Governor Newsom: Competitive sports may resume by end of January

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KION) California Department of Public Health officials announced activities for competitive youth and adult recreational sports programs may be able to resume by the end of January.

However, the "may be" has a catch.

Assuming the state allows for sports activities to continue, they would happen January 25th at the earliest, but they would also be under the same tier system that counties have been subjected to in the state's Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

That means counties in any of the purple, red, orange or yellow tiers- purple being the most restrictive- could allow certain activities to resume competitively.

According to the California Department of Public Health, counties in the purple tier would be able to allow outdoor, low-contact activities to resume competitively. This would include golf, track and field, tennis and archery, among others.

Red tier counties could see outdoor, moderate-contact activities resume competitively, such as baseball/softball, cheerleading, field hockey, lacrosse or gymnastics.

Meanwhile, counties in the state's orange tier system could see more outdoor, high-contact sports like basketball, football, ice hockey and soccer resume competitively.

Orange tier counties would also be able to allow indoor, low-contact activities to resume like gymnastics, tennis, volleyball and track and field.

In the yellow tier, the least-restrictive of the bunch, counties can allow indoor competition for moderate and high-contact sports like cheerleading, dance, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, boxing, wrestling and water polo.

Back to that "may be" at the start of this article, though. The state COULD decide to push that date back, should the state be unable to manage the pandemic.

That assessment could come as early as January 4th.