The Past, Present, and Future of the Covid Sports Bubble

Opinion by Rayyan Esmail. This piece is part of Behind the Game, a series by Alexander Stoney on the intersection of sports and public policy.

On March 11, 2021, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic [1]. That evening, the National Basketball Association (NBA) season was suspended after a Utah Jazz player tested positive for the virus [2]. For many sports fans in North America, it was at that moment that we got our first glimpse of just how pervasive the new pandemic was about to be.

By July, pandemic life was becoming the new normal and sports were back. The NBA and Major League Baseball (MLB) were the first “Big Four” leagues to play on with two radically-different approaches to pandemic protocol. The NBA was to conclude the 2019-20 season in a Disney World bubble, a novel experiment being undertaken in concert with Major League Soccer (MLS) [3]. On the other hand, major league ballclubs travelled to empty home stadiums across the United States for games while implementing "virtual bubbles" [4].

The NBA’s 113-page health and safety guidelines were designed and backed by public health experts. Players would self-quarantine and test before arriving at Disney for a 48-hour hotel quarantine. Once cleared, they continued to be tested regularly and had their travel restricted to specified areas of the resort. Leaving the bubble would force players to quarantine for 10 days upon re-entry and potentially lose pay for games missed. Quarantine and testing requirements also applied to other staff on the resort, who were kept from interacting with players when possible [5]. The restrictions were harsh and took their psychological toll on the participants, but an NBA Champion was crowned four months later without a single positive test [6].

The 2020 MLB season had started a week before the NBA’s return to play but was telling a completely different story. Testing and masking guidelines were put in place but teams were still travelling thousand of miles to home ballparks across the United States to play their games. With series as short as two games being played before travelling to the next stop, players could get infected and bring the virus into a new city before receiving a test [7]. Bogglingly, when the first positive tests from three Marlins players on only the fourth day of the regular season, the evening’s game still went on [8]. Predictably, the case became an outbreak and many more games had to be suspended. Six other teams had positive tests and over forty games were postponed before the MLB finished their postseason in a bubble format [9].

The National Hockey League (NHL) and National Football League (NFL), the other two of the “Big Four” had their returns to play soon after. The NHL bubble succeeded while the NFL’s travelling schedule had its first of several outbreaks in week three, confirming what expert opinion and the previous experiments had shown [10] . At a time when tens of thousands of new American cases were being reported a day, a bubble was the safest way to play.

While bubbles were safe, they were not a one-size-fits-all solution. What the NBA pulled off with 22 15-man rosters may not have been possible with the NFL’s 32 53-man rosters. Furthermore, the NBA and NHL used the bubbles simply to close out their disrupted seasons. The MLB and NFL were beginning full seasons where players would be separated from their friends and families.

All these major sports leagues eventually returned to their spectator-less home stadiums for subsequent competition but the NBA bubble became a template for smaller leagues and shorter competitions as testing became more affordable and the safety of the bubble was reaffirmed. Curling bonspiels, soccer cups, swimming trials, and more have all been contested successfully using this format.

As sports bubbles became a new norm, it become clear that they are not just a magic bullet against the realities of pandemic life. The 2021 Australian Open, at a glance, had all the ingredients for a success - strict testing and quarantine for a competition in a state averaging less than five new cases a day. When players arrived, however, they felt ill-informed and unprepared for strict quarantine restrictions for those on flights with positive cases. Many asked for accommodation but were met with apathy from local government officials and the general public. Multiple players and hotel staff tested positive and then the state of Victoria was put into lockdown midway through the tournament, adding to the uncertainty. The result was an unequal playing field for training which likely affected performance [11]. The event did conclude and champions were crowned, but it underscored the fact that bubbles are groups of imperfect humans in an unpredictable world.

The sports world, and this series, now turn our attention to the Olympic Games. Less than a month away, the organizers have only released preliminary guidelines, but experts are already warning that it may not be enough. The Tokyo Olympics will require negative testing before and after arrival but will lack mandatory quarantine, a key component of previous successful bubbles [12]. The influx of over ten-thousand athletes and their coaches, official, and staff into a country with low vaccination rates and concerns about new variants will be the most significant stress test of the sports bubble to date.

We can only hope that a global vaccine rollout can bring the end of this pandemic and of sports bubbles with it, but we are not there yet. If the lessons from these case studies are taken to heart, the Olympic Games and other sports bubbles will be a welcomed distraction from the pandemic. However, expert opinion and loose guidelines suggest we might be running head-first into a pandemic accelerant [13].

1. "WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 11 March 2020," World Health Organization, March 11, 2020, https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020.

2. "NBA to suspend season following Wednesday's games," National Basketball Association, March 11, 2020, https://www.nba.com/news/nba-suspend-season-following-wednesdays-games.

3. Cindy Boren, "When sports will return," *Washington Post*, July 14, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/04/sports-return-dates-status/.

4. Markham Heid, "How the NBA Bubble Works," *Popular Mechanics*, August 25, 2020, https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a33796756/nba-bubble/.

5. Ibid.

6. Kelcie Pegher, "Coronavirus Today: The NBA's bubble worked," *Los Angeles Times*, October 12, 2020, https://www.latimes.com/science/newsletter/2020-10-12/coronavirus-today-nba-bubble-success-covid-lakers-coronavirus-today.

7. Emma Baccellieri, "Will MLB's Testing Plan Sink Its Season?" *Sports Illustrated*, July 10, 2020, https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/07/10/will-mlb-testing-plan-crack.

8. Jordan McPherson, "The Marlins had three positive COVID-19 tests before Sunday’s game. Who made the decision to play?" *Tampa Bay Times*, July 29, 2021, https://www.tampabay.com/sports/rays/2020/07/29/the-marlins-had-three-positive-covid-19-tests-sunday-who-made-the-decision-to-play-in-philadelphia/.

9. Mike Axisa and R.J. Anderson, "MLB schedule has 43 total games postponed due to positive COVID-19 cases," *CBS* Sports, September 15, 2020, https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-schedule-has-43-total-games-postponed-due-to-positive-covid-19-cases/.

10. "The virus' toll: How 32 NFL teams have been hit by COVID-19," *The Associated Press*, December 5, 2020, https://apnews.com/article/nfl-technology-tennessee-titans-minnesota-vikings-new-orleans-saints-dfd427d677d3b2e7a995adacda95c39f.

11. Helen Regan, Paul Devitt, and Angus Watson, "Australian Open turmoil raises questions for Tokyo Games," *CNN*, January 19, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/sport/australian-open-quarantine-tokyo-olympics-intl-hnk/index.html.

12. Motoko Rich, Andrew Keh, and Matthew Futterman, "Tokyo Olympics Playbook: Testing? Yes. Quarantines? No. Fans? Maybe." *The New York Times*, June 17, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/sports/olympics/tokyo-olympics-playbook.html.

13. Dennis Normile, "Japanese scientists warn that Tokyo Olympics could help spread COVID-19," *Science*, June 9, 2021, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/japanese-scientists-warn-tokyo-olympics-could-help-spread-covid-19.