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To be clear, sports is at the bottom of the priority totem pole when it comes to the benefits of this reported antibody test. Saving lives is the utmost priority — plain and simple. I’d give up sports until 2021 if it meant people stopped dying.
But, that said, we are a male lifestyle website, looking at things through the perspective of the normals like you and I. And right now, we miss fucking sports. That doesn’t make us bad people, it makes us human. I truly can’t even calculate what percentage of my personality is built around sports. From playing them as a kid and into college, to gambling on them and watching the game at the bar with the squad, it’s fair to say that sports are perhaps the most popular common hobby amongst men. So taking that away from us is no small thing. In the grand scheme of things — life and death — it’s a very small thing, but when it comes to who we are and what we do with our free time day-in and day-out, it’s a massive L.
As someone who lives adjacent to New York City — I live in Hoboken, NJ, which I like to consider the Sixth Borough, as its easier to get to Manhattan from here than it is from Brooklyn — I tune into Cuomo’s press conferences every day, and finally, in recent days, they’ve become to take a positive turn, as the two below screengrabs show two positively-trending sets of number.
COME ON YOU AMERICANS! GET IN THERE! pic.twitter.com/gOiqnwgubv
— Eric Italiano (@eric_ital) April 6, 2020
Then, today, Cuomo announced that the state was developing and is ready to scale up an antibody test, which can reportedly show results in 15 minutes:
The state will "invest" in companies that can bring up tests to scale, Cuomo indicates.
Asks for private companies that want to get "into this space" to contact @EmpireStateDev
— Marie French (@m_jfrench) April 7, 2020
New York state has developed a Covid-19 antibody test, says @NYGovCuomo. Working on FDA approval and then plan to scale it up. FDA has so far approved only one other, Cellex. Sports could come back with antibody test and regular rapid testing.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 7, 2020
Now, here’s the reason why that’s so relevant to the resumption of professional sports: when it comes to getting sports back on track, the biggest logistical hurdle seems to be the concern of one player getting infected and thus infecting his fellow competitors, which would then cause gameplay to be shut down again, sending everyone back to squad one. This is why we’ve seen BioDome-esque solutions cropping up from leagues such as the UFC and MLB: Dana White is looking for a “private island” to host fights at, while Major League Baseball is considering the possibility of a “biocity”, as they’re looking at the Phoenix area as a potential destination to play every game. However, with a mass-produced antibody test that yields results in 15-minutes, sports league could test all players prior to gameplay and then continually test them to make sure everyone remains healthy.
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Eric is a New York City-based writer who still isn’t quite sure how he’s allowed to have this much fun for a living and will tell anyone who listens that Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. Follow him on Twitter @eric_ital for movie and soccer takes or contact him eric@brobible.com