General : What sport could safely return to TV

[Chad]

If social distancing has to continue for the foreseeable future, but the government gave the OK for some sport to continue, which sports would be the safest to resume? I'm thinking along the lines of sport that can be played at distance with low risk of injury and hospitalization. Keeping participants safe with little chance of strain on the NHS. Boxing is a definite no go.

I'm thinking darts, tennis, golf, snooker and fish-o-mania.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Chad

If social distancing has to continue for the foreseeable future, but the government gave the OK for some sport to continue, which sports would be the safest to resume? I'm thinking along the lines of sport that can be played at distance with low risk of injury and hospitalization. Keeping participants safe with little chance of strain on the NHS. Boxing is a definite no go.

I'm thinking darts, tennis, golf, snooker and fish-o-mania.

Looking at certain countries abroad apart from the ones you mentioned the Bundesliga could be one of the first leagues to come back and if so it will be on BT Sport , Horse racing could be starting in France on the 11th of May and that could be closely followed by UK racing just afterwards if we go by the bookies where the odds on racing restarting has shorten considerably in the last few days to 5/2 on..

Rugby not a chance , cricket not till the 1st of July at the earliest.

[jfman]

I'm amazed by the fact they haven't come up with a way to make darts viable for television with some CGI crowd graphics. Often the background noise is just a bunch of louts not watching the game anyway.

"Feed the STAAAAAAANNNDSSS"; "please don't take me home" etc etc.

You could have two players playing on different boards and a decent production team could make it seamless.

Boxing a no go in this country - requirement for ambulance staff and ICU bed availability are a requirements for approval by the British Boxing Board of Control. That said it's possible on a worldwide level that promoters could get together for an attractive pay per view programme, held in isolated places, and do something. That said the politics behind boxing makes making fights hard enough in normal times!

[spiderplant]

Surfing, base jumping, pole vault, shot putt, trampolining, archery, air racing, unicycling, dressage, keepy-uppy, parkour, diving, ferret-legging

You just need a bit of imagination.

[Raider999]

Originally Posted by jfman

I'm amazed by the fact they haven't come up with a way to make darts viable for television with some CGI crowd graphics. Often the background noise is just a bunch of louts not watching the game anyway.

"Feed the STAAAAAAANNNDSSS"; "please don't take me home" etc etc.

You could have two players playing on different boards and a decent production team could make it seamless.

Boxing a no go in this country - requirement for ambulance staff and ICU bed availability are a requirements for approval by the British Boxing Board of Control. That said it's possible on a worldwide level that promoters could get together for an attractive pay per view programme, held in isolated places, and do something. That said the politics behind boxing makes making fights hard enough in normal times!

darts - they are already doing exactly this and streaming the 'matches', in fact 1 player had a 9 dart 501 the other day (lowest possible number of darts for those that don't know)

[denphone]

Originally Posted by jfman

I'm amazed by the fact they haven't come up with a way to make darts viable for television with some CGI crowd graphics. Often the background noise is just a bunch of louts not watching the game anyway.

There has been darts but its only been in the form of streaming it from the PDC website.

https://dartsnews.com/schedule-pdc-h...ur-night-nine/

https://www.pdc.tv/

As for the noisy louts most real dart fans could do without that rabble anyway.

---------- Post added at 05:12 ---------- Previous post was at 05:09 ----------

Originally Posted by jfman

Boxing a no go in this country - requirement for ambulance staff and ICU bed availability are a requirements for approval by the British Boxing Board of Control. That said it's possible on a worldwide level that promoters could get together for an attractive pay per view programme, held in isolated places, and do something. That said the politics behind boxing makes making fights hard enough in normal times!

Personally l cannot see Boxing returning anytime soon certainly not in this country but there are many more far flung places of the world where they would hold it.

[Taf]

Competitive Egyptian PT. I'm doing for around 8 hours a night. First one to get up loses.

[vincerooney]

the easiest way to complete the EPL season is get everyone in the EPL tested. Move the squad to a hotel and keep them isolated there for 4 weeks. play 2 games a day on broadcast and subscription tv. great for morale. get the season completed by June in time for the UCL to restart.

Downside is the squad will need to be away from home for 4 weeks. A lot of people are going through that worldwide. The sooner it gets finished the sooner everyone can go off for summer break and come back maybe september with reduced international football and cancel the league cup for a year or something

[denphone]

Originally Posted by vincerooney

the easiest way to complete the EPL season is get everyone in the EPL tested. Move the squad to a hotel and keep them isolated there for 4 weeks. play 2 games a day on broadcast and subscription tv. great for morale. get the season completed by June in time for the UCL to restart.

Downside is the squad will need to be away from home for 4 weeks. A lot of people are going through that worldwide. The sooner it gets finished the sooner everyone can go off for summer break and come back maybe september with reduced international football and cancel the league cup for a year or something

In italy Serie A sides will be allowed to return to individual training on 4 May and team training on 18 May after the Italian PM announced the first steps in lifting the country's coronavirus lockdown.

If there is live football and that is a big if it is more likely it could be in Germany and Italy before us.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52436317

[Richardr]

Originally Posted by vincerooney

the easiest way to complete the EPL season is get everyone in the EPL tested. Move the squad to a hotel and keep them isolated there for 4 weeks. play 2 games a day on broadcast and subscription tv. great for morale. get the season completed by June in time for the UCL to restart.

Downside is the squad will need to be away from home for 4 weeks. A lot of people are going through that worldwide. The sooner it gets finished the sooner everyone can go off for summer break and come back maybe september with reduced international football and cancel the league cup for a year or something

You are going to need at least around 200 people present per game, from coaches, officials, cameramen, ballboys, and so on. Germany have said they will need around 300 people. It isn't just the 11 players plus subs that are needed. It only takes one person among those to contract the virus, and all are back in confinement again. We don't currently have a successful antibody test, which means we don't know accurately who is a carrier, as opposed to the test of who is currently suffering.

Not saying it is not possible, but there are a large number of things that could go wrong, and cancel any resumption.

[tweetiepooh]

Would love for ArcheryGB to OK archery, miss shooting but as we use school field in summer and army base hall in winter even if cleared using venue may be harder.
(The hall I understand but a field where we have our own storage isn't much risk, no staff are present as we have access ourselves.)

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by vincerooney

the easiest way to complete the EPL season is get everyone in the EPL tested. Move the squad to a hotel and keep them isolated there for 4 weeks. play 2 games a day on broadcast and subscription tv. great for morale. get the season completed by June in time for the UCL to restart.

Downside is the squad will need to be away from home for 4 weeks. A lot of people are going through that worldwide. The sooner it gets finished the sooner everyone can go off for summer break and come back maybe september with reduced international football and cancel the league cup for a year or something

Vince, can you please tell me what you are drinking/smoking....

[Raider999]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

Vince, can you please tell me what you are drinking/smoking....

Personally, I think Vince has summed up the situation fairly well. Top level sport, behind closed doors, will be the first to resume - not least because of the money involved, they can well afford to get everyone involved tested regularly.

It is lower level professional sport and recreational sport that will not happen anytime soon.

[jfman]

He's not very aspirational with two games per day! I could easily see it being 3 or even 4 at weekends. Teams playing every third/fourth day until season done.

As pointed out there's a risk if just one of the "inner circle" gets infected so I doubt they would want to take any longer than they need to.

[Chad]

Boxing is back in Nicaragua. Look at the photos in this article from the BBC

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/52432485