Nearly 6,500 athletes who qualified for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo will keep their spots when the event takes place in 2021, according to new qualification rules announced by the International Olympic Committee Tuesday.
The big picture: The revision was made to address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, replacing a previous version of the regulations from July 2017. The new qualifying deadline is June 29, 2021, and entry lists are due one week later.
Major sports broadcasters are leaning into eSports to fill the programming gaps left from leagues canceling professional sports games because of coronavirus.
The state of play: ESPN on Sunday aired 12 hours of esports including Rocket League, NBA 2K, and Madden.
In October 2011, the American soccer world was stunned to learn that the World Cup broadcast rights, which ESPN had owned since 1994, would be moving to Fox for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Driving the news: According to a federal indictment handed down by U.S. prosecutors yesterday, two former Fox executives participated in an alleged scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to secure those rights.
It's been 26 days since the sports world effectively shuttered, and fans are eager to start watching games again, but not quite as eager to attend them.
The state of play: According to a new Morning Consult poll, 51% of fans think live sports will return between June and September, while only 8% think the void will bleed into 2021.
The Masters has been rescheduled for Nov. 9-15, which will include all professionals and amateurs who qualified for the original April date and all existing ticket holders.
The big picture: If not for the coronavirus pandemic, the tournament at Augusta National Golf Club would have teed off this week. Chairman Fred Ridley said Monday the new dates are "incumbent upon favorable counsel and direction from health officials."
In January 1918, the horrors of World War I were in their final year, and Major League Baseball was preparing for its 16th season. But beneath the surface, another deadly battle was brewing. They called it the "Spanish flu."
By the numbers: Over the next 15 months, the global pandemic infected an estimated 500 million people — about a quarter of the world's population at the time — and killed as many as 100 million.
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