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Don’t get me wrong, because a four-day weekend is a lovely thing, but it’s just not the same without live sport.

Yes, it’s OK to bemoan the lack of live action on the telly, even when we know there are more important things going on in the world right now.

For those who have just about enough of SuperSport’s highlights packages and reruns, and have delved deep into the depths of YouTube sports videos and returned, the yearning for our favourite teams to return to action is stronger than ever.

UFC president Dana White has been talking about hosting fights at a secret island location, but that hasn’t quite panned out as he had hoped.

There, you’re talking about one-on-one fights, and if you consider team sports, the chances of a return to action soon become even slimmer.

Sorry to the bearer of bad news, but it’s worth looking at a Sports Illustrated article published this weekend, titled ‘Bursting the Bubble: Why Sports Aren’t Coming Back Soon’.

That article is written about American sporting codes like the NBA, NFL, and NHL, but the same would apply to the English Premier League, or other similar team sports.

Playing in empty stadiums, with players quarantined in hotels, undergoing daily testing – these are some of the conditions under which many believe team sports could go ahead.

Great, until you consider the logistics of what that would actually entail. This is just a snapshot:

Conversations with experts painted a picture of what exactly it would take to make these sports vacuums a reality. Before any of this can begin, every person who would have access to the facilities will need to be isolated separately for two weeks to ensure that no infection could enter. That’s players and coaches, athletic trainers and interpreters, reporters and broadcasters, plus housekeeping and security personnel.

No one can come in or out. Food will have to be delivered. Hotel and stadium employees will have to be paid enough to compensate for their time away from their families. Everyone onsite will have to be tested multiple times during this initial period.

…so the 14-day period is over and everyone has tested negative at least twice. Now they are allowed to begin spending time around one another—but not too much time. If one person gets it, he or she will begin spreading it immediately, so everyone will have to continue practicing social distancing. That probably means using a new ball for each play. It probably means seating players in stands rather than on benches or in dugouts. It certainly means banning high-fives.

Imagine scoring a 30-yard screamer that rifles into the top corner in the 90th minute to secure a win over your rivals, and then celebrating with safe physical distancing protocols in front of an empty stand.

The logistical nightmare continues:

Any major sporting event hires ambulances, stocked with EMTs, to idle outside in case of injury. If a player needs treatment by outside medical personnel, even just for a sprained ankle, he or she has left the secure area and will need to isolate for 14 days before returning to it. And, of course, medical resources need to be abundant enough that society can afford to have ambulances and EMTs on call for games, plus doctors and nurses—clad in currently-scarce protective equipment—who can tend to sports injuries.

After each game, everyone will need to be transported back to the hotel…And then once they are back in their rooms, every person involved will have to follow rules. You can’t take your kids to the park. You can’t run to the grocery store. You can’t invite your Bumble match up to your room.

These are humans, so the leagues would surely require insurance: That means security personnel (another group that would need to isolate) or invasive cell phone tracking (good luck getting that by the players’ union). If your wife gives birth or your father dies of cancer and you want to be there, that’s another 14-day reentry period.

You’re beginning to understand why the idea of live sport returning soon is unlikely, aren’t you?

Sorry, this hurts me as much as it hurts you.

There may be some hope of individual sports, like golf and tennis, returning sooner, but that remains a long way off from being anything near possible.

Again, these numbers are in an American context, but they do drive home the point:

Bringing back sports soon would give people a reason to stay inside, a reason to feel hopeful. It would probably also cost more lives.

“If people just decide to let it burn in most areas and we do lose a couple million people it’d probably be over by the fall,” says [Zach Binney, a PhD in epidemiology].

“You’d have football. You’d also have two million dead people. And let’s talk about that number. We’re really bad at dealing with big numbers. That is a Super Bowl blown up by terrorists, killing every single person in the building, 24 times in six months. It’s 9/11 every day for 18 months. What freedoms have we given up, what wars have we fought, what blood have we shed, what money have we spent in the interest of stopping one more 9/11? This is 9/11 every day for 18 months.”

Well, when you put it like that…

Looks like a deep dive back into YouTube and some sports highlights, then.

To try and soften the blow, here are two of my favourite ‘sports’ videos doing the rounds at present.

Meet BBC sports commentator Andrew Cotter and his two dogs, Olive and Mabel. This is genius:

I was bored. pic.twitter.com/bVoC0hyNzC

— Andrew Cotter (@MrAndrewCotter) March 27, 2020

The follow-up:

Some sports are slower. More about the strategy. pic.twitter.com/JMBaGJ1tSd

— Andrew Cotter (@MrAndrewCotter) April 9, 2020

More, Andrew, more. When the hounds are ready, of course:

[source:sportsillustrated]