Coronavirus VII: Sports: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

our main story tonight concerns sports the think OJ Simpson used to be famous for the corona virus has taken its toll on all manner of industries but the world of sports was among those hit hardest earliest and perhaps most visibly because just think back to the day that you first realized our lives were gonna fundamentally change for a while for many it was when this happened two days before he tested positive for coronavirus Utah Jazz all-star Rudy Gobert did this to reporters microphones in an interview and this morning the NBA suspending the rest of its season the unprecedented move shocking everyone including Dallas Mavs owner Mark Cuban just think about how astonishing something has to be to shock Mark Cuban keep in mind he's one of the Sharks on Shark Tank he's been pitched businesses like rent a goat a service that rents out goats to eat overgrown shrubs squirrel boss a bird feeder that gives electric shocks to squirrels and elephants chats a literal stuffed elephant that you put in the room to signal that there's something uncomfortable to talk about Mark Cuban has already seen the most jaw-dropping inconceivable things this world has to offer and it wasn't just basketball vanishing suddenly since then the NHL has suspended its season Major League Baseball pushed back his opening day to an unknown day's international soccer league suspended games and the Olympics were moved to next summer and as shocking as these cancellations seemed at the time the truth is there was really no choice sporting events with large crowds packed together are the exact opposite of social distancing and there are nightmare scenario during a pandemic this Champions League match in Milan in February was later likened to a biological bomb after it was linked to one of the deadliest outbreaks but those sports shutting down was emphatically the right thing to do people have increasingly been asking when they can return and few have a slough der than this guy I hope football can start and I told them I think you might be able to they may very well be able to I hope they can start and I hope they can start with people in the stands the fans want to be back to you know they want to see basketball and baseball and football and hockey they want to see their sports we have to get our sports back I'm tired of watching baseball games at a 14 years old but I haven't actually had too much time to watch I would say maybe I watch one batter and then I get back to work okay but here's the thing we actually asked some experts about that and it turns out that when the countries in the middle of a pandemic that's killing many thousands of Americans every single week the correct number of batters from 2006 for the president to be watching is actually zero but look he's not entirely wrong there the lack of sports is an emotional blow to a lot of people and it's not just emotional it's also financial by one estimate the sudden disappearance of sports will erase at least 12 billion dollars in revenues and hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country alone and those jobs aren't just a high paid athletes playing the games they also include the many people who count on sporting events for employment like these to Philadelphia Stadium workers Marvin's Spratly made $14 an hour as a part-time grill cook for nearly two years at Sixers flyers and Eagles games it's a lot of stress on me a lot of stress is that how that baby needs pampers nyesha Johnson is a maintenance worker at Phillies games I have food on the table now I'm making it right at this moment but I don't know what some Merlot may bring yeah that's really difficult and it's worth remembering that although Philadelphia sports fans are a horde of inhuman monsters who deserve neither sympathy nor understanding the people pay to tend to those monsters really depend on their monster money so given that the absence of sport has caused such pain we thought tonight we take a look at what sports have become in the age of coronavirus and what a path back for them might look like and first let me say that the sports world has been doing some truly great things during this pandemic teams and athletes have been donating and raising money for charity with some even selling branded face masks for coronavirus related causes and despite not being able to play teams have found ways to stay engaged with their fans online while modeling social distancing at the Pittsburgh Pirates parrot posted an at-home workout video the Chicago Blackhawks mascot Tommy Hawk vacuumed his apartment and Gritti once again blew them all away without even trying okay I don't know what's more amazing there gritties incredible hand-eye coordination the fact he seems to live in an entirely empty apartment or the discovery that his body occasionally squeaks when it moves presumably because evolutionarily speaking gritties closest relative is a used dog toy and it's not just mascots athletes have been showing how they're trying to work from home which has not always been easy for them for instance reigning NBA MVP Yanni's and Entercom poo told reporters last month that he's been unable to practice because he doesn't have a hoop at his house others have had to get pretty creative to continue their training whether it's an Olympic swimmer training in a kiddie pool with a bungee cord an Olympic runner creating makeshift treadmills in a bathtub with Palmolive an Olympic rock climber using her home as a climbing gym or Brandon coin of the Orioles squatting his dog who seems utterly delighted by the situation but not every at-home training session goes smoothly as Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly recently discovered wondering how quarantines going Joe is working on a changeup yeah honestly if I was Joe Kelly's wife I'd never get that window fixed and I just make him explain what happened every time someone came over oh that window Joe do you want to tell that story because I kind of forget some of the details like how many millions of dollars you've been paid for your ability to throw a baseball accurately how big the net was and how many feet you missed it by you just go ahead and tell the story while I pull up the video as for broadcasters who are reliant on live events they are now in a truly desperate situation while ESPN moved up their 10-part Michael Jordan documentary they've otherwise been strapped for content airing video game versions of baseball and basketball with SportsCenter at one point actually tweeting out this now you might be wondering what the did I just see well apparently that came from a Russian show called stoned faces where contestants slap each other as hard as they can and this particular guy is a renowned competitive slapper whose real name doesn't matter because his nickname is dumpling which is just an outstanding name for that man and at this point I don't need to know anything else I'm all-in on competitive slapping just tell me what channels to subscribe to in order to watch it and where to order my dumpling Jersey so if we are all reaching the point of desperation where we're honestly willing to watch large men slap each other in a windowless room there is clearly a desire to restart sporting events the question though isn't why sports should come back it's how that can safely happen because to do it responsibly would be a mammoth undertaking to do it irresponsibly however turns out to be pretty easy the state of Florida early on designated professional sports and media production with a national audience as an essential service so long as it's closed to the general public so the WWE has continued staging shows in Florida holding matches in front of empty chairs but that requires a lot more people than just those two wrestlers you need production crews working together Inc proximity and while the WWE maintains its safety measures are as comprehensive as they can possibly be one employee wrote an anonymous letter to a florida county commissioner asking them to shut the tapings down because despite sanitary precautions we cannot maintain social distancing and have to touch other people but it's easy to see why CEO vince mcmahon doesn't mind them taking that risk as he told investors on a recent earnings call viewers want to see new matches i think new content is always a driver in terms of stimulating interesting will happen obviously everyone is pretty much starved for you know for new content it could very well be you're tired of watching Netflix and what if they you know are unaware okay um well first I would argue that the risks of creating content the way that you are seem to outweigh the benefits right now and second no one on that call registered your point there because you just said stimulating strong men underwear and crucially driver all in the same sentence at which point everyone's minds turned immediately to getting absolutely bone crushed by Adam driver chokeslam me to hell you nasty shed Jam your mandible claw down my throat you irredeemable steer quick sidenote here a lot of you might will be wondering where I'm going with this bit if you're anything like my stuff you're asking questions like is this sexual or is it violent and you're then unsatisfied when the answer comes back yes if you like my wife you might be asking should I be worried about this with your concern only growing when the answer is only if you want to be and what if Adam driver himself is he bothered by this continued sexual ization he seems like a fairly private guy who's generally uncomfortable with attention making what I'm doing possibly some form of harassment he might actually have pretty good grounds to have me reprimanded legally to which I say do it slap a restraining order on to you for lon block begging me to stop you menacing obstacle and it's not just that WWE their competitor aew is also taping shows in Florida and the UFC just last week started hosting matches in Jacksonville and while they couldn't fly in international fighters for that their president Dana White has devised an insane workaround fight island is real fight island is a real thing it's really happening the infrastructure is being built right now on the island I'm ready to go yes the UFC is apparently building a facility on a private island that they're calling fight island now is that a clever name is it the perfect name yes because it's the first thought an idiot would have if they wanted to name a private island where fights happen now we could have called it brawl Hamas or Puerto raucous or are we Maui or Slam Miguel but he didn't he didn't do that and he didn't even go with the obvious name for an island where you staged UFC fights which is simply UFC look at me Dana why didn't you just call it UFC it's perfect but clearly staging events is risky at the moment just the day before last weekend's UFC event a fighter had to pull out after he and two of his corner men tested positive underscoring the fact that if you want to come back completely without risk that's just not possible right now and yet many sports organizations are feeling real pressure to ignore that risk especially college sports where some schools athletic programs rely heavily on revenue from football and what you would hope the coaches would talk about the trade-offs of risk and safety with some tact Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy seemed completely comfortable saying the quiet parts loud in my opinion if we have to bring our players back test them they're in good shape they're all 18 19 20 21 22 years old they're healthy a lot of them can fight it off with it with their natural body their antibodies and bill that they have we need to continue to budget and run money through the state of Oklahoma Jesus Christ I don't know who's medical advice is worth the least in the middle of a pandemic but guy who doesn't mind on page college kids contracting a potentially deadly disease so everyone else can make millions is right down near the bottom along with the advice of funeral parlor magnate and the coronavirus wearing a fake mustache now don't II later apologized for those comments but there was a real honesty to what he said their profit is a powerful motive here especially for some team owners who won't be the ones taking the risks and it's why major sports like baseball and football are so eagerly pursuing plans to comeback but assuming that you can't just stage all events in Jacksonville or on some stupidly named island somewhere how do you do it in the safest possible way well for what it's worth Anthony fell Chee has outlined how that could happen there's a way of doing there nobody comes to the stadium put them in big hotels you know wherever you want to play keep them very well surveilled and mainly a surveillance but have them tested like every week and make sure they don't wind up infecting each other or their family and just let them play the season out yeah you just isolate everyone involved and test the hell out of them which intuitively seems like it might work after all we already have a show where a bunch of people with incredible bodies get monitored all day to make sure that they don't touch each other it's called too hot to handle and it is perfect one of the hot idiots proposed to one of the other hot idiots with a Ring Pop and if you haven't watched this show and you're still complaining about being starved for content you're out of your mind and ideas along the lines of what felt you just proposed so-called bubble leagues have been floated for multiple sports at Major League Baseball for instance was at one point reportedly discussing plans to play all of their games in Arizona and on its face that seemed simple you just seclude the teams and you have them play with no fans but when you think about that for more than a second it all becomes much much more complicated pickers of course you wouldn't just be isolating players you'd be doing that for coaching staff team physicians trainers umpires clubhouse attendants bus drivers camera crews and hotel staff to name just a few by one estimate even above a league would require nearly 10,000 people all of whom would need constant testing and there is a key distinction here because while pro wrestlers are UFC fighters and college athletes have no Union those in major pro sports do and therefore they have significant negotiating power so if you want them to isolate themselves from their families and put their lives at risk you need their agreement and some big names like the Angels Mike Trout still have some significant concerns what are you doing family members my wife is pregnant what am I gonna do and you know she goes into labor am I gonna have to quarantine for two weeks after I come back cuz you know obviously I can't miss that you know birth of her first child yeah he's right the league should not ask anyone to miss the birth of their first child that is a magic moment now second child that's negotiable same different day a third child I'm not even sure the mother has to be there but that first child is simply unmissable and after pushback from multiple players Major League Baseball has walked away from the Arizona idea with an official even saying earlier this month I would be lying if we were to say we have a good idea they're all degrees of bad and that is true of so many current proposals for sports to come back the second you start reading the details of any plan it automatically becomes ridiculous the MLB's new idea is to play an abbreviated season in as many empty home ballparks as possible but teams would still have to travel to those meaning they're not being quarantined and for a sense of just how easy it is for something to go wrong look at Germany that country has handled this pandemic much much better and they are in a very very different situation than we are in the US and that enabled their soccer league to actually come back this weekend employing a kind of bubble league approach without fans and with all team personnel quarantined in a hotel but two players have already tested positive forcing their entire team to isolate for 14 days and one top coach missed the first game after he left the hotel to buy toothpaste and now can't rejoin his team until he has two negative tests and that shows just how difficult it is to do any of this effectively and look I will own the fact I really want sports to come back there is no doubt that they have the ability to inspire one of the things that sport does best is to bring people together in times of crisis like when the Yankees resumed playing after 9/11 unfortunately no bringing people together is the exact thing we should not be doing right now and what sport was genuinely helpful at the start of this crisis in showing us how serious this virus was if it comes back too soon and irresponsibly it won't be an inspiration it'll be a cautionary tale so as hard as it is to hear we might need a little more time to make sure that we get this right phasing sports back in slowly with tailored approaches that take into account each sports level of contact and robust systems of testing and tracing and I know that there is currently an absence in people's life so ideally what you'd want is something that could fill that gap for a while you know until sports can return something with an existing infrastructure schedule of heart-pounding events a passionate fan base and no human contact something to which I'm obviously building if you've been on Twitter lately you may have seen this viral video marbles in the box and they're often a neck-and-neck race up there at the front all it actually comet hits the divider the attenuator slows him down and he falls back into third place now under the clutches of deep ocean so it's reflector out from the net tarantula takes lead oh yes let me introduce you to yellers marble bronze they're based in the Netherlands and they are a competitive marble racing league that is to put it mildly absolutely fantastic they upload races to this YouTube channel on a regular basis and nobody to whom we have shown this including non-sports fans has not ended up wanting to watch more there are entire race tracks with marbles as fans plus a marble tournament with 16 different events featuring relays water courses and obstacles and there are also backstories for the marbles involved and some truly passionate fans 20,000 people from around the world tuned in live to watch last week's race and yellows marble runs YouTube channel has millions of views there are big fan bases built up not just for the teams but for the individual marbles and when one isn't performing very well in the season you're gonna hear about it on there and and they will you know let that Marvel know they got to pick up their game a little bit now on the one hand that's amazing on the other hand the marbles don't really need fans to tell them when they're off there take a look at the midnight wisps they came in fourth in their debut season just missing the podium but did they settle for that no they didn't they came back the next year and they won it all they use their shortcomings as motivation to come back even stronger or rounder I don't know whichever adjective is best for marbles the point is this isn't just a YouTube distraction it's a beautiful competitive event and the world needs those more than ever right now this is Marple league tournament is actually due to start next month unfortunately with times being hard the league was struggling for money even tweeting to make the mob League we need sponsors a head sponsor and some smaller sponsors so this beautiful thing is in danger of going away just when we need it the most rather it was in danger because it turns out they're not actually looking for a sponsor anymore and the reason I know that is you are looking at the new sole sponsor of the upcoming Marvel League tournaments that is right we are proudly sponsoring all 16 events over the next few months but weights because there is a twist here in addition to our sponsorship the winner of each event will get $5,000 donated to a food bank in their name whether that name is the raspberry racers the green ducks the Haze's or even the Oceanics although frankly they're going to need a ton of reorganization in the locker room because they were a mess last year and what's more at the end of the entire tournament the overall winner will get a $20,000 donation made in their marble team's name to the International Rescue Committee it's it is the only way that we could think of making what these guys are doing even better so please check this out and last week tonight Preserve they come hazers to the lead green ducks into the water now they have a lot of trouble moving through those quick chicane to start things off and the savage speeders keep their momentum out they fall into the final other rasberry racers trying to fight for gold the sports event of the summer has arrived we was knock dog fight section raspberry racers they take the lead neck-and-neck [Applause] marble League twenty20 premiering June 21st this one's for all the marbles you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 7,563,933

Rating: 4.8639698 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: z4gBMw64aqk

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Sun May 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/RayneShikama]

Can we all just take a moment to reflect the distance JMR has come in the past 4 months?

[u/cosmicnick45]

20:34 Still hitting hard on the Oceanics :(

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Also if I don't hear John Oliver say OOOOOOOOOOrangers I will be disappointed

[u/nissincupramen]

Holy fuck I was not expecting this as a longtime viewer of LastWeekTonight and a JMR fan.

[u/Snowinaz]

I was watching the segment hoping he would at least mention Jelle. Never mind he’s fucking sponsoring it. Haha.

[u/Haas47]

John fucking Oliver, you magnificent son of a bitch!

Also Community, the show he starred in from 2009-2014, blew up because of the pandemic, due to being on Netflix since April 1st, and it is amazing!

[u/xlonefoxx]

Dude seems really knowledgeable about this. :D

[u/Rasta_Jol]

Jeez that Trailer at the End got me so hyped, goosebumps everywhere!

[u/SeacattleMoohawks]

He’s why I’m here lol. Looks dope.

Which should I root for? I’m a free agent

[u/[deleted]]

This is so weird. I remember watching marble runs as just a way to make the work day go by like 2 years ago and now it’s on LWT and about to blow up...

Let’s go Momo!