SBJ Football: COVID Continues To Test NFL Schedule Flexibility

It was slightly surprising when Chris Mortensen reported Monday that the NFL is preparing an expanded playoffs if regular-season games are lost to COVID-19. The league had just completed its third straight week with no virus-related postponements, and it appeared that things were somewhat under control.
But since then, we’ve had a rough week. COVID-19 disruptions continued to pop up around the league -- including a bevy of Ravens, a starting QB, a team president and a GM. Today, the Texans and Bears closed their facilities after a player on each team tested positive, and the Colts and Chiefs altered plans after staffers tested positive. Just goes to show: the virus tight-rope walk can go south at any time, and quickly, and there’s less flexibility in the schedule with each passing week.
The talk of a postseason adjustment emerged one day before the NFL again expanded virus-mitigation protocols -- now players will have to wear masks before and after games, and sidelines are expanded to allow more distancing. It’s truly a day-to-day, minute-to-minute effort to stay ahead of outbreaks.
As of this moment, the Week 9 schedule is intact, starting tonight in Santa Clara. But as the playoff scenario planning shows, the league isn’t assuming anything about the future.

Since before Arthur Blank was even in the sports business, Mike Egan was by his side. The corporate lawyer represented Home Depot at first. One thing led to another, and now 25 years later, Egan is retiring as the legal muscle behind the entire AMB Sports & Entertainment empire.
Egan only came in-house six years ago. But as a partner at King & Spalding, he helped Blank buy the Falcons. He helped launch Atlanta United and worked on the development of Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
His fondest memories both came in 2017: Witnessing the shocking crowd of 55,000 at Bobby Dodd Stadium to watch Atlanta United’s inaugural match, and then six months later, when 75,000 fans crowded into the brand new dome for Florida State-Alabama. “Those were two of the greatest adrenaline rushes of my life,” Egan said. “Certainly of my professional career.”
For Egan, a late arriver to sports, the live event logistics is what impressed him the most after a career in M&A. "What was astonishing to me is the amount of effort that goes into staging the events,” he said.
The Atlanta native was 10 when the Falcons joined the NFL, and he was instantly smitten. He’s closing the chapter on a long career, but he says working for his favorite team was the perfect capstone. “Nothing can match the last six years for me.”

In a typical year, the Packers organize 800 player and alumni appearances. But with COVID-19 surging in the upper Midwest, those can’t happen. The answer? A surprisingly affordable, simple robot sold by San Jose-based OhmniLabs.
The Packers recently joined the Lions, Falcons and Atlanta United as users of the startup's Telepresence robot, which retails for $2,700 according to its website. It’s just a motorized, three-wheeled cart that carries around a high-res video screen at roughly the height of human faces.
Throw a player’s jersey on the robot, give the player controls to the robot and two-way video chat from home, and you’ve got yourself a virtual appearance. It’s just a video chat, but something about the movement of the robot into the physical space of the fan makes it feel like more than just another Zoom call.
“It wasn’t as expensive as I initially thought,” said Packers Director of Community Outreach & Player/Alumni Relations Cathy Dworak. “For $6,000, we’re able to go into the community, engage with fans, children, adults, and really hopefully make some sort of impact during a trying time in the world.”
It can work the other direction, too. The Lions debuted their robot on Oct. 4 when they put a cancer survivor on the remote controls, and sent the robot onto the Ford Field sidelines before the game for autographs and a meet and greet.

Premium inventory will be on full display when Raiders fans get into Allegiant Stadium next season. My colleague Karn Dhingra profiled the new Las Vegas venue, noting the building has 8,000 club seats, 127 suites, eight premium clubs and 88 four-person loge boxes on the sidelines. Inspiration for the loge seats came from business-class seats on a long-haul flight, said Manica architect Keith Robinson, who led the design team.
NFL game viewership through Week 8 is off 7% from the midpoint of last season (14.8 million viewers vs 16 million viewers), as games are played during a pandemic with competition from a divisive general election, SBJ’s Austin Karp reports.
The 49ers helped three "relatively unknown candidates likely pull off a stunning upset" in the Santa Clara City Council race Tuesday night. The San Jose Mercury News writes that if the election results hold, the 49ers "will have dealt a major blow" to Mayor Lisa Gillmor by "possibly breaking up the council majority she has long wielded against" the team.
Last week, the NFL sent a memo to teams that anticipated more end-of-the-year ownership restructuring than usual, which was widely perceived as a reference to the potential that Democrats would take over government and raise taxes. That seems a lot less likely now 48 hours after Election Day. Nothing’s finalized of course, but it’s looking like Republicans will hold the Senate. That presumably puts the kibosh on any major tax code changes under a President Biden.