The NFL Will be the Hope We Cling to for Professional Sports to Return to Normal

It’s been just over half a year since sports fans everywhere potentially set the remote to their team’s channel for the last time. About one month ago, the NHL and NBA came to an agreement with their players to re-start their seasons. Conversely, the NFL chose to play in their usual stadiums. Luckily, the bubbles worked, and there were few or no cases of COVID-19.

Believe it or not, however, the league that has been least affected by this sudden turn of events is the NFL. They were not forced to cancel or make changes to the structure of their season. The only way they’ve been affected is by the number of fans that are allowed into their stadiums. This will affect their revenue, admittedly.

Luckily for them, they now have a major advantage to increase their popularity if they play their cards right. Since the NHL and NBA started in August, the NFL will soon be one of the only two professional league sports in action. (MLB being the other).

Even though they’ve been plagued with political issues, they will have a distinct advantage to other leagues. They have the ability to attract many new fans who previously would only follow one or two other sports.

Keep Your Bubbles

In addition to this, the NFL has not gone with the strategy of playing in bubbles like the NHL and NBA did. They also have fans in some of their stadiums. Much of this is dependent on the location and how severely the cities were impacted. However, now in week 3 of their season, they have not had a single case of COVID-19 (as far as we know).

Stadiums are not yet filled to maximum capacity. However, if everything goes according to plan, this NFL season will be a beacon of hope for American sports fans. It would mean (at least some) fans can return to the stadiums and there don’t have to be bubbles.

And, due to being the reason for hope and one of two active leagues, they may gain some fans along the way.

Alexandra Russo

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