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Leagues and Governing Bodies

NBPA's Roberts: Bubble Might Be Needed For '20-21 NBA Season

NBPA Exec Dir Michele Roberts said that returning to a bubble "might be the only feasible way for the NBA to complete next season" as well, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN.com. Roberts yesterday said, "If tomorrow looks like today, I don't know how we say we can do it differently. If tomorrow looks like today, and today we all acknowledge -- and this is not Michele talking, this is the league, together with the PA and our respective experts saying, 'This is the way to do it' -- then that's going to have to be the way to do it." After Roberts in May said that she was "concerned a bubble could have players feeling like they were incarcerated," yesterday she said that she is "quite pleased with the conditions on the ground." Roberts: "The medical facilities and the physicians on campus, I'm not worried about anyone getting sick and not being able to get absolutely immediate health care. So, no, I am completely satisfied that we've come up with the right protocol. ... The players are largely cool with it" (ESPN.com, 7/28). Clippers coach Doc Rivers said of the bubble, "We don't know if this is going to work or not, but I think the league has given us every chance for this to work. If we do it right, we have a shot" (N.Y. TIMES, 7/29).

SILVER STAYS CONFIDENT: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver today said of the Orlando bubble, “We have confidence in this protocol that we designed.” He added, “Everyone who is on that campus is tested on a daily basis. They’re taking extraordinary precautions. The only time when they're not wearing masks is when they’re actually playing basketball. To the extent that somebody tests positive, we’ll obviously track them closely. We quarantine people who first come down.” Silver, on what it would take for the NBA to cancel games: “It’s not an exact science, because nobody’s ever done this before. We have plans in place where we might pause, similar to what baseball’s doing now, if we had any significant spread at all. We’d immediately stop. … Ultimately, we would seize completely if we saw that this was spreading around the campus.” Silver added, “It’s health and safety first. That’s always been our guidepost going into this. … We jokingly have said, but maybe it’s not so funny, that the safest place in the world may be on this campus at Disney right now. If that were to turn out to not be the case, then certainly we would stop” (“GMA,” ABC, 7/29).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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