With the recent fires on the West Coast, the sky has turned into an apocalyptic state of red and doom. Sports teams across the country, especially in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, have been largely affected by the unhealthy air quality. Some teams have been forced to cancel their games, while others have had no choice but to postpone everything on their schedule. 

Two of the teams to experience this uncertainty have been the Seattle Mariners and San Francisco Giants. Their scheduled game on Sept. 15 was rescheduled to two days after its original date because the Air Quality Index (AQI) had exceeded its advised number to be playing outdoors. Players on the field  were also advised to wear masks while playing, in part due to the virus, and in part due to the toxic air quality. 

Alongside the ongoing pandemic, the Major League Baseball (MLB) is forced to find solutions that can compress their 60-game season by the end of October. This renders the players’ schedule to be packed with back to back games and little time to practice. 

Despite how doomed the future for the MLB seems to be, some teams are staying positive in the midst of these two ongoing obstacles. New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carool are hopeful that things will turn back around soon.

“I think the forecast that I’ve seen—we’ve tracked them over the last couple of days—looked really promising. There are some wind currents coming in from the Pacific,” said Belichick in an interview with Providence Journal. Both coaches are relying on the wind patterns for a rendezvous into their old team routine. 

“We have to be ready for something to vary, but we think it’s going to be fine,” Carroll stated to the New England media last week. 

While the coaches are staying optimistic, climate scientists claim that those numbers will only continue to worsen in the long run. Assistant professor at SUNY Cortland Maddy Orr advises sport teams to take action against problems that will devise from climate change. 

“American pro sports leagues are really far behind, frankly, when it comes to policy change on these issues,” Orr said to ESPN. 

AQI is a scale that measures the variety of pollutants in the air. In this 0-500 scale, AirNow and NCAA strongly advise not going outside and performing heavy extertation if the AQI is over 200. If it reaches 300 or above, outdoor activities should be moved indoors or cancelled. Activities at 150 should be shortened and intensity should be minimized. In the U.S., the AQI averages around less than 100, with most cities hovering around 50. For comparison, the Mariners and Giants game would have taken place under an AQI of 224.

The future of sports is uncertain. The pandemic, with the poor air quality as the tipping point, has exposed a wide range of problems in both collegiate and professional sports. Quarantine has recently passed the 6 months mark for the US, but the financial loss that college sport departments and pro sports groups are looking at risk devastating decades ahead. Fans have adjusted to “attending” games via television, which more or less have altered their willingness to spend money on tickets and ultimately provoke new ownership. There have been proposals for new finance models, but not much confidence in the longevity of all sports. 

“Some sports won’t survive. Some will return to their club roots,” said Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins. 

Despite the foggy future ahead of sport fans, teams, and coaches, it is imperative to stay consistent, optimistic, practical, and persistent. Whether pro and collegiate sports will be at the ends of our feet by the end of this decade is also up to the citizens of the U.S. Remember to wear a mask wherever you go, because preventing ourselves from the virus is preventing ourselves from the downfall of sports.

Photo has been removed due to copyright infringement.