Many were hoping that the new year would signal some change from the difficult 2020 that we all experienced, and although things were starting to look up towards the end of the year as some return to normal seemed to be looking more likely, the start of 2021 has already held some bad news for many as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic seems to be oncourse much in the same way as 2020 throughout the start of the year in 2021.
The first suggestions of this came toward the end of the year as some events were cancelled anyway due to growing safety concerns, but as other parts of the world have already suggested that newer lockdown measures will follow with a clamp down on certain sporting events once again. It’s not certain to what degree these postponements or cancellations could happen, whether similar in severity to last year or a little more freedom to operate. Policy change could also have a big impact here too, inauguration day is quickly approaching which could spell more changes particularly through sporting events.
Many had turned to alternatives throughout these, a number of different online services from gaming to streaming found their time in the sun throughout the last year and may have the opportunity to do so again – online casinos through sites such as ManySpins were increasingly popular and many states across the US had adjusted their own online gambling and betting regulation during this period of time with many hoping Maryland would do the same as it seems there’s an opportunity for lawmakers through Senate Bill 58 which was initially proposed back in 2020 but was passed over due to the pandemic. Similarly, the online streaming services in similar spaces were extremely successful too as they provided an alternative for the larger cancelled events, and more familiarity through growing titles in this space.
Either way there’s plenty of change to come and there’s certainly a lot of uncertainty around what the next few months may hold – there are some positives as sports such as the NBA had managed to show just how successful a bubble approach could be in order to keep things on the straight and narrow, but the same approach may not be possible for all sporting events as some such as the MLB had stated that it would be difficult to ensure all players followed the new ruling and regulation. If sporting does intend to continue it may need to adopt many of these stricter measures until safety can be achieved through vaccination or other means, otherwise cancellations will not doubt be wider spread once again.
