How the coronavirus pandemic - and its politics - have ruined sports, perhaps permanently

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski tells Ben Domenech why he believes the pandemic and its politics have made watching sports less enjoyable,

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski sat down with "The Ben Domenech Podcast" and told Ben Domenech why he believes the coronavirus pandemic and its politics have made covering and watching sports generally less enjoyable.

MIKE SIELSKI: I think part of the league's (NBA's} problem is that it has framed itself almost exclusively around its superstar players to the exclusion almost of what we've talked about before, which is the other component of what makes the sport popular. It's those tribal city-to-city rivalries, right, that, you know.

The league is kind of banked [on] that if you follow Kevin Durant on Twitter or LeBron James on Twitter, that you'll follow him wherever he goes, where he plays. And I think there's something there's really something to be said for the fact that someone like Kobe Bryant stayed with the same team for 20 years or that, you know, Michael Jordan stayed with the same team – that those rivalries matter.

NBA LEGEND JOHN STOCKTON GETS GONZAGA SEASON TICKETS TAKEN AWAY OVER MASK STANDOFF

In terms of the wokeness of it, I think that sports fans have reached the point now where – and this is not just the NBA, this is the NFL, this is Major League Baseball, whatever sport you want to pick – I think they are at the point now where they're kind of like, you know what? Can we just play the games?

Believe me, I write about sports from a very kind of sociological angle as much as the next person. I ended up writing a lot about Colin Kaepernick. I've written about those issues, too, as much as anybody. But at the core, sports fans want to watch