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THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Sports as we enjoy them a long way from returning

| April 15, 2020 1:14 AM

I hope I’m wrong.

Truly.

When people ask when we might see live sports again — that is, sports the way we know them …

I’m afraid my answer isn’t all that reassuring.

Unless a vaccine for COVID-19 is developed, tested and made widely available with astonishing speed, I suspect we’re looking at 2021 for a gradual return to the games and events we miss.

At least, if we’re talking about games and events with spectators.

To get TV money flowing again and put some cash back in athletes’ pockets, sure, Major League Baseball and the NFL — along with the PGA Tour and other pro sports — might be able to begin play in empty buildings and on deserted golf courses.

In fact, I suspect that the NFL intends to play this fall, no matter what.

There’s just too much money at stake.

It’s always been a running joke that NFL teams could make a profit without selling a single ticket.

Now it’s likely to happen just that way.

BASEBALL this summer?

I’m not so sure.

Commissioner Rob Manfred and his lieutenants are hard at work trying to turn lemons into lemonade, but time is skittering away — and you can’t ask pitchers to go out and risk their arms without a month or so to build up strength.

Plus, the logistics of trying to put a season together entirely in Arizona, or Arizona and Florida, seem utterly staggering.

The NFL probably can get away with a no-spectator season, simply because of more time to prepare and a schedule that only includes one game per week.

Leagues that play games every few days, like the NBA and NHL, are going to have a hard time making things work until they can find some miraculous way to keep everyone virus-free.

Not easy.

And by the way, whether we see a half-season of baseball or not, young and developing teams like the Mariners will pay a price.

Either all those exciting prospects will waste an entire year, or some will have to be force-fed into the majors before they’re ready — because there’s no possible way a normal minor league system can be up and running.

If you want some good news (just for a breather), sports fans can still argue about the Seahawks’ newest crop of rookies, since the draft will go ahead via conference call later this month.

I mean …

It’s something.

THE REAL heartbreak in our neighborhood could come with the cancellation of college sports.

Or some screwball invention to keep things alive.

Gonzaga is loaded and might be the best team in college basketball, but in a normal universe, there couldn’t be college hoops unless the university itself was open — and really, that’s a long shot unless some scientists are making vaccines in a magical hurry.

The Zags theoretically could begin closed practices in October, and maybe you could get away with having the players taking online classes, but would that work for a full season?

A REAL season?

College football faces even more peril, obviously, since teams routinely start working out in the summer and playing a non-conference schedule in September.

For a school like Washington State, the lack of ticket sales and Pac-12 bowl money could put an almighty dent into an athletic budget that is already somewhere beneath the Earth.

Idaho likewise would take a hit, although the Vandal program isn’t committed to quite so much cash flowing out.

I’m wondering if the NCAA actually would allow intercollegiate athletics to proceed with campuses still closed, and athletes taking classes on their laptops.

That sounds crazy, but …

The alternative might be schools simply running out of money for sports.

As I said at the top …

I really want to be wrong.

• • •

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball, once per month during the offseason.