A Pandemic-Proof Bubble?

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When the coronavirus hit the United States, the N.B.A. was faced with a unique challenge. It seemed impossible to impose social distancing in basketball, an indoor sport with players almost constantly jostling one another for more than two hours. However, there was a big financial incentive to keep games going: ending the 2019 season early would have cost the league an estimated $1 billion in television revenue. The solution? A sealed campus for players, staff and selected journalists at Disney World in Florida. Marc Stein, who covers the N.B.A. for The New York Times, has been living out of a hotel room in the complex for the last 40 days. Today, we speak to him about what life is like inside the bubble. Guest: Marc Stein, a sports reporter for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Twenty-two of the league’s 30 teams are living in the Disney World complex. Life on the campus is both strange and mundane.The N.B.A. has sought to replicate the home-court edge through music, audio cues and graphics from the “home” teams’ arenas.

Transcript

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0:32.6	This is Mark Stein, NBA reporter for The New York Times.
0:39.8	I am court side for first round NBA playoff game.
0:46.4	No fans in the building apart from virtual fans on the video board.
0:52.7	There's piped in crowd noise both in the arena and on television.
0:56.7	So they've gone to great lengths to try to create some atmosphere in here, here in the NBA
1:02.7	bubble.
1:05.7	It's surreal really.
1:08.1	There's never been an NBA postseason like this.
1:15.2	From The New York Times, I'm Michael Robaro.
1:17.8	This is a daily.
1:20.3	So the game just tipped off, game is underway today.
1:25.7	To finish its regular season and reach the playoffs this week, the NBA has undertaken
1:32.6	a social and medical experiment unlike anything in the history of sports.
1:40.0	My colleague, Mark Stein, on life inside the NBA bubble.
	...

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