Keith Strudler: The Arizona 49ers

The San Francisco 49ers are by no means the first nomadic team in NFL history. In 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Saints split their time between San Antonio and Baton Rouge before returning home to the Superdome the following year. When the Houston Oilers first left Texas for Tennessee, they played a year in Memphis while a stadium was being finished in Nashville. And recently the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers both played in transitional homes while their new SoFi Stadium megaplex was under construction, even if they were still in the same general metropolitan area.

But what’s happening with the 49ers is still unique, at least in any recollection of the modern sports era. Last week, the Santa Clara Public Health Department announced a temporary ban on all high school, collegiate and professional contact sports, and also required anyone coming to the country from over 150 miles away to quarantine. This, to be clear, stands in direct conflict of the 49ers business practices, which is predicated on bringing other teams from across the country to their county to participate in professional contact sport. To that end, the team will relocate to Arizona for their final two home games, which should get them through the season. Stanford University football, also impacted by the restriction, will spend a week in Seattle then a second in Oregon practicing for and playing two road games. Now in a world of largely virtual education, college football programs are essentially mobile and untethered to their physical plant. But it does feel somewhat odd for a group of amateur athletes to become exiled from their home campus to finish a college football season. All other teams in Santa Clara County, including Stanford Basketball and San Jose State football, which moved upstate a long time ago, are dealing with the same quandary: move out or shut down.

Obviously, the larger concern for sports organizations is that they might be able to run, but it’s going to be pretty hard to hide. For the time being, Santa Clara County is unique in its restrictions, with the rest of the country allowing pro and college sports to proceed with caution. Even New Jersey’s recent halt for indoor youth and high school sports stopped short of college and the pros. But you do have to wonder if it’s only a matter of time, which stands often in direct conflict with political will.

In some cases, this has led to a whole new level of scheduling challenges, where you may not know who you might play or when until right before it happens. For example, the number two ranked Baylor men’s basketball team was about to start the season last week in a high-profile tournament in Connecticut. But then their coach tested positive, so Rhode Island took their spot last minute, and Baylor instead hopped on a flight to Vegas to play Louisiana-Lafayette and Washington. And this is just the start. For the time being, college basketball and even football schedules are basically suggested itineraries. Just ask Ohio State, whose football team might miss the playoffs because they simply can’t get enough games played before selection day. Even the NFL, with all its resources and protocols, can’t follow a straight line, which is why you’ll see Baltimore play Pittsburgh today, on this Wednesday afternoon.

Which has raised the question, when is it time to shut it all down? That’s a loaded question, of course, since some folks think it should have never started in the first place – and other people would say come hell or high water. So finding anything approaching consensus is about as easy as getting a new Play Station 5 right now. And it’s more complicated given the high stakes, both financial and human. Elite American sport has taken on outsized importance some nine months into this crisis, for leagues, colleges, and an American public weary of limitations and divided on priority. So there probably isn’t an easy answer here, and certainly not one that might approach consensus.

The only thing we do know is that stop gaps won’t stop play, even as they try to keep communities safe. Santa Clara county can stop sports in their town, but unless there’s a national movement to do the same, the train will keep on rolling – just outside their jurisdiction. Unless the NCAA, or the NFL, or dare I say, the federal government, unless they individually or collectively say no more, the games will go on, whether you like that or not. Which means we should prepare for more Wednesday afternoon games, revised schedules, and nomadic sports teams searching for a home. At least in that last case, we’ve seen it before.

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