Wisconsin Sports Headlines – 4/21/2020

The Latest Sports Headlines: 

>>NFL Draft Thursday:  What About “Technical Difficulties?”

(Undated)  — The 2020 N-F-L Draft is set to be broadcast live Thursday night starting at 7:00 p-m, but what if the screen is blank?  A test run Monday afternoon was plagued with glitches. Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst acknowledges the start was rough, but he says it was okay after that. Collecting a few hundred people on a conference call could turn out to be harder than picking the right player in the draft.  Monday, there were bandwidth issues, but the bigger problems were apparently operator errors. Participants kept forgetting to mute their microphones when it wasn’t their time to talk.

 

>>Northwoods League Opening Day Delayed – But By How Much?

(Madison, WI)  — Officials with the Northwoods League haven’t picked a date for the opening day of the 2020 summer season, but it won’t be May 26th. When Governor Tony Evers extended his Safer at Home order that ended plans to open on that date.  League officials say they are considering multiple scenarios, but they haven’t chosen a specific date yet. Nine of the 22 teams in the league are based in Wisconsin. A major consideration is the assumption that adequate safeguards can be put in place in ballparks so the safety of fans, players and team personnel can be assured.

 

>>NFL To Release 2020 Schedule Early Next Month

(Green Bay, WI)  — The NFL is set to release its 2020 schedule early next month, but what will it really look like?  There seems to be a very small possibility this will be a normal year. There are four options being considered – no football, football with no fans, football with some widely-spaced fans, and regular, just-like-always football.  If social distancing restrictions aren’t relaxed by the start of the season, the N-F-L could go without fans. Money from television was 56 percent of the Packers’ revenue last season. Fewer games would mean less television money and no fans in the stands would cost N-F-L teams millions more.

 

>>MLB Players Worried About Possibility Of Additional Pay Cuts

(New York, NY)  — The union representing Major League Baseball players says its members are worried about the possibility of more pay cuts.  They are reacting to comments from a New York Mets official that salaries would need to be lowered if the games are played with no fans in the stands.  Players like California Angels outfielder Mike Trout and New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole could find themselves forfeiting more than 220 thousand dollars for each game missed. Even players making the league minimum would give up nearly 35 hundred dollars for each game they don’t play.

 

>>Packers Give Back Supports 16 Milwaukee Nonprofits Organizations With $500K

(Green Bay, WI)  — The first round of grants from the Packers Give Back program will send a half-million dollars to 16 nonprofit organizations in Milwaukee.  The grants will help people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Packers President and C-E-O Mark Murphy says those agencies need additional resources and community support right now.  An additional one million dollars is being distributed to 10 organizations in Brown County – who are helping people with food and hygiene needs, housing assistance and more.