The Nothing

Atreyu: What is the Nothing?
G’mork: It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world.

– The Neverending Story

Come on. You wanted to ride Falkor, the giant sock puppet from that movie. Admit it. Though my ride these days would go a little more like…

In many ways, the seasonal bubbles that major sports are going through probably feel like a neverending story, at least to to the players and personnel who have been playing in them. The entertainment they’ve provided to millions of fans in neverending bubbles of their own has proven to be a lifesaver. But just like the movie, the tumult and upset of turning everything upside down threatens a whole lot of nothing in the near future for sports fans.

As creatures of habit, we have evolved in living in rhythm. The rhythm of a day and when we sleep, the rhythm of our work week and when we rest. And the rhythm of a year, when we decide to plant our food, celebrate our anniversaries, reset our calendars, and watch our sports.

The fall and winter seasons are some of the most entertaining for North American sports fans, as they are usually the province of basketball, hockey, and football on a near nightly basis. Who cares if you’ve been snowed in for a week when there’s been enough sports action to keep you warm and jumping around your living room for days? Hell, even baseball wraps up its season in the fall, with October being a hallowed time on the diamond, and the month becoming a moniker for some of the greatest of all time.

Baseball will stay aggressive in 2020 and get its season wrapped up inside October, believe it or not. The NHL wrapped their split season a couple weeks ago, and the NBA will have theirs completed sometime between tonight and Tuesday. The NFL will be cranking out their full complement of 12-16 games a week until the second week of January, and then the playoffs will slowly winnow the number of those contests down to the Super Bowl at the beginning of February. Then…

*Blip*

While basketball and hockey have stated they hope to be back in play by January, there are several hurdles for each league to cross heading into new seasons, with a lot of factors still to be determined by how abnormal our new normal becomes over the months we’re all already used to being viral. The leagues are wisely taking things one step at a time after each pulling off successful playoffs that sealed off their hottest commodities from their loved ones for two to four months. To ask the same of the players for an entire season may be beyond the pale. Tricky stuff.

So… what to do with this possible and impossible nothing, then? We can parse out the morsels that the NFL will provide us, and maybe go back to see if ESPN Classic has any of our favorites on again. Maybe Australian Rules Football, rugby, cricket, curling, or water polo might be more to your liking. Start looking for those bright spots in your sports universe, DNVR Nation. The pickings are becoming slim and about to get slimmer at a time you’re usually feasting.