{"id":20397,"date":"2020-04-20T21:44:42","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T21:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=20397"},"modified":"2020-04-22T04:14:16","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T04:14:16","slug":"trump-wants-sports-back-but-fans-arent-so-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/trump-wants-sports-back-but-fans-arent-so-sure\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump wants sports back \u2013 but fans aren’t so sure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Murray Edelman<\/a>, Seton Hall University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCC BY-ND<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some politicians, media figures and business leaders are clamoring for sectors of the economy to re-open in the near future<\/a>, and President Trump, on April 14, specifically mentioned America\u2019s professional sports leagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get our sports back,\u201d Trump said<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a recent poll<\/a> of 762 Americans across the country conducted by my colleagues and me at Seton Hall\u2019s Sharkey Institute shows that Americans may be less enthusiastic than the president about the prospect of \u201cPlay Ball!\u201d \u2013 at least, until there are some effective COVID-19 treatments in place.<\/p>\n

Asked if they would feel safe attending a game before the development of a vaccine, 72% of Americans said they would not, while 12% said they would only go to games if people adhered to social distancing. Just 13% indicated that they would feel safe.<\/p>\n

While the NBA, NHL and MLB have been suspended indefinitely<\/a>, the poll also asked respondents about the upcoming NFL season, which is set to begin in September.<\/p>\n

Only 36% thought the NFL season should open on time, while 46% said it shouldn\u2019t. If some form of social distancing were to continue into the fall, 70% said the NFL should postpone its season to ensure player safety, and only 6% said the league should begin as planned. If the NFL gives players an option not to play, 20% were okay with the league going ahead.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean fans don\u2019t yearn for the days when they could watch their favorite teams and players: 53% said they missed watching live sports. Of those, only 39% said that they were finding good use of their time without watching sports, while 57% said they were bored without them. Another 4% indicated they were angry about the shutdown.<\/p>\n

There have been some rumblings about leagues holding games in empty or half-filled stadiums and arenas<\/a>. Fans seem amenable to this idea, with 76% of respondents saying they would watch broadcasts with no fans present with the same interest as before.<\/p>\n

Yet respondents were willing to hew to the advice of doctors, with 61% saying the NFL\u2019s decision to open should be made by medical experts, with only 19% saying that the league should make the call.<\/p>\n

Some have argued<\/a> that even if elected officials were to publicly announce the \u201creopening\u201d of the country, Americans would still be hesitant to gather in public as long if there\u2019s still a moderate risk of contracting the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

This seems to be the case with live events, and while most people agree with the president that they miss sports, they seem \u2013 for now \u2013 to be prioritizing public health.<\/p>\n

[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.<\/em> Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a>.]\"The<\/p>\n

Murray Edelman<\/a>, Survey Methodology Consultant for the Seton Hall Sports Poll, Seton Hall University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Murray Edelman, Seton Hall University CC BY-ND Some politicians, media figures and business leaders are clamoring for sectors of the economy to re-open in the near future, and President Trump, on April 14, specifically mentioned America\u2019s professional sports leagues. \u201cWe have to get our sports back,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI\u2019m tired of watching baseball games that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":20398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[7961,7559,7689,1963,154,7765,203,7780],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20397"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20417,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20397\/revisions\/20417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}