Slowly but surely, sports are closer to normal. Fans are beginning to populate stadiums and arenas. In most cases, home venues are being used for competition. The Master’s will once again be golf’s first major.
As sports returns to normal, will the numbers follow?
- Fresh off back-to-back MVP caliber seasons, Christian Yelich hit .205 in a 60-game 2020 season.
- Less than one month from the start of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Michigan State are nowhere near the top-25.
- In the NFL, road teams won more games than home teams during the regular season.
- The Bucks entered the Orlando bubble with a record of 51-8. Milwaukee finished the regular season losing 9 of its last 14 games.
A pandemic mulligan will be awarded by the court of public opinion for head-scratching abnormalities during the most bizarre calendar year of sports in my lifetime.
Routines were scrapped. Stadiums and arenas lacked usual enthusiasm.
But now that the arrow is pointing in the right direction, I ask you again…will the numbers follow?
That will be the expectation.
