Billions of dollars — to say nothing of trophies and pride — hang in the balance. But leaders at all levels of sports in the U.S. decided today that the risk of playing games with the threat of the virus hanging over them was too great.
A sign at T-Mobile Arena advertises the cancellation of the Pac-12 men's basketball tournament amid coronavirus fears Thursday, March 12, 2020, in Las Vegas. The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.
All of it was to be covered by CBS and its partners; about 80 percent of the NCAA’s $1.05 billion annual budget is bankrolled by the money the networks pay to present the 68-team tournament over the air, on cable and online. By then, every major conference, and virtually all of the minor ones, had done the same thing. They were prompted in part by the NCAA’s decision a day earlier to hold all its tournament games — which had been scheduled to start next week in nine cities and close April 6 at a 71,000-seat stadium in Atlanta — in front of friends and family and limited “essential” personnel.
Before the start of one of the biggest golf tournaments on the calendar, the PGA Tour announced that the last three rounds of The Players Championship, best known for the rowdy gatherings around the island green on the 17th hole, would be played without fans. The same goes for the three events that follow, all of which lead into the Masters, which was, for the time being, slated to go on as scheduled the week of April 6.
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