Professional sports leagues are slowly making a return

<p>This weekend, NASCAR became the first U.S. professional sports league to return—without fans and with a slew of social distance restrictions.</p><p>The resumption came with safety measures including reducing team size by about 66%, and making sure team members passed a temperature check upon entry. While in the arena, teams were required to wear gloves, masks and maintain social distance or face a fine between $10,000 and $50,0000.</p><p>Over the next month, NASCAR will hold cup series races all throughout the south in locales like Charlotte, Bristol, Miami and Talladega, under similar circumstances.</p><p>Like NASCAR, other professional sports leagues are contemplating how to exist without a cure for coronavirus. Major League Baseball has a plan to resume games and the National Hockey League could be close to figuring about where to pick up the season.</p><p>Over the weekend, President Trump made an unannounced phone call into NBC Sports’ live broadcast of a golf tournament raising funds for coronavirus relief efforts. “We need sports in terms of the psyche, the psyche of our country,” Trump said. “I think some tremendous things are going to be coming out very soon.”</p><p>State leaders are eager to have their teams start up again, too.</p><p>Arizona last week became the first state to okay play when Gov. Doug Ducey announced professional sports, including MLB, the NBA, the NHL and the NFL, may resume in the state -- without fans -- as of Saturday. Florida's Ron DeSantis followed suit. In Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan is initiating talks as the state begins to move on to the next stage of the recovery process.</p>