As sports leagues across the US wait out the coronavirus and contemplate what a return to league play might look like, there’s a solution that could allow the NBA, uniquely among the major team sports leagues, to finish its season without requiring teams to travel around the country and risk infection by flying from one basketball gym to another.
Rather than try to play around the country or pick a few neutral sites to host games, the NBA could relocate the entire league to Las Vegas, put every team inside hotels the league exclusively controls, and play out the remainder of the season in gyms there.
The NBA, thanks to the prevalence of basketball courts, has a tremendous opportunity to play its games in Las Vegas, broadcasting them around the world from the city’s courts.
The league may already be considering it, as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst recently floated the idea that the NBA was contemplating a college campus, Las Vegas, and an island in the Bahamas as options to finish out its season.
“To restart the NBA is probably going to have to build a bubble. That’s what the Chinese league has been trying for weeks. The struggles there show how hard it may be to play basketball here,” said Windhorst on Twitter.
So, why does Las Vegas make the most sense? First, the NBA is familiar with Las Vegas already, playing the popular summer league on Vegas courts. Second, all Las Vegas casinos are presently shut down for a month. That means no one in any substantial numbers will be in the hotels until mid-April at the earliest, effectively killing any virus that might exist in these locations.
Third, there’s no guarantee the casinos will open back up in a month, meaning the Vegas casinos are likely to love the idea of anyone willing to stay there and take over the venues. Fourth, the casinos have ample suites and high end accommodations for players accustomed to the best lodging. Fifth, it’s probably unlikely the general public would be allowed into these casinos and hotels until late April at the earliest, meaning the leagues could potentially have a couple of months of solo occupancy in the hotels.
When, or if, the casinos open back up to paying customers, the hotels could be blocked off from the casinos, not allowing anyone access to the rooms. Sixth, Las Vegas is a blue collar town and many of the workers presently unemployed as a result of the shutdown, would be ecstatic at the chance to take care of the league inside these basketball bubbles.
What’s more, presently Nevada is one of the least impacted states by the coronavirus in the country, with under a thousand cases overall. Las Vegas is also super hot in late spring and summer and right now experts on virology believe the coronavirus will transmit much less well once it becomes warm across the country. If that’s true, the hundred degree weather of Las Vegas would seem to be a perfect location for the NBA to center its league.
Source: Clay Travis - OKTC
