The Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders may change the time of their match on Sunday from 1 pm to an evening start time. If you were wondering why, here is your reason: temperatures are projected to be in the upper 80’s to low 90’s at the start of the match, rising to the low to mid 90’s by the end of the match (Weather Underground projects it to be 88 at kickoff, and 93 by 3pm). Playing in that weather can be dangerous (via ESPN):
Houston Dash forward Rachel Daly collapsed during the final minute of a National Women's Soccer League match against the Seattle Reign as temperatures climbed into the 90s.
The 25-year-old Daly was stretchered off the field and taken to the hospital, where the team said she was being treated for heat illness.
The temperature at BBVA Compass Stadium was 92 degrees at the 3 p.m. kickoff.
And that was hardly the first time (via Bleacher Report):
We can never forget Korey Stringer, who collapsed on a Minnesota practice field on a sweltering July afternoon in 2001, died of heat stroke early the next morning and reminded the world that football players are not indestructible.
"It had been a scorcher of a morning," wrote Brett Knapp in the Rapid City Journal on the morning Stringer died. Humidity was high, temperatures were in the low 90s.
"It was hot," Birk remembered, but no more so than any other day in training camp. "Hot days in Mankato, Minnesota, in summer are nothing new."
Stringer died at 1:35 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 1. His body had reached a core temperature of 108 degrees.
It also affects all levels of sport (via ESPN):
A 15-year-old high school football player died Tuesday from heat stroke after collapsing one day earlier following an offseason workout.
The football players lifted weights indoors for about an hour before heading out to the field to perform running and passing drills. Water was available to them throughout the training session, and they were outside with frequent breaks from about 5 p.m. to about 6:45 p.m., he said.
Temperatures hovered in the mid-90s throughout the state Monday and Tuesday, with the heat index between 100 and 105 degrees.
If you need more reasons than these to support changing the kickoff time for the game on Sunday, in a stadium that is not equipped to handle 90-plus degree weather midday, with its artificial turf and heat-trapping configuration, you need to re-examine your priorities.