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Bulls & Bears: NBA and NHL lead the way as pro sports returns, while baseball stumbles along

OPINION: The compressed Major League Baseball season is at serious risk after a disastrous week headlined by a coronavirus outbreak that has infected 16 Miami Marlins players and caused the team to go dark for a week.

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Bulls of the Week

With the return to play of hockey and basketball, this is a notable weekend in sports history. It’s the first time ever that we’re seeing meaningful NHL and NBA games being played in the month of August. The next two months are not without risk for the two leagues, but one thing is for sure: The NHL and NBA have invested considerable time, money and other resources into their respective models and into the staging of games on television, without fans in the stands. And the results look impressive.

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Recognizing that pro sport — as entertainment — will never be the same without live crowds, the fact is that both the NHL and NBA have exceeded expectations in terms of what empty arenas would look like on television and sound like on radio. No one has done better in that regard than the NHL and that will come into clearer focus with the beginning of the Stanley Cup qualifiers this weekend.

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The NBA games that marked the reopening Thursday night showed there is considerable competitive intensity among the players. And the NHL exhibitions earlier this week set high-water marks for television ratings in Canada. Now, the question is: Can they sustain it until October?

Bears of the Week

It’s true that Major League Soccer got through a very rocky start in Orlando, with the withdrawals of FC Dallas and Nashville in the first week of the MLS is Back Tournament. The good news is multiple “clean sheets” when it comes to coronavirus testing in that bubble. Yet it’s one thing to manage the logistics of a single hub city model. It’s another thing entirely to keep things safe and moving along with 30 moving parts.

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That’s why the compressed Major League Baseball season is at serious risk after a disastrous week headlined by a coronavirus outbreak that has infected 16 Miami Marlins players and caused the team to go dark for a week. The ripple effects have impacted the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees and even the Toronto Blue Jays, who saw their weekend series against the Phillies postponed.

The Jays — already living a nomadic life away from their Rogers Centre home stadium and forced to relocate to Sahlen Field, home of their Buffalo Bisons triple-A affiliate — have now been sidelined until Tuesday, an unfortunate turn of events just seven games into what is an already compromised 60-game schedule.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred continues to appear to be making things up as he goes about overseeing what has been a surprisingly disorganized, sloppy and ultimately ineffective approach to salvaging a 2020 campaign for television rights holders and corporate partners. The MLBPA players union shares in the blame, of course, as they rejected the notion of hub cities early in the process. Yet it’s ultimately the league’s responsibility to determine the most viable way to return to play; which is what the NHL, NBA, MLS and other smaller Canadian domestic leagues have done in rallying around the risk management that defines hub cities.

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The response to the Marlins outbreak this week will go a long way to determining whether MLB makes it through to its goal of an expanded 16-team playoff this fall. So far, it’s been nothing but foul balls.

• The Sport Market on TSN Radio rates and debates the bulls and bears of sport business. Join Tom Mayenknecht on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. for a behind-the-scenes look at the sport-business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Tom Mayenknecht at: Twitter.com/TheSportMarket

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