Today in 2020, the NBA Shut Down for COVID-19, and Everything Changed
Six years ago tonight, the full gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic became apparent when the NBA suspended play. The decision, made after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus, triggered similar moves from college and professional leagues and set the stage for the full shutdown of American society.
"Sports have always been an important part of American culture," said Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former U.S. surgeon general, to ESPN at the time. "And when the NBA suspended its season, that was a powerful signal to people that something profound about our way of life is about to change."
March 11, 2020: The sports world stops
Leading up to March 11, Americans had certainly become more aware of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China and spread to the United States, among other places.
There were already indications that life was about to change, with local governments around the country announcing enhanced restrictions. In the sports realm, the Ivy League announced the day before, March 10, that it was canceling its men's and women's basketball tournaments.
Still, the NBA was moving forward with its slate of games that night as scheduled--until Gobert tested positive.
"It felt like the tipping point toward society getting shut down shortly after," said The Athletic's Zach Harper in 2025.
Other sports follow suit
The following day, the NHL announced it was also shutting down temporarily. Major college basketball tournaments like the ACC, Big East and Big Ten were all canceled; by the weekend, so were the men's and women's NCAA Tournaments.
MLB paused spring training and announced it would not be starting its season on time. The next few months featured no major sports and plenty of uncertainty as Americans adjusted to life in a pandemic.
On July 30, 2020, the NBA resumed play inside the "bubble" at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. By this time, the MLB season had begun, and there were plans for football in the fall.
"In some ways I was less proud, in a way, of the fact that we were the canary in the mine, so to speak, on shutting things down than the fact that we found a way to operate in that summer in our so-called bubble and found a way, pre-vaccines in a COVID environment, to resume our business," NBA commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN last year. "That, to me, was something because there, through planning and enormous cooperation of 30 teams and government officials in Florida and you name it, we figured out a way to operate when people badly wanted television programming and entertainment and most of the country was still shut down."