittsburgh Steelers reporter, Brooke “Freshman Girl” Pryor “, had a talk with her editor who believes that NFL free agency is keeping them going.
“The thing that is kind of keeping us going right now and is kind of keeping things somewhat normal, keeping the news cycle going is NFL free agency, Pryor’s editor said. “Which would be happening anyway, but now we’re not competing with the NBA, MLB and everything else.”
Luckily for the NFL, the coronavirus wasn’t as bad as it is now, so the NFL was able to conduct their combine in Indianapolis before the sports world shut down completely. However, Pryor expressed her concern about all the people from all over the country and all over the world coming to Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis by saying, “I can’t even imagine the spread if one or two people came in there with it, and it’s possible they could have it and not even known because people weren’t being tested.”
Other than breaking news concerning COVID-19 or NFL free agency, sports fans are stuck watching games from the past which is a great alternative due to current circumstances. Although it is fun to relive some historical moments in sports, there’s still no excitement in them. Every fan knows who wins and how great that game was, which takes away the excitement of not knowing the outcome of a live game.
The University of Memphis (UofM) Assistant Athletic Director, Tammy Degroff, has been working hard during this pandemic on material to keep their name and brand in the national spotlight. The UofM men’s basketball team recently posted a blooper video on Twitter to help keep their brand in the public eye, while also attempting to give fans, like Professor Gilmore, an opportunity to laugh during this lockdown. Meanwhile, universities that are a member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) were given the opportunity to replay relatively recent games on the SEC Network. The SEC Network did a two-week special dedicating an entire day to all 14 universities in the SEC in alphabetical order. So, Degroff is 100 percent spot-on about the importance of keeping your university’s name and brand in the public eye.
Degroff, discussed the UofM men’s basketball blooper video and expressed that we need content like that right now. Although, she did remind us to keep in mind the content we put out, because it’s a sensitive time. Degroff compared the beginning of this pandemic to a television show or movie.
“I was really thinking we were living in tv show,” Degroff said. “It really seems like something you’ve watched on a movie, and you’ve kind of just went well that’s not really going to happen.”
UofM Men’s Basketball Sports Information Director (SID), Phil Stukenborg, had just finished eating breakfast with Degroff and UofM cameraman, Brad Pope, at a diner a block from their hotel in Fort Worth, Texas when they received the message that the Men’s American Athletic Conference (AAC) Tournament was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. Stuckenborg then broke the bad news to UofM men’s basketball assistant coach, Cody Topert, in front of Topert’s family. Stukenborg assumed Topert knew and had no idea he was breaking the news to him, which is why it’s best to never assume. We all know the infamous saying about assuming.
“I watched “The Harder Way” on ESPN+, and I guess it gave me a different perspective,” Professor Gilmore said. “I was sick last week. Sick, not literally, but emotionally I was, Wow! What is happening? What is happening?”
Stukenborg explained that upon their arrival they believed everything was normal. He had no idea that in 12 hours everything would start drastically changing fast, and that things would keep changing every 12 to 24 hours.
“It was all accelerated by Rudy Golbert from Utah,” Stukenborg said. “Once he came down with COVID-19, everything started shutting down. So, yeah it was a really strange, surreal matter of a couple of days.”
Senior Writer for The Athletic, Jon Krawcznski, wants to keep people informed, and give people a distraction from COVID-19 by televising and talking about old games. However, Krawcznski admits that things are crazy during this lockdown, and that it has messed up the rhythm he’s had for almost 20 years. Like Pryor and Degroff, Krawcznski believes the free agency and trades in the NFL have provided a little ordinance to the sports world, especially to the sports media.
“It has been a real challenge, but now the one thing we have had is NFL free agency and trades, and so that’s been at least a little bit of normalcy,” said Krawcznski. “But otherwise, it’s been a very abnormal period of time, and I think all of us in sports media are trying to figure out the right way to approach this.”
Many professions have had to temporarily shut down, shorten their hours of operation or having to lay people off, because the coronavirus outbreak has cost a lot of different professions and businesses a lot of money that they have no choice but to downsize their number of employees. So, naturally everyone felt like their workload would slow down, but that’s not the case for the journalism profession. People all over the world are looking to us for answers, so this a time to showcase and establish our abilities as journalists and reporters.
USA Today sports columnist, Nancy Armour, was one who thought the coronavirus would make things slow, but she could not have been more wrong. “I initially thought it would probably be pretty slow, and quite honestly I have been busier in the last two weeks than I had been probably in the month before that,” Armour said. “Just because of the various leagues shutting down, U.S. Soccer decided to become a dumpster fire again, NFL free agency and all the Olympic stuff. So, there has been really no shortage of things to write about.”
Tripp Vistica 