NBA Plays a Big Role in Success of Other Sports in 2021

The National Basketball Association (NBA) successfully completed the shortened 2019-2020 regular season and the playoffs inside a bubble in Orlando. That bubble was successfully replicated in the Philippines as the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) held its own bubble in Clark to complete the compressed all-Filipino conference. Also in Pampanga, the National Basketball League (NBL) held this season's President's Cup finals in a bubble. Even Clark is also set to host a bubble for the third window of the 2021 International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Asia Cup qualifiers in February 2021. It seems that whatever the NBA does successfully, it's something that the rest of the world of sports will try to replicate.

The same thing can be said about how sports are going to be held in 2021.

Off the Record with Migs and Cesca aired its final episode for 2020 on Monday where Migs Bustos and Cesca Litton-Kalaw looked back at some of the sporting events that happened in 2020 despite the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Among the things that Bustos and Litton-Kalaw talked about was the possibility that sporting events can finally be held outside a bubble for 2021. As Litton-Kalaw said, "I'm hoping that someday, there'll be no more bubbles at all. I'm hoping that we could go back to the venues. I'm hoping that we could all cheer for our teams right in front of us,"

The key to that possibility belongs to the NBA who just started the 2020-2021 regular last week. As Migs Bustos explained, "The NBA will again be the key to that. The NBA started a new season. They have home-and-away games but they have no fans. Hopefully, organizers from all over the world will be able to share their templates. Learn from NBA's templates on how they're doing it,"

Who knows? The PBA might just be able to do away with closed-door games at the Smart Araneta Coliseum come next year. The same with other leagues here and abroad. That's why all eyes are on the NBA as they try to complete the first half of the new season despite the still ongoing pandemic.  

Screenshot is from pinoyliga.com Facebook page