NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships • Hacker News Board

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#71

Post by eden_hazard » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

dmitrygr wrote: post #65

good. this country spends too much of people's money and attention on this nonsense. maybe we can make this permanent. it is insane that one can get into a college with zero brain power just for being tall (and ncaa and co enable that). what possible use does society have for that long term?

That's a bad way of looking at it. First of all, sports are entertaining. There's a reason why people like it. Second, no one gets there without hard work. For every kid that makes it to college basketball, there are probably hundreds of others that didn't make it even high school basketball from the under 10s.

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#72

Post by astrophysician » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

outoftouchtech wrote: post #34

mfer wrote: post #8

This is going to have a cascading economic impact. There are the channels that cover the tournament (e.g., ESPN), the tournament bracket sites that get ad revenue, the local businesses around the stadiums that host the games, and so much more.

This isn't meant to be directed at you, but it's hilarious to me what people are focusing on, or what supposedly triggers concern. And just what economic bubbles folks are in, with such little perspective for those around them that share common infrastructure that is going to be stressed in the coming weeks and months. Look. I have multiple friends who have already had all of their shifts canceled for the rest of Mar…

I mean, I don't know the OP's intention here but I think they're probably right, all of these actions will have an economic impact. It's not a statement about whether or not we should or shouldn't do something, I think we need to take lots of big proactive measures, but big proactive measures have lots of collateral damage that isn't negligible. Economic impact will be felt by everyone, from the top to the bottom of the income ladder, so that's also a legitimate pain point...

> suspending evictions, delaying mortgage payments, nationalizing healthcare

I mean sure, I don't think I would disagree with any of that at all (good luck with the last part though, we've been trying that for 40 years), but to say that this wouldn't have a detrimental impact on the economy is a bit confusing to me...it will and that will hurt, but the idea is that it will hurt less than something like COVID running rampant or without measures to protect workers who will be hurt most by the economic fallout.

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#73

Post by MockObject » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

stevieCards wrote: post #60

bluedevil2k wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like this should earn a banishment

Umm... so you like the exploitation of young people? Universities make millions while “student athletes” get paid peanuts, and you don’t like someone pointing it out? Why?

How about we start by reserving the word "exploitation" for situations people cannot easily get up and walk away from? And not situations that people dream of, and struggle very hard to achieve?

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#74

Post by Mountain_Skies » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

brianTheDog wrote: post #54

paxys wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't affect student athletes all that much. There will still be a draft, as always.

Whoever came up with the term “student athlete” when talking about slaves in college is a genius! I like to think if that term never existed then maybe society wouldn’t let universities exploit them for millions of dollars while paying them nothing.

The compensation model for college athletics is problematic but the entire system is voluntary. You diminish the evilness of slavery by trivializing it by equating it to college students playing a game of their own free will.

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#75

Post by bhb916 » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

outoftouchtech wrote: post #34

mfer wrote: post #8

This is going to have a cascading economic impact. There are the channels that cover the tournament (e.g., ESPN), the tournament bracket sites that get ad revenue, the local businesses around the stadiums that host the games, and so much more.

This isn't meant to be directed at you, but it's hilarious to me what people are focusing on, or what supposedly triggers concern. And just what economic bubbles folks are in, with such little perspective for those around them that share common infrastructure that is going to be stressed in the coming weeks and months. Look. I have multiple friends who have already had all of their shifts canceled for the rest of Mar…

Fragile systems are generally built using single points of failure. Centrally planned solutions are generally rife with them. I will trust the robustness of a system made up of 327.7M individual plans then the command solutions you are suggesting. We will fair much better than Italy even if the disease is more widespread here.

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#76

Post by sonofaplum » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #67

mmazing wrote: post #35

I hope actions like this can start to make people wake up that this is in fact serious and should be taken seriously. Still too many people calling it a hoax and that it's no worse than a common cold.

How bad does it have to be to fit in the "serious" vs. "not serious" bucket? It's like a rather bad influenza. The mortality rate is fairly low and difficult to estimate unless you test the entire population on a regular basis. It isn't like one of the outbreaks that kills 10%, 20%, 50% of the infected. It shouldn't be ignored, but it also shouldn't be treated like a new black death. It is difficult for uninformed pe…

it kills a low percentage but it infects a high percentage. So total deaths + seriously ill MAY be equal to a more lethal disease that is less infectious.

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#77

Post by SkyMarshal » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

Why not instead cancel the live audience, but keep the tournament? Play the games in empty stadiums, but televise them. And test the players before each game starts.

Everything is going virtual now anyway, sports might as well too. That also maintains at least some of the ad revenue and other economic activity while still greatly minimizing risk of spreading the outbreak.

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#78

Post by lisper » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #67

mmazing wrote: post #35

I hope actions like this can start to make people wake up that this is in fact serious and should be taken seriously. Still too many people calling it a hoax and that it's no worse than a common cold.

How bad does it have to be to fit in the "serious" vs. "not serious" bucket? It's like a rather bad influenza. The mortality rate is fairly low and difficult to estimate unless you test the entire population on a regular basis. It isn't like one of the outbreaks that kills 10%, 20%, 50% of the infected. It shouldn't be ignored, but it also shouldn't be treated like a new black death. It is difficult for uninformed pe…

> It isn't like one of the outbreaks that kills 10%, 20%, 50% of the infected.

That's true, but it has one characteristic that makes it very nasty: it is highly contagious before you show any symptoms. That makes it very hard to contain. So we only have two options: either try to contain it despite the difficulty, or just give up, let it spread, and essentially sacrifice 1% of the world's population. 1% is better than 10% of course, but that's still 70 million people.

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#79

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #43

gnulinux wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great majority of cases are asymptomatic, great majority of symptomatic cases are very mild possibly indistinguishable from common cold so people may be inclined to ignore it. So, it's not safe to have any gatherings of this scale since inevitably many people will be infected.

Is it actually true that the great majority are asymptomatic? I know the great majority of cases (currently, in the US) are untested, but they might very well be symptomatic. Also, is it true that the great majority are as mild as the common cold? I ask just because I heard "mild" encompasses "feels like death but doesn't need hospitalization", like the kind of cold I've had perhaps twice in my life. (Asking from the…

[deleted]

Re: NCAA cancels March Madness and other championships

#80

Post by TuringNYC » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #77

Why not instead cancel the live audience, but keep the tournament? Play the games in empty stadiums, but televise them. And test the players before each game starts. Everything is going virtual now anyway, sports might as well too. That also maintains at least some of the ad revenue and other economic activity while still greatly minimizing risk of spreading the outbreak.

>> And test the players before each game starts.

There are apparently no synchronous tests (e.g. antibody tests) in the US currently. Asynchronous tests (PCR) are hard to come by, and take 3 hours to run with a 2-3 day lead time at best.