COVID-19's Impact on Sports

Although a few sports leagues have been able to finish their seasons in a bubble, COVID-19 is still impacting our daily sports schedules. The NHL and NBA crowned champions, the French Open played a scaled-back tournament, and Major League Baseball is now in its playoffs.

But football, soccer and golf are now experiencing COVID-19-related interruptions and postponements that impact betting and sports watching.

NFL Postponements

The NFL sailed through the first three weeks of its season, but things went south quickly in Week 4. The Tennessee Titans had the first outbreak, and their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers was moved to next month.

Meanwhile, the New England Patriots had to play the Kansas City Chiefs on a different day than originally scheduled, and without starting quarterback Cam Newton. Newton's positive test saw the line for that game move by three points, and the Chiefs still covered.

This past week, the Patriots game was moved to Monday and then postponed to next Sunday. The Patriots were originally 11-point favorites against the Broncos, but that line is now at -9. There's no way to know who will be available until closer to kickoff.

Meanwhile, the Titans' home game against Buffalo switched to Tuesday, the line moved, and the Titans covered easily. That rescheduling also pushed this week's Bills-Chiefs game to next Monday instead of Thursday night, and a handful of games later in the season were shuffled.

College Schedule in Flux

Earlier this season, the ACC, Big 12 and American Athletic Conference had their share of games postponed and rescheduled. This week, the SEC got in on the action as both Vanderbilt and Florida had COVID-19 outbreaks.

There have now been 30 games impacted by COVID-19, and two major conferences, the Big Ten and Pac-12, haven't started their seasons yet.

Florida, still ranked in the top 10, was supposed to host LSU, but the outbreak moved that game to later in the season. Vanderbilt was scheduled to host Missouri, which was fresh off an upset of LSU, but the Commodores had less than 50 players available, so that game was moved as well.

Soccer Impacted Worldwide

The biggest news in the soccer world this week was that Portugal and Juventus star Cristiano Ronaldo tested positive. He was on international duty with Portugal in UEFA Nations League play.

His absence changed the line, but Portugal still shut out Sweden 3-0. Now the superstar will likely miss a couple of Serie A games back in Italy, and he's not the only Juventus star infected this week, leaving their Saturday game in doubt.

Ukraine pulled a massive Nations League upset over Spain on Tuesday despite having more than 10 players unavailable due to quarantine. The positive tests and contract tracing may impact teams and games in the English Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Bundesliga as players return to their clubs this week.

In the US, there were multiple MLS games canceled the last two weeks, and with the regular season winding to a close, they may not get rescheduled. With five players testing positive, the Colorado Rapids have been off since Sept. 23, and another three games were postponed this week.

Minnesota United saw games against FC Dallas and Chicago Fire postponed, while the Columbus Crew-Orlando City SC game was also postponed.

Golf Impact

The world's top-ranked golfer, Dustin Johnson, tested positive this week and withdrew from the CJ Cup in Las Vegas. Johnson won the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup last month and was among the favorites to win the CJ Cup despite not playing since the US Open.

Tony Finau is also out of action this week after missing last week's Shriners Hospitals for Children Open with a positive test.