Column: Nothing smart about staging UFC fights or NFL draft

Dana White must be a smart guy. He did, after all, build UFC from almost thing into entertainment and sports juggernaut it is today.

Roger Goodell is pretty smart himself. He’s been able to keep 32 owners happy while filling ir pockets with even more billions from NFL fans.

Unfortunately, both seem to think y’re smarter than anyone else when it comes to navigating ir sports through coronavirus crisis.

For some reason, White is intent on staging a big UFC card amid all suffering and death. He seems to think re’s something unmanly about hunkering down and trying to stay safe when re are MMA fights to be watched and money to be me.

“ question becomes, how long are we going to do this? How long are we going to stay in our houses and hide?’’ White asked Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports last week as he pushed for UFC 249 in a location he refused to disclose.

answer is, until we’re all safe. And until White offers up a medical degree, he’s got more information on how long that will be than anyone else.

What White doesn’t seem to understand is that while his fights are an entertaining diversion to some people, one is crying out for a big UFC card two weeks from w. And re’s reason to risk lives staging one just to separate gullible fans from money y’re trying to conserve to ride out crisis.

major sports, of course, came to that conclusion alrey. That’s why re’s NBA, NHL, MLB and March Mness.

Masters is postponed, and on Wednesday, Wimbledon was canceled for year.

sports at all, and yet so far re are reports of fans hurling mselves off of buildings because y have thing to watch.

White wants to give fans a UFC telecast from a cave somewhere to make sure that doesn’t happen. But even his star fighter bailed on him Wednesday, which should be a pretty good clue where his plans are heed.

Lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov was scheduled to fight top contender Tony Ferguson in main event of UFC 249, which was initially set for Brooklyn. But Nurmagomedov said he would t leave his native Russia because of pandemic and expressed anger that fight was even being considered.

“It turns out that whole world should be in quarantine,” Nurmagomedov said on Instagram. “Governments of all countries, famous people around world urge people to follow all safety requirements in order to limit spre of disease, to save people, and Khabib is only one relieved of all obligations and must demonstrate free will and train flying around world, for sake of fight?”

Hopefully, Nurmagomedov’s withdrawal will give White a way to save face and call entire effort off. If t, he might change his mind after watching videos of body bags being loed onto trucks heed to morgue in New York City.

He was a macho guy a little more than a week ago, parroting ors who suggested that everyone was overreacting to coronavirus. White told Yahoo that basically everyone is going to die anyway and “when do Americans run and hide in ir house inste of taking this thing he on and finding solutions.”

But w scope of death is becoming so apparent that White may wish he never uttered those words. w his comments from just a few days ago seem so ludicrous that y appear to be lifted from some deep conspiracy website.

And n re’s Goodell, who seems as determined to have a draft in a few weeks as White is to have a fight. While he and NFL owners can be forgiven for t wanting to give up centerpiece of league’s offseason, idea of a draft happening as scheduled April 23-25 is almost as problematic as staging a UFC fight.

details on just how that draft would be produced and televised have been released by league, probably because NFL officials are frantically trying to figure m out.

But league is based in New York City, epicenter of outbreak in America. People are alrey dying re by hundreds, and re may be unimaginable carn in city by draft day.

It’s t a time to celebrate anything, especially a . 1 draft pick. draft can wait, just like it is becoming increasingly obvious that upcoming season will have to wait.

We all want sports back, just like we all want our rmal lives back. thing would be better this weekend than watching Final Four or turning on TV next week to see Tiger Woods teeing off in Masters.

But it’s t life as usual, t anywhere close.

And in a time like this, both White and Goodell should realize we don’t need sports as usual.