Opinion | Hong Kong Sevens: how World Rugby and Hong Kong Rugby Union can pull off an April tournament
- World Rugby and HKRU have a number of case studies to draw from, including all four major North American sports, the UFC and European football
- Selling the tournament as a local event, reducing fan capacity and getting international players into a bubble are all plausible
The sporting world has many examples of how to go about staging events and games during the global pandemic.
All four major North American leagues – the National Football League, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association – have successfully resumed play, albeit without fans for the most part.
The NFL kicked off in September and made a number of adjustments to cope with the new Covid-19 landscape. They cancelled all preseason games, international matches, the Pro Bowl and allowed players to opt out of their contracts if they didn’t want to play for the season. Some games have had fans in states where cases are low and restrictions are loose, and a few games have been postponed as players have tested positive.
The NHL resumed its 2019-20 season with a bubble format in two Canadian cities – Edmonton and Toronto – and didn’t record a single case during the play-offs. Players, coaches, staff and league employees were holed up in hotels close to the arenas and the whole thing went off smoothly.
The MLB got its 2020 season off the books, crowned a champion after a condensed season and was able to weather a number of cluster outbreaks. They held play-off games at neutral sites, and even found a way to have their one Canadian team – the Toronto Blue Jays – relocate to Buffalo for home games to deal with international border restrictions.
