Sports

The East Meadow in Central Park and a training facility at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Queens are scheduled to become makeshift hospitals while regular facilities are strained by COVID-19.

Schools have been authorized to offer spring sport athletes whose schedule was shut down by the coronavirus an extra year of eligibility so they can play an extra season.

Despite the rescheduling, the next Olympics will still be known as the Tokyo 2020 games, the International Olympic Committee says.

NPR's Scott Simon speaks to actor Hank Azaria who plays TV's over-the-top sports announcer Jim Brockmire about sportscasting your life now that there are no sports.

We take a look at how different sports are responding to the coronavirus pandemic, and remember Curly Neal, the Harlem Globetrotters legend who died at 77 on Thursday.

On Friday, players and the Major League Baseball owners ratified a deal fairly quickly and with both sides taking concessions on economic issues in the face of the pandemic complicating the season.

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with ESPN journalist Howard Bryant about the the hole left in American lives with the pause in professional sports because of the coronavirus.

The team remembers him as "one of the truly magical dribblers and shooters in basketball history." Neal played 22 seasons for the Globetrotters.

The torch relay was supposed to start on Thursday in the Japanese prefecture hit hard by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. A torch runner recalls the disaster that took his family.

Over 50,000 Instagram viewers watched as the Golden State Warriors point guard probed one of the country's top infectious disease experts about the coronavirus.

ESPN calls itself the "worldwide leader in sports," but there are few live sports to show. So it's scrambling to fill the time, offering diversions like cherry pit spitting and marble racing.

"We want to organize the best Games possible," IOC President Thomas Bach said, adding that "this postponement will require sacrifices and compromises from all parties."