The New Orleans Saints' head coach Sean Payton announced on Thursday that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus, ESPN reports.

Why it matters: Payton is the first known figure in the National Football League (NFL) to test positive for COVID-19. The National Basketball Association (NBA) has been hit by the virus, with multiple players testing positive.

In the Era of No Sports, media publications, TV networks and leagues are scrambling to find alternatives to fill the void — and in some cases, redeploying staff to work on non-sports coverage.

Driving the news: The Washington Post has redirected some of its sports staff to help with non-sports coverage and, starting this Saturday, the newspaper's daily Sports section will move inside the Style section, per an internal memo (Sunday Sports will continue to stand on its own).

Four Brooklyn Nets players tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the NBA team announced in a statement Tuesday.

The state of play: One of the four players is exhibiting symptoms, and the others are asymptomatic. All, including Kevin Durant, are currently self-isolating, along with the rest of the team and travel party.

MLB has delayed Opening Day until mid-May at the earliest, per recommendations from the Center for Disease Control that gatherings of 50 or more people be canceled or postponed for the next eight weeks.

Why it matters: Of all the major sports leagues, MLB faces arguably the most disastrous outcome from this unprecedented sports outage, and some of its minor league affiliates might not survive the summer.

Tom Brady announced Tuesday he will leave the New England Patriots and continue his NFL career "elsewhere" next season.

Why it matters: Brady has played his entire career with the team, winning six Super Bowls since entering the league in 2000.

More sports leagues in the U.S. and around the world are suspending their seasons or limiting fan attendance due to the coronavirus outbreak, after the NBA became the first major U.S. sports league to announce it would postpone its season on Wednesday.

Driving the news: The Kentucky Derby will be postponed from May 2 to Sept. 5, marking the first time in 75 years that the race will not be held on the first Saturday of May, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal.

The NFL announced Monday that it will hold its 2020 draft next month as scheduled, but will cancel the planned public events in Las Vegas due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The big picture: The league said the selection process will still be televised, adding that it is exploring "innovative options" for conducting the draft in such a climate.

After months of negotiations, a narrow majority of players voted to approve a new 10-year labor deal that will shape the NFL over the next decade.

Why it matters: The new collective bargaining agreement will allow the NFL to expand its regular season from 16 to 17 games as early as 2021 and expand the playoff field from 12 to 14 teams starting this season.

Dallas Mavericks owner and "Shark Tank" star Mark Cuban, who quickly announced that he'd pay workers "as if the games happened" during the NBA shutdown, spoke with Axios by email yesterday.

The big picture: The cancellation of sports due to the coronavirus — the NBA, March Madness, MLB spring training and more — is what has hit some Americans the hardest, serving as a reality check as to just how serious this situation is.

Without live sports for the foreseeable future, it's unclear what networks like ESPN and FS1 will broadcast in those time slots or what they'll talk about on their studio shows and radio programs during the day.

Why it matters: With so many Americans nesting at home, linear TV viewership was expected to spike. But without sports, streaming platforms, video games and other mediums will likely be the big winners instead.