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    How the Seattle Seahawks Stayed Covid-Free

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe N.F.L. Had Over 700 Coronavirus Positives. The Seahawks Had None.The only team to play the entire season without any confirmed positive cases did so with innovative thinking, vigilance to protocols and some Pete Carroll-style competition.The N.F.L. rolled out a grand experiment to play a not-at-all socially distanced sport in a pandemic. The Times went behind the scenes with the Seattle Seahawks and the Cleveland Browns to understand how the science and the upheaval played out.CreditCredit…Pool photo by Ted S. WarrenFeb. 5, 2021Updated 6:00 a.m. ETOn the N.F.L.’s march to complete a 269-game schedule amid a pandemic, more than 700 players, coaches and other team personnel tested positive for the coronavirus. It upended rosters, with the Denver Broncos starting a game without any of their three quarterbacks and the Cleveland Browns once fielding a team with nearly all of their receivers out, and it postponed games, with some outbreaks pushing them into midweek or to a bye week.Through it all, only one of the league’s 32 teams remained untouched by the virus: the Seattle Seahawks. And how they made it through the long season virus-free, in Washington State, where the United States’ first positive case was reported, is a testament to innovative thinking and procedures. The team’s devotion to following health guidelines became a guidepost for the N.F.L. and other leagues grappling with how to proceed as the deadly virus continued to grip the country.“They invented a playbook for a safe practice environment at a time when the future was deeply uncertain and people were questioning the wisdom of pro sports starting up,” said Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist who has helped organizations respond to the coronavirus and informally advised the Seahawks. “You have to be willing to absorb some costs, and you need leaders who can communicate in a crisis.”In late July, the league and its players’ union rolled the dice by deciding to play a full season without creating a closed community, or a bubble, which the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A. and the N.H.L. used in 2020. That meant thousands of team and staff members would go their separate ways each night, vastly increasing their potential exposure to the virus.The Seahawks faced perhaps the most arduous circumstances in the N.F.L. Their 2020 schedule included five cross-country flights, which meant they would log more miles than any other N.F.L. team. And when they were home, the Seahawks trained not far from Kirkland, Wash., the nation’s first coronavirus “hot spot.”This made the Seahawks witnesses to the pandemic well before the season kicked off, and its grim toll made them question whether football could be played safely. Sam Ramsden, the team’s director of player health and performance, cared for his wife, Lisa, in March, when, doctors believe, she had Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.Sam Ramsden, the Seahawks’ director of player health and performance, became the team’s point person for infection control.Credit…Nicole Boliaux for The New York Times“I didn’t really imagine the N.F.L. being able to have a full season,” Ramsden said. “I wasn’t a Debbie Downer about it, I was just trying to be realistic.”Starting in late spring, after the N.F.L. began plowing ahead with plans for the 2020 season, Ramsden, Coach Pete Carroll and other team leaders used a combination of pragmatism, flexibility and gamesmanship to duck, bob and weave through the pandemic.With training camps, the first in-person football activities of the season, set to open in late July, each team appointed an infection control officer to coordinate efforts to reopen its facilities. Ramsden, who has worked for the Seahawks for 22 years, took on the role rather than giving it to the head athletic trainer, who he felt would be too busy handling injuries.Ramsden has an easygoing patter that belies his attention to detail, and his quiet intensity is a counterpoint to that of Carroll, a hands-on coach known for out-of-the-box ideas. Throughout the pandemic, Carroll pushed Ramsden for answers to problems. At other times, he deferred to his expertise. Carroll also did his own research, and floated ideas to Ramsden and others about minimizing exposure.Like other teams, the Seahawks installed dividers in the showers and between lockers. To avoid crowding, two auxiliary locker rooms were added, and large rooms and practice fields were turned into meeting spaces. Ventilation systems were upgraded. Tents were set up outside for safer dining. Carroll had windows that could open installed in his office to increase air flow.People in the organization took on extra tasks. The team’s football operations department created a schedule for who would be tested and when. (Almost 36,000 tests were ultimately given.) Each morning, trainers and others handed out sensors made by a German company, Kinexon, that tracked how close players, coaches and staff members were to one another and for how long. The hospitality staff members who usually managed corporate and internal events collected health questionnaires from people arriving at the facility. The travel coordinator made sure the team’s drivers were tested and buses were disinfected. On the road, a total of 139 players, coaches and staff rode to and from games and airports in seven buses instead of the usual four.“It was like a band of brothers,” said Ramsden, who wore a T-shirt a few days each week that read, “Stay Negative or Stay Home.”To keep people moving when they were inside the team facility, Ramsden had the building’s intercom chime every 12 minutes as a reminder.Credit…Nicole Boliaux for The New York TimesWhen they were at their team facility, the Seahawks ordered food with the Notemeal app on their phones, rather than stand in line in the cafeteria (where congregating unmasked led to transmissions on other teams). On road trips, the team asked hotel kitchens to use the app as well, something other teams adopted.Ramsden expected to be replaced in his new role by a medical professional. Instead, his bosses asked him to remain in charge because of his ability to genially cajole players, who needed to be prodded to consistently wear their masks and tracking devices. The players were accustomed to spending hours together in weight rooms and hot tubs, but Ramsden reminded them to keep it moving.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Super Bowl Means Snacking, Even Without Parties

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradySuper Bowl Party TipsThe N.F.L.’s ‘First’ Women Want CompanyA Super Bowl party means an all-out spread. A Super Bowl in a pandemic means chips and takeout. Snack companies and delivery apps are ready.Credit…Justin J Wee for The New York TimesSuper Bowl Means Snacking, Even Without PartiesThe likes of Frito-Lay and food delivery services are expecting a busy Sunday, as more viewers stay home rather than gather in large groups.A Super Bowl party means an all-out spread. A Super Bowl in a pandemic means chips and takeout. Snack companies and delivery apps are ready.Credit…Justin J Wee for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 5, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCarolyn Blocka does not mess around with her annual Super Bowl party.Last year, as 15 of her friends crowded into her Toronto apartment, she assembled a spread that included chili, pulled pork, Hawaiian meatballs, chips and guacamole, pizza, chicken wings and the obligatory “healthy” salad. For dessert, Ms. Blocka made cookies and bought doughnuts decorated with the logos for the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.The pandemic has canceled this year’s party, however. Instead, Ms. Blocka, a rabid Los Angeles Chargers fan, will watch Sunday’s Super Bowl with one friend, sitting on fold-up chairs in her garage, with the door open and the temperature outside expected to be around 20 degrees Fahrenheit at kickoff.“It’s weird, but I miss making all of the preparations for the party,” said Ms. Blocka, a law clerk. She and her friend are going to order a restaurant’s takeout package — a Chicago-style pizza, wings and some craft beers for $50. “I’m still going to get some doughnuts, though.”In the interest of preventing the Super Bowl from turning into a superspreader event, public health authorities are pleading for viewers to be like Ms. Blocka and watch this year’s game with family or only a small group of friends. And while Sunday may be a little less lively at home without a raucous crowd, snack companies and delivery services are expecting the socially distanced circumstances to be a boon for sales.Snack companies, whose sales have soared as consumers nibble their way through the pandemic, know that Americans traditionally load up on guilty pleasures for the Super Bowl. But PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division, for instance, was making slightly more snacks than it did in last year’s run-up — nearly 70 million pounds this week, enough to fill 7,000 trucks — based on the expectation that smaller gatherings will result in increased purchases of chips.“We saw that play out in the holidays, which is why we’re investing in more capacity and more delivery around the Super Bowl in retail,” said Mike Del Pozzo, the chief customer officer for Frito-Lay North America. “We anticipate that week will be massive.”Restaurants that specialize in football-friendly foods like pizza, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks and tacos are also bracing for a busy night.Carolyn Blocka, host to 15 friends a year ago, plans to watch the game on Sunday with just one. In a garage. In subfreezing Toronto.Credit…Angela Lewis for The New York Times“The Super Bowl is a huge night for us,” said Lyle Tick, the president of Buffalo Wild Wings. “It’s one of our biggest nights of the year.”Last year, the restaurant chain sold more than 11 million wings on Super Bowl Sunday. This year, Mr. Tick said, he expects to meet or exceed that number even with his 1,200 restaurants around the country facing varying dine-in restrictions.“We expect to see similar total demand, but an increase in off-premise ordering and, if I was a betting person, more parties of smaller size, so smaller order size as well,” he said.For millions of people, whether football fans or not, the Super Bowl has long been an excuse to gather at a bar or restaurant or in someone’s living room to party, eat food that is not remotely healthy, throw back some beer or cocktails and laugh at the commercials. Some even pay attention to the game.“It’s somebody’s job to bring the wings,” said Krista Millard, a self-described football fanatic who is an office manager at an architectural firm in Pittsboro, N.C. “Somebody else brings the beer. Somebody brings the kids’ food. Somebody is grilling out. There’s some North Carolina barbecue, of course, and a lot of people hanging out, but really, only four or five of us are actually watching the game.”The pandemic has upended that ritual. David Jenkins, a pastor in Los Angeles who goes by D.J., is heeding the advice of health professionals this year. The watch party he attended the past few years, which typically draws 50 people, has been canceled. Instead he’ll watch the game from his couch, with his wife and 6-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.“We’ll make some sort of Velveeta cheese dip thing — a splurge food I don’t normally have — and then I’ll balance it with some celery sticks,” he said.Mark Ridley-Thomas, a member of the Los Angeles City Council, planned on ordering his food well in advance. For the last five years, he hosted a Super Bowl viewing party for about 300 people as a fund-raiser for homelessness and emancipated foster children. This year, he’ll watch the game from his living room couch and order wings from Hotville Chicken.“If the pre-order doesn’t work, I will show up at the restaurant at 6 in the morning and camp out until someone hands me some wings,” Mr. Ridley-Thomas said with a laugh.Snack companies and restaurants with takeout menus aren’t the only ones girding for a rush of orders just ahead of kickoff.Photos from Ms. Blocka’s Super Bowl parties over the last six years, featuring friends, a buffet and team-logo doughnuts from a local bakery. Credit…Carolyn BlockaFor weeks, a group of analytics and finance teams inside DoorDash have been creating algorithmic models to predict hour-by-hour demand on game day. The forecasts are based partly on past Super Bowls, but also on data that has been collected and analyzed for holidays during the pandemic, including New Year’s Eve, Cinco de Mayo and Father’s Day, said Jessica Lachs, a vice president of analytics at DoorDash.Figuring out when orders for nachos and ribs are going to skyrocket, and when the company needs to offer peak pay or other incentives for “Dashers” to hit the roads and make deliveries, involves a complex calculus.Viewers on the East Coast, for instance, will begin putting in their orders in the late afternoon and through the first quarter of the game, which has a 6:30 start time. On the West Coast, a wave of orders will come in toward the end of the game and after it’s over. Then, the East Coast may see a second ordering wave — fueled by that “I’ve had four beers and now I’m hungry” feeling — that will again require an army of delivery personnel.Although the Super Bowl ends the football season, it is just one of several big events for the snack companies and takeout restaurants, including one coming up next week.Turns out Valentine’s Day is one of the five biggest sales days for the aviation-themed chicken-wing chain Wingstop. As Charlie Morrison, its chief executive, said in an email, with people planning to stay in this Valentine’s Day, “Wingstop will be the romantic meal they’re looking for.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Why the Chiefs Will Beat the Buccaneers: Super Bowl 2021 Prediction

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradySuper Bowl Party TipsThe N.F.L.’s ‘First’ Women Want CompanyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySuper Bowl LV Prediction: Why the Chiefs Will Beat the BuccaneersNo one has won more Super Bowls than Tom Brady, but in a high-scoring game, Patrick Mahomes has a slight advantage.In his four-year N.F.L. career, Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs is 38-8 in the regular season — including a 27-24 win over Tampa Bay in Week 12 of this season — and 6-1 in the postseason.Credit…Kim Klement/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFeb. 5, 2021, 12:01 a.m. ETAfter last season’s magical run, nearly everyone expected the Kansas City Chiefs to be back in the Super Bowl this year. An appearance by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, coming off a 7-9 season in 2019 but given new life by a 43-year-old quarterback, came as more of a surprise.Florida turned out to be a fountain of youth for Tom Brady, and his team’s late-season surge has continued into the postseason, setting up a clash of quarterbacks some people call the GOAT (Brady) and the Baby GOAT (Patrick Mahomes), as in “greatest of all time.”The quarterbacks did not get to the championship game on Sunday by themselves. Both teams finished in the N.F.L.’s top 10 in most points scored and fewest points allowed, and while this game may end up having a high score, there are likely to be big defensive plays along the way.Here is a look at how the game should play out.Kansas City Chiefs at Tampa Bay BuccaneersSunday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, CBS | Line: Chiefs -3 | Total: 56What to Expect:When Tampa Bay Has the BallWhen Kansas City Has the BallHow It Will Play OutWhen Tampa Bay Has the BallAfter a few years of making things work in New England with a mediocre group of wide receivers, Tom Brady is surrounded by talent at Tampa Bay.Credit…Doug Murray/Associated PressIt is not hard to figure out why Tom Brady wanted to play with the Buccaneers.After struggling to get anything going with a mediocre group of wide receivers in his last few seasons with New England, Brady saw limitless opportunities in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. But if he was going to roll the dice with a new team, Brady didn’t want to stop with two Pro Bowl wide receivers, so he persuaded his old pal Rob Gronkowski, a tight end, to come out of retirement as well.When Tampa Bay’s season began with inconsistency and injuries, Brady lobbied the team to add wide receiver Antonio Brown, vouching for him as someone whose productivity would outweigh his troubles.There were flashes of brilliance and moments of frustration for the first three-quarters of the season. But after a loss to Kansas City in Week 12, the Buccaneers came out of their Week 13 bye looking like a new team. Over the next four weeks, Tampa Bay was 4-0 and averaged 37 points a game.That barrage has kept up in the postseason, with the Buccaneers scoring at least 30 points in each of their three road wins. They have a chance on Sunday to become the first N.F.L. team to have four 30-point games in a single postseason.While Tampa Bay can run effectively behind Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette, the expectation on Sunday is for Brady to move the ball downfield with short and medium throws to his four elite pass catchers, relying on them to gain yardage after the catch.The Chiefs will counter with a pass rush spearheaded by defensive tackle Chris Jones and a secondary largely controlled by safety Tyrann Mathieu, a run stopper and takeaway machine. Bashaud Breeland, the Chiefs’ top defensive back in terms of pass coverage, will have his hands full trying to stop Evans, Godwin and Brown.Brady is likely to put up quite a few passing yards, but Kansas City has a bend-don’t-break defense. It may not be as intimidating as some units — Tampa Bay’s included — but it has allowed the 10th fewest points in the N.F.L. this season. So while a 300-yard game from Brady may be expected, a continuation of Tampa Bay’s 30-point streak, which is at seven games over all, is less likely.When Kansas City Has the BallTight end Travis Kelce and wide receiver Tyreek Hill make sensational plays seem routine.Credit…Jack Dempsey/Associated PressMahomes isn’t fair. He uses speed and footwork to avoid sacks the way Aaron Rodgers does. He turns busted plays into huge runs the way Russell Wilson does, and he can zip an accurate pass to a receiver with a flick of the wrist the way Dan Marino used to. While it all plays out like a tightrope act, with Mahomes frequently drawing defenders in close before releasing the ball, he almost never panics, showing a precision in everything he does that belies the apparent improvisation.While it’s easy enough to explain his effectiveness by pointing to his 4,740 yards passing or his 38 touchdown passes this season, the two most significant statistics for Mahomes are probably his N.F.L.-best 1 percent interception rate and his 3.6 percent sack rate. You can let your eyes convince you that he is being reckless, but you would be emphatically wrong — as so many defenses have been.The Chiefs’ challenge was making sure they put players around Mahomes who could capitalize on his greatness, and they have two of the best in tight end Travis Kelce and wide receiver Tyreek Hill. Kelce set a record for receiving yards by a tight end this season (1,416), and would probably have topped 1,500 had Kansas City not rested its starters in Week 17. Hill is a touchdown threat on every play, with his speed sometimes overshadowing his elusiveness, strength and ability to make difficult catches and break tackles.Speed is everywhere on Kansas City’s offense — Mahomes, Kelce and Hill have it, too — and the rookie Clyde Edwards-Helaire added a threat to the running game that had been expected to be missing when Damien Williams opted out of the season.Considering Kansas City’s tendency to play its best when it is challenged most, this game seems to tilt in the Chiefs’ favor, with the biggest caveat being the team’s poor health on its offensive line. Kansas City is expected to be without its two starting tackles and multiple guards, leaving it short-handed against a Tampa Bay pass rush that has an extreme interior push from defensive tackles Vita Vea and Ndamukong Suh and elite edge rushing from Shaquil Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul.If Kansas City’s offensive line turns into a sieve — a possibility because it is essentially playing a backup at every spot — Mahomes will face a lot of pressure and his scrambling ability will be extremely tested. That, theoretically, could lead to a mistake or two on throws downfield — though relying on Mahomes to make mistakes is typically a fool’s errand.How It Will Play OutMahomes is in a place in his career where it is almost impossible to doubt him — something that should be familiar for Brady, who was once at the same peak with New England. It is easy to see the Buccaneers having a good day offensively, but even if they were to run up a significant lead, they should never feel safe, as the Chiefs have fallen behind by at least 9 points in four of their last five playoff games — including last year’s Super Bowl — and have won anyway.Mahomes has years of accomplishments ahead of him before his career can accurately be stacked up against Brady’s, but it seems like a safe bet that he will do something on Sunday that no quarterback has done since Brady: win back-to-back Super Bowls.Predicted Score: Chiefs 31, Buccaneers 26AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Staging the Super Bowl During a Big Crisis

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradySuper Bowl Party TipsThe N.F.L.’s ‘First’ Women Want CompanyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyStaging the Big Game During a Big CrisisWith the whole world watching, the N.F.L. and CBS face the challenge of presenting a uniquely American spectacle in a time of misery.On Tampa’s Riverwalk, the festivities surrounding Super Bowl LV were tempered by reminders of the coronavirus pandemic.Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesFeb. 4, 2021Updated 4:21 p.m. ETSince the last Super Bowl 12 months ago, a pandemic has killed at least two million people around the world, including about 450,000 Americans. January was the deadliest month, and last week roughly one American died every 30 seconds from Covid-19.The toll will grow through the Super Bowl on Sunday — during the big plays, among the slow-motion replays, amid the commercials, while the national anthem is sung and the halftime show is performed.That alone makes Super Bowl LV different than the 54 that have come before it. And it presents a unique challenge for the N.F.L. and its broadcast partner this year, CBS Sports.The practical question is no longer if they should play Super Bowl LV — it is the last of 269 N.F.L. games this season — but how to play it, and how it will be presented.Players will certainly hit, run and tackle as usual. But will the game be packaged as the usual spectacle of violence, commercialism and bombast? Should it be?“We’re trying to strike that right tone and be reflective on the year that has been while also providing a bit of hope for, you know, what’s on the other side,” said Peter O’Reilly, N.F.L. executive vice president of events, including the Super Bowl. “A lot goes into that.”The league promises a blend of cold reality and championship football. There may be a softer touch and more reflection, especially during the pregame programming.“The role of the broadcast is to certainly acknowledge the landscape around it, what’s happening around it, and then let’s get on with the game,” said Jim Bell, a former longtime executive producer at NBC for the Olympics and the Today show. “We’re hopefully all going to get a nice three-and-a-half-hour rest from Covid and politics, which I think we can all use.”The Super Bowl is the most American of sports events, beamed around the world, a proxy for how the United States sees itself, culturally. It is perennially the most-watched television broadcast in the United States, with an audience of about 100 million in the country last year, plus an estimated global audience of at least 50 million more.People in the United States and around the world will gauge the American state of affairs by what they see during Sunday’s broadcast.The past year, especially, has been one of political upheaval and sharp battles over race and social justice, on top of the pandemic.The United States has not responded well to the coronavirus outbreak since it was declared a pandemic almost 11 months ago — faltering perhaps more than any other major country with such vast resources for problem solving. It has about 5 percent of the world’s population, but nearly 20 percent of its reported Covid fatalities. Tens of thousands more are likely to die in the coming weeks, whatever the progress of the vaccine rollout.Some may consider it reckless to play such a game during a pandemic, to hold a potential super-spreader event at a football stadium in Tampa, Fla. — even one with a limited audience, adhering to social distancing and health protocols. It may encourage gatherings around the country and, at best, serve as a frivolous example of American priorities.Others might see the game as a source of inspiration, healing and unity.The divide might depend on how the game is presented by the N.F.L. and CBS. Viewers will certainly judge the social distancing, the mask wearing, the images on the screen and the words of the announcers — all parsed and debated in real time, thanks to social media.“It’s hard with social media and everybody waiting for someone to make a mistake, or be like, ‘All I wanted to do was get away from Covid for two minutes,’” Bell said, adding: “That can be a pretty nasty place to have your head space while you’re trying to produce the single-biggest event on the planet.”Not everyone will be happy with the results.A healthcare worker assisted a patient at a coronavirus testing site in Phoenix last month. As the Super Bowl approached, Americans were dying of Covid-19 at a rate of more than one every minute.Credit…Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“I can only really, in some ways, applaud them in the challenge that they clearly have taken on,” said Patrick Nally, a British sports-marketing executive with deep experience in the Olympics, soccer and an array of other major sports. “At the same time, I hope that they see the need to be as responsible as they must be, and present it in a manner that really reflects the tragedy that we’re all facing.”The game represents an odd chance for an American makeover — a new year, a new administration, a new outlook. It will be a 2021 America packaged and broadcast to the world. While the N.F.L. has a chance to look really good, or really bad, in ways never imagined before, Americans may be judged right along with the league.“In many ways, they are torch-carrying for the United States as a nation,” Nally said. “If ever there was an opportunity to present, to comment, in the right, responsible manner, this is the chance of doing it.”In Mourning, or In Vegas? Other sports leagues have had a chance to address the toll of the pandemic in recent months, though not with an audience this vast or a single game this orchestrated.The issue will confront the postponed Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which were rescheduled for this July and August. Next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing will be closely watched, to see how the Chinese spin their role in the pandemic.The question of navigating something as frivolous-seeming as sports amid an ongoing crisis is not new, though there are no true historical parallels. Wartime might be the closest thing.During World War II, the Olympics were called off, but the N.F.L. and Major League Baseball conducted seasons and championships despite some players’ being pulled into duty. The N.F.L. finished its regular season on Dec. 7, 1941, the day of the Pearl Harbor bombing, and held playoff games a week later, as scheduled.There have been occasional examples of singular events that rocked the sports landscape, like terrorism at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, or the deadly earthquake that interrupted the 1989 World Series. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the N.F.L. took the next weekend off and baseball paused for six days.“After 9/11, I spent the next four days talking to everybody, including the president of the United States, about when we should come back and what’s healthy and what’s productive,” said Bud Selig, the Major League Baseball commissioner at the time. “In our own little way I do think that we helped.”Selig acknowledged that the era and circumstances are different now. Twenty years ago, Americans generally rallied together in a show of patriotism. The country today feels far more divided, even on matters of Covid protocols.“It is very sensitive, and you have to be extremely careful,” Selig said of the N.F.L. “But they’re smart, and they know what they have to do.”When the New York Mets played their first home game after the attacks, Mayor Rudy Giuliani got a rousing ovation, and Liza Minnelli danced and sang “New York, New York” during the seventh-inning stretch.“Are we in mourning, or Las Vegas?” The New York Times columnist Harvey Araton asked.That is the type of question the N.F.L. will ask itself on Sunday, as it searches for balance in a game that usually has no such restraints on pageantry, volume or tone.Is this year’s Super Bowl mere entertainment, a diversion from the ongoing horror? Does it reflect our losses and our past failings? Or does it signal a new tone and even recalibrate the way we move forward?“I think America needs this Super Bowl,” said Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports. “I think it’s an opportunity for the country to come together. I think it’s going to be uplifting. I think it’s going to be unifying. And I think it’s coming at the right time.”The game promises unique touches. Raymond James Stadium will have only about 25,000 spectators, roughly a third of its capacity, because of distancing mandates. That will make it the least-attended Super Bowl in history.The N.F.L. has given 7,500 tickets to vaccinated health-care workers. All fans will be given KN-95 respirator masks as they enter, the league said, and seating has been devised for distancing. Gaps between fans will be filled with cardboard cutouts of people.Nurses at a vaccination site in Los Angeles late last month. Thousands of health-care workers received tickets to the Super Bowl in Tampa.Credit…Ryan Young for The New York TimesIf there is an unusually somber mood, it will be most obvious in the pregame. A nurse, a teacher and a Marine veteran will serve as honorary captains for the coin toss, and the poet Amanda Gorman, fresh from her star turn at the presidential inauguration, will recite an original poem. (The N.F.L. said she was invited before her appearance at the inaugural.) A video featuring Vince Lombardi, the Hall of Fame coach of the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, will lead into a performance of “America the Beautiful,” the league said.“You’ll see that tone in the pregame and in the pieces that are in-stadium and on air,” said O’Reilly, the N.F.L. vice president overseeing the Super Bowl. “And the moments that are always big and powerful around the Super Bowl will take on just a bit more significance this year.”Bell, the veteran producer who left NBC in 2019, said a key part of good sports broadcasts is “storytelling,” a model handed down from the likes of producers Roone Arledge and Dick Ebersol.“You may see it sprinkled into the telecast, as it relates to the players, coaches and teams,” Bell said. “I know those guys will do a fantastic job of finding the right balance and having the right tone between covering the game and telling the stories.”Protocols around Covid-19 have made it trickier than usual to prepare for the game broadcast, but they have created some unexpected opportunities. Camera platforms and wires were fitted into places where they could not normally have been, offering a chance for unusual angles.N.F.L. stadiums this season have had an extra buffer between the teams on the sidelines and fans in the seats, usually several empty rows of seats covered by a tarp. For the Super Bowl, the first seven rows will be wrapped in LED screens.“Are we going to get excited if Brady or Mahomes throws a 60-yard touchdown pass, or if Tyreek Hill goes crazy?” McManus said of quarterbacks Tom Brady (Buccaneers) and Patrick Mahomes (Chiefs). “We’re going to get excited. And we’re going to kind of forget our troubles for a while.”The bottom rows of seats, normally covered in tarps during the Super Bowl, will bear LED screens, providing an opportunity to promote certain messages.Credit…Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesHe added: “We’re not going to be somber, and we’re not going to be depressing. But I think we’re going to put everything in perspective.”The same is true for all those connecting themselves to the game, like television advertisers reportedly paying $5.5 million for 30 seconds of time. Some perennial participants, like Budweiser, have opted out of their usual slots, choosing social media as a more understated way to get pitches across.The question is whether the world at game’s end is any different. Maybe it will be a source of unity, a boost for American pride. Maybe if Kansas City Coach Andy Reid wears a mask, or Jim Nantz of CBS suggests that Americans get vaccinated, it could be a teaching moment. Might the production feel too political, or too preachy, or not enough of either?The only certainty on Sunday is that the death count from Covid-19 will rise, by the hundreds or thousands just in the United States, as millions watch a football game.How that game is received, and how America is reflected in the moment, is up to the N.F.L.“It puts them on a wonderful pedestal to present a very responsible and a very positive image of themselves and their organization,” said Nally, the global marketing expert. “Which under normal circumstances they would never have.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Super Bowl Sunday Changes: Face Masks, Empty Seats and Driveway Parties

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Chiefs Fans’ Generational DivideReconsidering Tom BradySuper Bowl Party TipsThe N.F.L.’s ‘First’ Women Want CompanyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySuper Bowl Sunday Changes: Face Masks, Empty Seats and Driveway PartiesThe Super Bowl will once again feature the Chiefs, but almost every other part of the fan experience could be different.Dan Newby, owner of Crossroads Tours bus company, had an offer for Chiefs fans wanting to travel to Tampa, Fla., for the Super Bowl: For $9,000, a close group of travelers can get a bus that sleeps 12 — meaning no hotel costs in Tampa — and a driver.Credit…Chase Castor for The New York TimesAmaris Castillo and Feb. 4, 2021, 3:30 p.m. ETTAMPA, Fla. — One year ago, Dan Newby was on top of the world.Five buses from his company, Crossroad Tours, picked the Kansas City Chiefs up from the airport when they returned home from the Super Bowl as conquering heroes. Days later, those buses transported quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Coach Andy Reid and the Lombardi Trophy to Union Station in downtown Kansas City as part of a victory parade.The next month, as the coronavirus shut down almost all nonessential travel, the bottom fell out of Newby’s business. A packed schedule of trips for sports teams, church groups and schools was wiped clean.“Every bus we had was parked from March 13 to September 14,” Newby said.The Super Bowl is still the biggest event in American sports, and most fans will have only a few opportunities, if any (sorry Lions fans), to watch their team play in it, let alone attend in person. This Sunday the Super Bowl will once again feature the Chiefs, this time against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but Kansas City’s team will be about the only constant from last year.The most obvious change, for one of the most coveted tickets in sports, is that Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium will be only a third full. Although 7,500 of the 25,000 seats will be filled by vaccinated health care workers, attending for free as guests of the N.F.L. and presented with gifts of face masks and hand sanitizer as they enter, there are still plenty of fans buying tickets, selling tickets, scheming to attend or traveling to Tampa without a ticket just to soak up the atmosphere.Karen Ricardi, who works as a nurse manager at a hospital in Lutz, Fla., will be one of the lucky few after winning tickets through a drawing. A Massachusetts native who has lived in Florida for about 16 years, she considers herself a fan of both the Buccaneers and the New England Patriots — Tom Brady’s teams, present and past.“I never thought I’d ever go to a Super Bowl because the cost is so prohibitive,” she said. “It still feels surreal.”Jeremiah Coleman, a Chiefs fan who owns a car dealership in Wichita, Kan., will be there, too. He planned to fly to Tampa on Thursday evening.Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs strolled Tampa Riverwalk during lead-up events for the Super Bowl.Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesColeman said he thought about traveling to see his team in the Super Bowl last year, but chose to host a party for his friends instead. “I’ve had these friends some 20 or 30 years, and we’ve never got to watch the Super Bowl together,” he said. “So I said, ‘I don’t want to leave all them.’”This year, however, he plunked down $6,753 for a ticket, in part because his cousin, who was born and raised in Kansas City, now lives in Tampa. Earlier this season, he made the same trip, to watch the Chiefs play the Buccaneers in the same stadium on the weekend after Thanksgiving.Coleman’s cousin, Sara Carrasquillo, also bought a ticket, which she acknowledged was quite expensive. But since she lives in the Tampa area, she has no travel costs. “I just realized that I can always make the money back,” said Carrasquillo, who owns a waxing studio. “It’s not going to take me a whole lot of time to make it back, as if maybe I worked for someone.”Neither of the cousins seemed to have many health concerns about attending. Carrasquillo said she believed that the necessary precautions were being taken, and that because she has healthy eating habits she is in a “good position to fight off any virus.” Coleman said that he would wear a mask and wash his hands consistently, but that his mantra was to “be conscious but not scared.”Ultimately for Coleman, the allure of watching his favorite team in the Super Bowl overrode all other considerations. “On my deathbed, this will probably be one of the top five days I remember in my life, you know?” he said.Getting to see the Super Bowl in person may be tougher than ever. Chiefs fans hoping to attend the game could buy tickets through the N.F.L. or the team, or through companies that work with the league to sell packages that can include airfare, lodging, food and entertainment. Or they could buy up seats purchased by the dejected fans of teams who didn’t make it.Christian Mollon, a Buffalo Bills fan who now lives in Kansas City, paid almost $20,000, including fees, for two Super Bowl tickets before the A.F.C. championship game against the Chiefs. He had a hotel room reserved in Tampa, and was just waiting for the Bills to win. They did not.Christian Mollon, a Buffalo Bills fan who now lives in the Kansas City area, paid almost $20,000, including fees, for two Super Bowl tickets before the A.F.C. championship game against the Chiefs.Credit…Chase Castor for The New York TimesHe said that he got a number of nibbles for his tickets, but that while he tried to sell them at cost, most potential buyers tried to talk him down.What if nobody is willing to pay full cost? Well, his wife would be furious, Mollon joked last week, “but we’re taking a trip down to Tampa.”(That won’t be happening. Over the weekend he was able to unload the tickets for about $17,000, covering the ticket costs but not most of the fees he had paid.)For those traveling from Kansas City but unsure about flying, Newby — who said his bus business declined by 85 percent in 2020 — came up with a solution. He has been advertising his entertainer buses, the kind normally used for concert tours, on Craigslist. For $9,000, he said, a close group of travelers can get a bus that sleeps 12 — meaning no hotel costs in Tampa — and a driver.“You have to have 12 people in one family, or 12 people in a group of friends, a pod that has the money to go there,” said Newby, whose company sent 56-seat charter buses to the Super Bowl outside Miami last year. As of late last week, he had not found any takers.“It’s just hard,” Newby said. “People are going in two and threes, threes and fours, and they’re driving.”About the only consolation during a tough summer for Newby was the Chiefs giving him a Super Bowl ring in recognition of his years ferrying the team around.Credit…Chase Castor for The New York TimesThe vast majority of Chiefs fans face a different complication: What to do about a Super Bowl party? Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has advised people not to invite friends and family over on Sunday, in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. “Just lay low and cool it,” he said on Wednesday.Such messaging has been a boon for James Hansen, the owner of Easy Audio Rental in Olathe, Kan. Hansen’s company rents out projectors and other audiovisual equipment, and he said he expected to be sold out for the first time since 2015, when the Kansas City Royals were in the World Series.Rather than have everybody crowd around a television in the living room, he said, fans may try to play it safer — and still have a crowd — by setting up a projector on the front lawn or the driveway.“These Midwesterners don’t mind a little cold,” Hansen said. They had better not: The temperature there on Sunday is projected to top out at 30 degrees.Chiefs fans, however, are used to attending cold-weather games at Arrowhead Stadium. Hansen said his brother and father, who have season tickets, followed Chiefs games all season by setting up a television in the garage and watching from the driveway.Hansen said his family was no different from so many others these days. “They really just want to be together,” he said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    The Weeknd’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Breaks With Tradition

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Weeknd’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Breaks With TraditionThis time, the field won’t be swarming with fans crowding the stage. In fact, the stage won’t be on the field at all, but in the stands.The Weeknd in concert. He will be headlining the Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa on Sunday.Credit…Hayoung Jeon/EPA, via ShutterstockJulia Jacobs and Feb. 4, 2021, 3:09 p.m. ETWhether it stars Al Hirt, Michael Jackson or Beyoncé, the Super Bowl halftime show has always taken center stage on the field.But for the first time in the 55-year history of the game, the Weeknd, who is headlining this Sunday in Tampa, Fla., will perform on a stage set up in the stands in keeping with strict coronavirus protocols intended to limit contact with the players and coaches; his act may, however, include a brief interlude on the field.In a typical year, a massive stage is rolled onto the field and hundreds of fans pour out to surround it; this year only about 1,050 people are expected to work to put on the show, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 most years. Performers and crew members will receive Covid-19 tests before rehearsals and before the performance.When he strode to the microphone Thursday at a news conference, the Weeknd took in the room and noted, “It’s kind of empty.” His words were perhaps a preview of how the stadium might look to people watching from home. (About 25,000 fans will be in the stadium — less than half its 65,000-person capacity — joined by thousands of two-dimensional cardboard cutouts of fans provided by the N.F.L.)The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye), is a 30-year-old Canadian pop star known for hits including “Can’t Feel My Face” and “Starboy.” His concerts often have a brooding feel and a dark, avant-garde edge. (The music video for his latest hit, “Blinding Lights,” opens with the Weeknd laughing maniacally, his face covered in blood.) He said that his halftime show would incorporate some of his trademark artistic themes but that he plans to be “respectful to the viewers at home.”“The story will continue,” he said, “but definitely we’ll keep it PG for the families.”This will be the second Super Bowl halftime show produced in part by Jay-Z and his entertainment company, Roc Nation, who were recruited by the N.F.L. in 2019. At the time, performers were refusing to work with the league, in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Europe Mines an Emerging Market for Soccer Talent: the U.S.

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn SoccerEurope Is Mining an Emerging Talent Market: the U.S.All the big clubs know Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Gio Reyna. More recently, the callers have asked about Bryan Reynolds, Brenden Aaronson and others like them.Bryan Reynolds wasn’t a household name in American soccer circles, but Roma and Juventus knew him well.Credit…Orlin Wagner/Associated PressFeb. 4, 2021, 2:11 p.m. ETOver the last few months, André Zanotta has taken calls from teams in France, Belgium and Germany. Little in the transfer market eludes the gimlet eye of Sevilla, so the Spanish side was in touch, too. And then there were the Italians. It seemed to Zanotta that he has spoken to every major club in Serie A.Zanotta is used to this kind of frenzy. A decade ago, he was a vice president at Santos, in his native Brazil, when a teenage Neymar was coming through. A few years later, he was at Grêmio when Arthur Melo emerged as one of South America’s brightest prospects. (Both players were eventually sold to Barcelona.)That has long been how it works in Brazil, soccer’s great hothouse of talent, of course: Europe’s major clubs lie permanently in wait, ready to pounce when a scout or an agent or a contact alerts them to even the slightest flicker of promise. The difference, this time, was that Zanotta was taking those calls not in São Paulo or Pôrto Alegre, but Dallas.All of the clubs contacting Zanotta — the technical director at F.C. Dallas — were doing so to ask him about the teenage right back Bryan Reynolds. At that stage, Reynolds had played only a couple of dozen games in Major League Soccer, but that had been enough to pique their curiosity.“They loved his technical ability, his athleticism,” Zanotta said of the European suitors who called to ask about Reynolds. “They could see in his profile that he could adapt to any of the top leagues in Europe.” Eventually, two made a firm bid: Juventus and Roma. Persuaded by Roma’s coach, Paulo Fonseca, that he could offer a quicker route to first-team soccer, Reynolds chose to move to the Italian capital. Roma could eventually pay as much as $11 million for the privilege of signing him.He is not the only young American player to have made that journey during Europe’s winter transfer window. In the past month, the Philadelphia Union sold the defender Mark McKenzie to K.R.C. Genk, in Belgium, and the midfielder Brenden Aaronson to Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg. New York City F.C.’s Joe Scally completed his long-anticipated move to Borussia Mönchengladbach, and two more, slightly older, players — Jordan Morris and Paul Arriola — joined Swansea City, in England’s second tier, too. They may collide there one day with Orlando City striker Daryl Dike; the 20-year-old agreed to a loan move to Barnsley on Monday.Brenden Aaronson’s breakout season with the Philadelphia Union resulted in a move to Red Bull Salzburg, where he will play for another M.L.S. expatriate, Jesse Marsch.Credit…Barbara Gindl/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTheir path is, increasingly, a well-trod one: All join an American contingent in Europe that already includes Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, Christian Pulisic, Josh Sargent and Giovanni Reyna.“Major League Soccer used to sell players to Europe episodically,” said Dimitrios Efstathiou, M.L.S.’s senior vice president for player relations. “It would be as a result of an existing relationship between two coaches, or on the back of a good performance at the World Cup.”Now, that has changed. “It is four, five or six every window,” said Fred Lipka, technical director of the M.L.S. Next youth development program. “And that validates the process.”The relatively sudden transformation — of the United States in general, and M.L.S. in particular — from an afterthought in the minds of European teams into prime hunting territory has twin explanations, one from each side of the Atlantic.From an M.L.S. perspective, it is a result of what Lipka calls “the process, a complete shift in the way players are developed” in the league over the last 14 years. In 2007, M.L.S. made a decision to invest more in its academies: not just in the facilities clubs could offer for developing players, but the type of training they received there.“We invested in coaching education, in academy directors, in trying to ensure there was more exchange with Europe and South America, and to import best practice,” Lipka said. “There is more emphasis on technical and tactical training, not just on athletic development. To build a plane, you need to have engineers who know how to build a plane.”In 2018, Tyler Adams was a teenage starter for the Red Bulls in M.L.S. But suitors were already circling.Credit…Vincent Carchietta/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLast summer, Adams scored against Atlético Madrid as RB Leipzig advanced to the Champions League semifinals.Credit…Pool photo by Lluis GeneReynolds, Aaronson and many — but not all — of the rest are the fruit of that labor, their flourishing helped not only by the commitment of their clubs to allowing homegrown players to flourish — “It is in our D.N.A. to allow young players to reach the top level,” Zanotta said of F.C. Dallas, where McKennie honed his game as an academy player — but by the rising standards of the league as a whole.“The owners have been investing more money in better signings,” Zanotta said. “So the quality of player in the league is growing, and that helps the development of the American players.” His counterpart in Philadelphia, Ernst Tanner, said the level of play in the league was only part of it; the prevalence of a “high-press, high-risk, more dynamic” style of play in M.L.S. helps, too, since teams in Europe need players who are comfortable playing precisely that way.The European version of the story is not at odds with that, but its emphasis falls elsewhere. “I think when Christian Pulisic came over and established himself at a high level, that opened the door to other teams scouting young players in the U.S.,” said Jesse Marsch, the American coach of Red Bull Salzburg, Aaronson’s new club.“You had Christian, Weston McKennie, Josh Sargent, Tyler Adams all having success in professional environments, and that encouraged others to go and scout earlier and earlier in America, and that meant more and more opportunities for players, especially in Germany.”Weston McKennie’s success in Germany, and now with Juventus in Italy, has helped to change the perceptions of American prospects in both leagues.Credit…Alberto Estevez/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is not, in other words, necessarily the case that European teams suddenly noticed a change in what was on offer in the American market. It is that Pulisic’s breakthrough — initially at Borussia Dortmund, and then at Chelsea — encouraged more teams to look at the market, seriously, for the first time.Zanotta does not contest that interpretation; the transfer market, in his experience, has always been slightly inclined to follow fashion. “We have seen it here, too,” he said. “You have times when there are a lot of Argentineans doing well, or Brazilians, and that drives clubs to pay more attention to a specific market.”The closer European teams have looked, too, the more they have found M.L.S. an easy place to do business. Rather than try to resist the predators circling its brightest prospects — or leaving its clubs to navigate the murky corners of the transfer market alone — the league has an entire department, run by Efstathiou, dedicated to helping facilitate deals.His dozen liaison officers are in daily contact with all of M.L.S.’s 27 clubs, “keeping tabs on potential transactions, both in and out.” The league monitors and assists with deals every step of the way, both in its legal capacity as the ultimate employer of every player, and in an advisory role, offering guidance on the realities of “the wider marketplace.”If that seems counterintuitive — that a league should be smoothing the passage of some of its brightest talents to its theoretical competitors — to Tanner, for one, it is the natural conclusion of the process. “For now, if we develop a high-level player, it is only right that we sell them to allow them to reach their full potential,” he said.To Efstathiou, it is not only unavoidable, but beneficial. “To improve the quality on the field, we have to be full participants in the market,” he said. “That means buying, as well as selling.”His team is not likely to see any quiet any time soon. In Philadelphia, Tanner hears “daily” from representatives of European teams, eager not to miss out on the successor to McKenzie and Aaronson. Zanotta has already fielded inquiries about players at F.C. Dallas who might replace Reynolds — or his predecessor, Reggie Cannon, now with the Portuguese club Boavista — in Texas. He is not the only one. European clubs are monitoring the likes of Julian Araujo, a 19-year-old fullback with the Los Angeles Galaxy, and the young Real Salt Lake goalkeeper David Ochoa. Both will, most likely, be the subject of interest when the transfer market reopens this summer.Lipka takes that as a considerable compliment, and a testament to the work M.L.S. has done in the past decade and more. He remembers a point — not so long ago — when the few American players who made it to Europe were treated with suspicion, assumed to be hard-running and hard-working but technically limited, and when the old world’s biggest clubs would not even consider the United States as a market worth tapping.“It used to be a burden to be a young American player,” Lipka said. “Now, I think it is quite a good time.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More