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N.B.A. Bubble
Although the N.B.A. bubble occurred in a COVID-19 hotspot (Florida), the N.B.A. and the players did a great job in coming together to restart the N.B.A. as safe as possible. The N.B.A. bubble, also referred to as the Disney or Orlando bubble, was the quarantine zone created by the National Basketball Association (N.B.A.). It was designed to prevent its players from contracting the COVID-19 virus as they prepared to wrap up the final eight games of the regular season and through the playoffs in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. Only twenty-two teams were invited to participate out of the thirty teams in the N.B.A.; all the games were held in empty stadiums behind closed doors at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex while the groups were accommodated at the Disney World hotels (Anderson 12).
The project cost $170 million. The twenty-two parties invited to participate were within six games of a playoff spot when the pandemic cut the season short; the playoffs resumed in July when the N.B.A. approved the N.B.A. bubble. Although both the coaches and players had mixed feelings about the project, they used it as a platform for the B.L.M. (Black Lives Matter) movement. The bubble accommodated three exhibit scrimmages in late July and eight other regular-season games by the invited teams to establish the playoff seeding. The season finally came to an end as the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Miami Heat in the final. The N.B.A. mounted 5.2m screens on the courts to exhibit multimedia content and a mosaic of virtual fans conducted by Microsoft Teams as the spectators were not allowed to attend to watch the games in person. The games were limited to only three arenas as a precautionary measure. Advertisement campaigns “It’s a whole new game” were promoted by the N.B.A. to support the resumption (Anderson).
The eight teams that were not invited into the tournament were in talks with the N.B.A. to organize an eight-team bubble in Chicago to participate in a competitive environment instead of being out of the rest of the season from March to December. There was a lot of doubt on the second bubble’s success, but eventually, the plan fell through. For the project to be successful, the N.B.A. laid out a one hundred page rule book; the rules included quarantine periods, testing requirements, and the potential for financial penalties upon the termination of the set rules by any individual from the players to the coaches involved in the project. Any player required to quarantine would be necessary to resume training or participation in games only after the isolation period due to positive feedback from several tests.
The players were also required to wear masks during training sessions, and eating breaks being the only exceptions, the cleaning and training staff were also required to wear masks and gloves at all times. All the Disney facilities were free to be used by the players. The bubble was extremely effective in preventing the spread of the virus, particularly to the players enabling the season to resume as early as July 30. Through the cooperation of all individuals involved, the project resulted in successful streaks of zero positive cases from the players for as long as three weeks; this success led to the admission of close friends and family of the players admitted into the bubble from August 19. The season ended without a single positive case from the bubble (Clark 8).
Works Cited
Anderson, Sam. “What I Learned Inside The N.B.A. Bubble.” Nytimes.Com, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/magazine/nba-bubble.html. 5-12
Clark, Nathan. “The N.B.A. Restart: A Numbers Game.” B.Y.U. Scholarsarchive, 2020, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/marriottstudentreview/vol3/iss4/34/. 4-8