Ask any professional athlete if they grew up thinking about all the money they would make from the game they love and, guaranteed, it would definitely be not the primary reason why they choose to play the games they do.

Young kids play sports because they love it and because their admiration for their sporting heroes goes beyond their love of the game. But somewhere along their journey for a better life, money always pokes its unwelcome head into the picture. And where there’s money, there’s always someone looking for their cut.

Every professional sport is tarnished with this same greedy brush to the point where it’s now become the norm. Television rights are more valuable than the GDP of small countries and it’s all too common for the voices of the players to get lost in the crowd of green.

Can superstar athletes like the NBA greats get their opinions heard above all the noise? Do they even want to with the threat of less money constantly on their back? 2020 has evolved from sporting apocalypse to political protests in an instance and now more than ever has the potential to really form a new normality.

The life of sport, post-COVID-19

The upcoming renewal of the NBA season has been hotly debated. And so it should. Sport is just a hobby and could someone’s past-time really influence the economy and health of an entire country so much? Unfortunately, yes. Because we live in a world where money talks and everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Basketball aside, other sports are staring down the same barrel. Novak Djokovic tried to raise some coin for both the players and the countries that staged the tennis event he organised recently. This led to not just himself but the majority of players returning a positive test for the virus, including coaching staff and family. A week on and both Serbia and Croatia who had COVID-19 all but under wraps are now dealing with a new outbreak. But hey, there was money to be made.

Some sports are winning though. New Zealand, leading the world in COVID-19 extermination, became the first country to host sports last week with the kick off of their National Rugby season, with packed stadiums of desperate fans cheering them on. All without incident or contamination. What’s more, their National Basketball League has just been picked up by ESPN for the first time to broadcast their league to the world. And without a COVID case in sight.

Should the NBA restart?

The NBA season re-opening couldn’t have come at a more politically charged time this year. Already reeling from a COVID-19 kick in the guts, Americans now find themselves smack bang in the center of a race discussion that threatens to blow out completely.

Black Lives Matter is no rookie on the court, but the latest events taken place during an election year has given rise to the issue more than anyone had expected. And my how the protests have snowballed, to all corners of the world. This is especially important to the NBA as the league is more than eighty percent Black.

And here’s where the debate gets really sticky. Remember the NFL player Colin Kaepernick? Well his completely justified and professional protest against police brutality in 2016 may have sparked a revolution, but it cost him his career and multi-millions in the process. You see, this is the moral dilemma that professional athletes face during their careers. As an ambassador to their sport, and idols to many young players, they have a moral obligation to not use their stardom to bring disrespect on their sport. Yet, surely they have a hefty weight on their shoulders right now to use their fame to further shed light on a 400 year old stain on the American Constitution.

The NBA headlines this week have been plastered with Nets’ Kyrie Irving fulfilling his moral obligation to help spread the word on racism in the US. His point of view is that having the NBA kick off as planned is only undoing all the good work that their fans have done to highlight the problem.

The NBA would then become a smoke screen to distract the media away from the real issues, rather than our hobbies and past-times. He’s willing to sacrifice everything he has worked so hard for over the years for what he believes, and he’s not the only one. Support is supposedly drumming up from all corners of the league after Irving made a conference call on Friday night with around 80 players, his intention to boycott the league high on the agenda.

And all this seems to be overshadowing the fact that America is in the middle of a devastating pandemic that has destroyed countless lives including that of the American economy. Rushing in to start a basketball league by the end of July as planned without taking the time to ensure the health of not just the players but the countless numbers of people it will take to organize such things, is rash and quite frankly dangerous. It’s money over lives and it’s becoming an increasingly worrying new normal.

New Betting Sites to Kick Off the Sporting Comeback

While there’s no doubt many of us hope that the revival of sport takes nothing away from the political and racial debates that have kicked off, the prospect of an NBA return in the coming weeks is very exciting. Punters have been ready and waiting for weeks to get their hands back into their pockets to splash the cash – and from the sports betting operators’ side, the wait has been at least as spasmodic.

2020 is nothing if one that we will remember. How this season rolls is anyone’s guess at this stage but one thing’s for sure; the quality of new betting sites around will guarantee those looking for great odds and some killer deals and offers get just that. What a great way to see the new season in.