OldSchoolSnapper

IMO there's a psychological aspect to this that makes starting without fans a wise decision. Going from 0 to 100 is going to be hard for a lot of people. If it's eased into with 3 weeks of no-fan televised baseball I think it becomes easier for people to go back to a game. Assuming it is safe as realistically possible to do so.

I kinda have a hard time believing that the people going to Walmart are buying much of anything other than what they were getting there a month ago. I grocery shop there a lot and still do, and I'm not suddenly buying my clothes and home decor there.

Our ice cream place closed weeks ago by their own choice. I have to admit that if they were open I'd go and get something out of the freezer. I miss it. I got some garbage at WalMart pickup that's just not doing it.

They're not going to have a choice. If I spent $1,000 on tickets for 2020 and move to Arizona in 2021, they're refunding some money. Concerts get cancelled all the time and it's almost always an offer to get the new date or get a refund. They will incentivize customers letting them keep the money. Probably food and bev vouchers, gift cards, rolling into 2021 for something else, and I'd guess a lot of SSH will do that because they're annual customers anyway. I'll take whatever they offer most likely. But for the people who just want their money back, they're going to have to oblige. They can't afford to sour relations with their best customers over 1/4 or 1/2 a season. Their financial team will know that one year's loss is not worth the anger and resentment they'll cause by doing what you are suggesting. They're not going to call everyone on April 1 and issue refunds though. They're in the same waiting game all of us are to weigh their options.

All of these concerns are a lot easier to handle with readily available, fast testing. If you can make a community of a few hundred people that don't have it, it's not really a problem.

Possibly, but my first reaction was that they would do something like this to get people back to the game slowly, then when they move games to local stadiums it's not as shocking and there is perhaps less fear.

Guys...you'll get your money back. It's not going to be fast though. They can't move Opening Day from March to July and expect all the same people to come. They will offer incentives for you to accept something else. But there is no way they are just going to take gobs of cash from their most loyal customers and tell them to deal with it. There's 0% chance that happens. You could be waiting months, but if you don't accept what they offer, you'll get your money back.

I think the scales have tipped in favor of no season, though.

It's "easier" if at all simply because there are fewer people. That's less work to set up from a logistics standpoint, I don't think the actual game matters at all. I don't think any of that actually matters though. If we're still dreaming up ways to separate the players, they just aren't going to play.

You expressed this earlier but I don't really think the on-field contact is much of a factor in the decision if at all. You can get this from coughing and sneezing and touching a door handle. By playing any sport at all you've accepted a level of risk that isn't enhanced all that much by that sport being basketball. There's travel and meals and showers and mingling. It is as much about the logistics of running a league as it is the game itself.

I've been saying for a while that I don't see how baseball happens. June is a pipe dream, and even if you got something in June/July there will be chaos if someone contracts it. Nobody involved wants to concede the loss of billions of dollars which is understandable. But I will be shocked though if any MLB happens in 2020. IMO school is done, baseball is done, basketball is done. We are looking at sports returning with the NFL, which is the sport that needed that kind of adrenaline dart the least. I would guess, but it's just a guess, that fan-less basketball is much easier because there are just not as many people involved. Smaller rosters, smaller staff, not the same kind of grounds crew etc.

That's impossible! I was told a few pages ago that no season was "impossible" in even the "worst case scenario." The Brewers aren't keeping your money if the games don't happen. They can't and they won't. At worst, they'll rollover into 2021. They don't get to keep your cash for a 20 games that never happened. Not to mention the catastrophic impact that would have on the brand and team going forward.

Then it is a useless and dumb quote. I don't think this is how analogies work.

That's still probably his best course of action at this point as total isolation for a few weeks might be his best chance at things re-opening. Not like it's a great time to go job hunting. I think everyone gets what you're saying, but if it is July 20 and people like him are still not getting paid the "reopen" crowd may be louder.

When a person says "at some point the cure is worse than the disease" the argument boils down to that they believe at some point the scale tips where the threat to the market and people's ability to make money is more important than the threat posed to human life from the virus. There is no other way to explain it. First, let's be clear, this is no where near a situation where the country is completely shut down. There quite a bit of economic activity happening right now and will continue to happen. Some states have not restricted any economic activity and even in New York which is most affected by the virus there isn't a full shelter in place in effect. Second, I am not aware of a single projection that show this partial shutdown being needed for more than a few months, let alone six years. China is already beginning to open back up the area mostly hardly hit. From all indications, a vaccine will be available in early 2021 and the virus mutates so slowly that only a single vaccine will be needed. There are options the government can take to place a band-aid on the market and temporarily supplement incomes until that time but most of that discussion is better for the political board. This is a scary time for everyone and some people's wallets are being hit more so than others. However, having the virus continue to run unchecked is a greater long term threat to the market than our current path. A month into the service, travel and retail industries being unemployed and you may be revisiting the amount of economic activity taking place. My point really was simply that if we all agree that we can't quarantine to save one life, which I assume we all do, then that itself is admitting that lives have a price. Of course, we aren't going to reopen the country to kill 5 million people, but that number exists even if nobody wants to be the person to come up with it. I've got one parent left and he's a 70 year old diabetic. But I'm a realist and know the country can't go on 25% unemployment to keep him safe. And I think in about three weeks my Dad is going to be willing to assume that risk.

People opposed to the quarantine love to quote statistics like this, and in my view, it's as apples-to-oranges and as irresponsible to cite as the deaths relative to 9/11 is. It's not a great comparison, not one I would use. But the fact that most people would agree that we can't close the country for a month to save 10 people is proof in itself that lives do in fact have a price. The debate over that price is a fair one, but there is a price and that conversation is already taking place.

You are basically arguing additional job losses or future businesses closing is a worse outcome than less people dying. The best case scenario from the White House is likely 200,000 dead Americans by the end of this. What do you think that number will be if we just go back to normal? You are also assuming that people will just return to normal behavior during an active pandemic. My wife has asthma and if that means I go out only for groceries, shop online and occasionlly get take out for as long as it takes then so be it. The market was on good footing prior to the virus and will likely rebound, albeit slowly, once the virus is more controlled, even if this last until the summer. Something that will would make more sense would be to allow individuals who have already built up antibodies to the virus to return back to normal as long as they are not at risk to transmit the disease . This would provide a boost until a treatment or vaccine is developed. But I'm not sure when that test will be available or of one is even possible I'm not saying that at all, so knock it off. What I'm saying is that there is a break point where that does become the reality. You can't keep the country closed for 6 years because of a disease. Two months isn't 6 years, but the point is that there is a time period where the line becomes blurred. My mom died 10 days ago. I lost the chance to say goodbye because of this thing. There are two sides to this and the people who can't work at home collecting stable paychecks are within their rights to be extremely panicked and wonder where the line is.

I agree that the "walking back" portion of that post is nonsense but am I starting to think the re-evaluation of things is necessary or will be soon. There are companies that may not ever recover from the steps we've taken. Like a Kohl's, for example, that was already experiencing a slow bleed. Two months of store closures will absolutely cripple them. They will lose loyalists who found some other place to shop like Amazon or Target, and will be so badly in the red they'll have no choice but fire hundreds if not thousands of people. They were probably headed there anyway but this has likely expedited all of that by years. That's just one place but there will be many others like it. I have no idea how you quantify this but at some point you really are doing more harm. People who are under no threat of losing a job tend to have a hard time empathizing with that. I don't know what the right move is, but the side that's hollering at everything to stay closed indefinitely is not really acknowledging that there is another side to this.

I think people are still in stages of denial. I think the MLB ship has sailed for 2020. I feel 95% certain the school year is over, and if you're not opening school, a lot of other things will follow that lead. Maybe if they are willing to start the regular season in mid July, but even that sounds hopeful to me at this point.

Coming from the guy who says 200k are going to die from this in our country? Can leaders decide if they want to be optimistic or use scare tactics? Full quote: Dr. Anthony Fauci says there could potentially be between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus and millions of cases. “I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target, that you could so easily be wrong,” he adds. He's not being optimistic or trying to scare anyone. He's telling the truth.

What I anticipate is the team offering a bunch of options and most of them geared towards them keeping your money. Swapping out games, and incentivizing doing that, probably tossing in extra games if you elect to do swaps. I am guessing they will have to offer refunds as an option too given how drastic the changes are going to be. They won't want the bulk of people to do that though, and will come up with ways to make you stick it out.

An excellent point. I was embarrassed by the course of action my company took very early on. They wised up sooner than most, the Monday after school was closed, but people were really in a state of denial really late on this.

I've been working at home with kids for 5 years. Little kids, too, one grew up that way. One is (or was) in school, the other went to daycare part time. It's fine, you just have to develop a strict schedule and force them into it. Plan some of their naps, meals, etc., around times you absolutely need to work and find what works best for you. I am sure many are struggling with it, but it has been 1-2 weeks. You can figure this out.

I honestly don't think it would even be possible from an infrastructure standpoint for everyone to get childcare.

Just do it without telling anyone like millions of people did before COVID19. As far as the legitimacy of asking people to secure childcare, it's insane. There are people who've had their daycare closed. In a regular circumstance, yes, I agree it's a normal expectation. Right now is anything but normal.