Coronavirus concerns are causing games to be canceled or played in front of empty arenas, but what about the ability of broadcasters to continue attending events?
Joining 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore on Wednesday, NFL Network host Rich Eisen expressed concerns over attending the NFL Draft next month, saying he would prefer to work the event from a TV studio. Last year’s three-day NFL Draft event drew 600,000 people, with Las Vegas expecting to welcome even more fans. Many cities have already banned gatherings of move than 1,000 people.
Even being more than a month away, it’s hard to imagine the NFL Draft taking place surrounded by hundreds of thousands of fans as league’s attempt to limit the coronavirus from spreading. The NBA, MLB, MLS and NHL began the week by banning reporters from locker rooms and those cautionary steps progressed to the NBA suspending its league for the foreseeable future Wednesday night.
Prior to the NBA’s decision, longtime Celtics play-by-play announcer Mike Gorman told 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher and Rich he preferred the idea of broadcasting games from a remote location, rather than travel to populated arenas amid the coronavirus epidemic.
Remote broadcasting is an idea that is not without precedence. Last month, NBC Sports Bay Area announced a “SplitKast” for the San Francisco Giants, which will allow color analyst Mike Krukow to call a select schedule of road games from a remote studio for reasons unrelated to coronavirus.
If the Major League Baseball season starts on time, Red Sox TV play-by-play voice Jerry Remy told The Boston Globe he’ll miss his first scheduled road trip of the season, although he won’t work the games remotely. Remy has beaten six cancer relapses since 2008 and doctors don’t want to risk him contracting coronavirus and being quarantined somewhere other than Mass General.
Keeping people safe needs to be prioritized, which means if games are not safe for fans, then they shouldn’t be deemed safe for broadcasters of players. But if some sports do decide to play in front of empty arenas, what happens if announcers call the games remotely and those broadcasts are considered a success?
There are likely baseball announcers who wouldn’t mind skipping a cross-country road trip in the middle of July or an NBA broadcaster that prefers not to travel for a meaningless game in February. Could it pave the way for more remote broadcasts even when the coronavirus is no longer a concern?