🏆 Fans Make Sports What They Are

A look at sporting events with and without fans highlights just how important they are to the spectacle and the emotion of the games. [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider: The difference in sporting events with and without fans in attendance comes into stark relief ... it’s the final weekday before the NFL’s “legal tampering” period ... and looking for the few live sporting events that are still happening around the globe. The announcements rolled in, seemingly never-ending, all with different descriptors that amounted to the same thing. The terminology – canceled, postponed, paused, suspended – all led us to the reality that most of American athletics, professional and collegiate, has gone dark. For a while, it seemed like NASCAR would be a significant and notable outlier, having opted to still stage its events at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend and Homestead-Miami Speedway next week, without fans. I’ll be honest. Never had I looked forward to a NASCAR race so much. I enjoy the sport without being a passionate and devoted follower, but it was something. Something to fill the void of all these lost moments in sports. Something to remind us that life, while certainly not about to continue as normal, had not entirely ground to a halt. [STORY IMAGE 1] It felt okay, NASCAR going ahead. Better than okay, in fact. The NBA didn’t have an option. The very nature of basketball, played in indoor arenas, by competitors who make repeated physical contact and sweat all over each other, meant that the moment Rudy Gobert tested positive, a shutdown simply had to happen. NASCAR is different. Wide open spaces. Drivers separated from each other and their teams by helmets, race suits and high-powered machinery. Sure, Atlanta and Miami would take place without the sport’s loyal core of racing followers and that was unfortunate, but why not let the show roll on for now? [STORY IMAGE 2] At least, that was my thinking, until I spent Thursday night scouring the internet and trying to find out if sports was going on in other parts of the world, and where. A combination of time differences and the fact that Australia might be one nation even more sports obsessed than this country led my cyber search Down Under. I found a game from the sport of rugby. It was between the North Queensland Cowboys and the Brisbane Broncos, and even if you have no idea what rugby league is about, you would have recognized the contest as “sports as we know it.” There was a big crowd, 20,000 or so packed into North Queensland’s new stadium in the city of Townsville. There were cheers and "oohs" and "aahs" and applause, screams and yells and everything we have come to expect and take for granted. I don’t have any great interest in rugby league, but it was entertaining enough that it kept me watching for an hour. [STORY IMAGE 3] Around the same time, more than a thousand miles south, another Australian sporting event was going on. In cricket, the Aussie national team was taking on New Zealand. In sports, the two countries hate each other. It is a rivalry as intense as you will find anywhere. When it comes to cricket, it is intensified. In 1981, after an Australian player acted unfairly in a vital match, the New Zealand prime minister was moved to call him a coward. But this game was being played without fans. And it wasn’t the same, not even close to it. The intrigue of being able to hear the players call out to each other lasted all of two minutes. Missing the supporters, it was without one of its most special elements. I turned it off. [STORY IMAGE 4] Sports needs its fans. Which is why, when NASCAR made its decision on Friday to change tack and postpone Atlanta and Homestead altogether, it felt right, even beyond the very important health concerns. When fans are referred to as the lifeblood of the game, it is not a cliché. The noise, the buzz, the anticipation, the communal emotions, it isn’t just what makes sports better. It’s what makes it a spectacle. In America, there is not much left. IndyCar took similar action to NASCAR, removing another option. If you want to watch sports, you’re pretty much restricted to mixed martial arts, which seems determined to buck the trend of cancellations, and horse racing. There’s a smattering of international hockey, too, and, as you’ll see below, sumo abroad. The Phoenix Suns will “play out” their season on Twitch, via NBA 2K, if that intrigues you. There won’t be many more announcements, because there’s hardly anything to cancel. Sports organizations have correctly opted to put safety first in these wild times. They’ve acted in the interest of their fans, which is entirely right and proper. For when things finally get back to normal again, they’ll need them to make more noise than ever. [STORY IMAGE 5] Here’s what others have said ... Jacob Bogage, Washington Post : “The superfan known as Marlins Man travels to more than 300 sporting events a year. He buys seats in line with television cameras and wears one of 14 bright orange Miami Marlins jerseys with a matching visor. He prepared this week to keep up his schedule even as the novel coronavirus began to bear down on North American sports. He was supposed to be in Kansas City, Mo., on April 2 for the Royals’ Opening Day, then in Denver the next night to see baseball’s Colorado Rockies. He planned to spend two days in San Francisco to see the Giants host the Dodgers, then catch a red eye to Atlanta for the NCAA Division I men’s basketball national championship game. ... [But] Leavy, like millions of sports fans, now will need to adapt to an entirely different world.” Jim Litke, Associated Press: “Being able to argue about sports with your crazy relatives — as opposed to say, politics — has kept many a family dinner from spiraling into a food fight. Fathers and sons or daughters who don’t talk all that much during the rest of the year swap text messages during March Madness or the World Series like BFFs. It’s small talk, granted, but also one of these things, as Joni Mitchell put it, ‘That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.’” Eric Stephen, True Blue LA: “People, like you and me, are the living organisms, and sometimes the breathing part can get tough, especially with a literal pandemic like the coronavirus spreading across the globe. We are what matters, and the last few weeks drove that point home. Sports are a wonderful escape for a lot of us, bringing us joy, or even breaking our hearts. The games distract us from the less enjoyable parts of our real, actual lives. But despite how zealous we sometimes get as fans, sports are not life and death. When real instances of our mortality comes into play, that takes precedence over fun and games.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - Plenty of legends have played the twilights of their careers in unfamiliar jerseys. [The Ringer’s Justin Sayles ponders]( how Tom Brady’s potential departure from New England would differ from the likes of M.J. and Montana. - If you’re already missing basketball — and we don’t blame you in the slightest — [Fansided’s Ian levy has compiled]( five classic NBA games you can watch right now. - [FOX Sports continues to offer live updates]( on the latest news in sports surrounding the coronavirus, including the suspension of the EPL season and NASCAR’s postponements. [THE BRADY HUNCH] [THE BRADY HUNCH] Monday could be a magical day on the Tom Brady beat, as it’s the start of the NFL’s so-called “legal tampering” period. So with any luck, we’ll have some juicy details to dig into come the start of next week. For now, we’re focused on this whole “Tom Brady to Tampa Bay” situation, [which noted NFL scribe Peter King recently weighed]( in on. According to King (via NESN), the Bucs could very well be interested in Brady, but it’s likelier that they have an eye on the future: “I think the Bucs are probably more likely to try and sign Teddy Bridgewater. And it is nothing at all against Tom Brady, but I have thought all along that — look, here is the way I view the Bucs: I think Bruce Arians wants to coach a couple of more years and then I think he wants to leave the team in the hands of Byron Leftwich. ... Even though their offense is predicated on being throwing the ball downfield, I think they have come to the conclusion that a guy like Bridgewater has plenty enough arm to play for them. That would be my guess.” [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( Being open to new experiences is important as a sports fan these days. For example, as the College Football Reddit Twitter account helpfully pointed out, the sumo Grand Tournament for March is currently taking place, from March 8 to March 22. The video above features perhaps the greatest sumo wrestler of all time, Hakuhō Shō, who’s participating in the event after withdrawing from January’s tournament. Yes, we’re living in the time of the GOAT in a sport that’s over 1,000 years old — and now, you can say that you’ve watched him. [VIEWER'S GUIDE] Programming note: Out of an abundance of caution, FOX Sports has made the decision to suspend production of our live FS1 daily studio shows through at least Friday, March 20. WWE Friday Night SmackDown (FOX, 8 p.m. ET) Tonight’s historic SmackDown will air live from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, featuring the return of Jeff Hardy, an appearance by John Cena, and Paige vowing to confront SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley. 30 for 30: Celtics vs. Lakers (ESPN2, 7 p.m. ET) In lieu of its regularly scheduled sports programming, ESPN2 will air “Celtics/Lakers: Best of Enemies,” a riveting look at how the epic rivalry between two of the NBA’s greatest teams in the 1980s helped fuel the league’s popularity. UFC Fight Night: Lee vs. Oliveira (Saturday, ESPN, 3 p.m. ET) At the time of publication of this newsletter, Dana White had confirmed that UFC Fight Night 170 would proceed as scheduled in Brazil, with no fans in attendance, which means live sports this weekend. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Odds provided by [FOX Bet]( Gilbert Burns & Keith Lee both to win: +190 We are committed to serving you, the fan, and in this space, at this point in time, that means surfacing the few wagers that are still on the board. Headed into this weekend, there’s plenty of UFC action, including the above parlay on two of Saturday’s favorites. Looking ahead, the wagering landscape is uncertain, but futures are (almost) always on the table. We’ll see you on Monday to see what our options are. A new FOX Sports app and website is coming. [Click here]( to be notified when the reimagined app is available. [WHAT THEY SAID] “Sports is the only entertainment where, no matter how many times you go back, you never know the ending.” — Neil Simon [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download the FOX Sports app for live scores and streaming [App Store]( [Google Play]( Available on: [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] [tvOS] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] Forwarded this message? [Sign up](. Amazon, Fire, and all related marks are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2020 FOX Media LLC and FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. FOX.com Business & Legal Affairs - Manager Digital Media P.O. Box 900 Beverly Hills, CA 90213-0900