UPDATE: When are tournaments likely to return on Superbru?

It's been around 8 weeks since the sporting calendar went quiet and Superbru dashboards were wiped clear due to the current global pandemic. During that time, we've been incredibly grateful to those of you who have supported Superbru. Whether through donations or by playing the Virtual tournaments we've created to pass the time (or both!), you've helped ensure we're still here to prepare for the return of sport and the exciting news is that we can now see a few tournaments on the not too distant horizon.

Of course, sport has already returned in Germany and lots of you joined us in excitedly making some Bundesliga picks for the weekend that has just passed! It was great to have some live action to watch again and here I'll be listing out some updates for you on when we can expect other tournaments to resume.

Please note that while there are constant updates from numerous media outlets speculating about when different sports will return, we await official statements and of course fixtures before updating Superbru for obvious reasons. Unless stated otherwise, dates given below in bold are official dates that have been announced by tournament organisers though many are naturally provisional since the situations countries find themselves in are quite precarious.

Clearly, we aren't going to have the summer/winter we hoped for with the Euros, Olympics and everything else. However, we might still have lots of action to enjoy over the coming months as delayed sport finally takes place.

NRL

Australia's NRL is the next tournament we expect to return on Superbru. With detailed plans drawn up that have included flying the NZ Warriors to Tamworth, where they'll be based for the remainder of the season, the NRL have now also released a fresh draw which is of course the clearest sign possible that things are ready to go ahead. The tournament will resume with Round 3 which has been scheduled to start with a match between the Broncos and the Eels on Return date: May 28th.

Super Rugby

Super Rugby was our biggest ongoing tournament before the pandemic in terms of active users so there's plenty of interest in what will happen next. SR as we know it faces the large obstacle that is international travel and it appears fairly clear that the 15-team conference format will not be able to resume this year.

Instead, New Zealand have confirmed a domestic tournament involving their Super Rugby teams will begin on June 13th named 'Super Rugby Aotearoa'. The tournament is a round-robin competition across 10 weekends with no finals. There will be a separate article (later this week) outlining our plans for the predictor game we will run for that tournament but it will be a new tournament on Superbru (separate from the existing SR predictor) and may also include some fixtures for an equivalent tournament in Australia if the rumours of such a competition are true and the fixtures overlap. Return date: June 13th

AFL

As you'd expect given the NRL news, the AFL is also expected to return soon. Clubs are back training and the official date given for the season to resume is June 11th

Serie A and La Liga

The Bundesliga returning has given other top European leagues hope in their aim to complete their seasons and both Serie A and La Liga appear to be taking encouraging steps. Clubs in Spain have begun group training today (May 18th) in groups of up to 10 players which suggests they might be able to get some games going again at around the same time as Italy where the widely reported date for Serie A's planned competitive return is June 13th.

Premier League

Though this is the tournament that has (as always) attracted the most media attention, it remains very unclear when or if the Premier League will be back anytime soon. With so much money involved, all corners of the football world will be affected by what happens with the PL but 'Project Restart' which has been launched to try and get the action back underway safely is hitting many obstacles.

Of course, one of the major issues is the amount of money at stake since the clubs at the wrong end of the table will fight hard to ensure they aren't relegated. The Premier League is finding it tough to appease all parties and though clubs have now voted for training to resume this week with players adhering to social distancing guidelines, clubs have stated that they'll need at least 4 weeks of preparation before competitive matches can take place. For context, the Bundesliga made the same step back into training in early April.

Champions League

UEFA still intend to finish this Champions League (and presumably Europa League) season. The timeline UEFA have set each European league to get their season finished suggests they're looking at August to finish the UCL, something that has been backed up by officials in Turkey who stated the Champions League final in Istanbul is set to be played in August when announcing the return of the Super Lig.

Formula 1

The F1 season is still yet to start after the Australian GP was cancelled at fairly late notice right at the start of the crisis. Since then, lots of races have either been cancelled or postponed but the short answer regarding it's current situation is that the latest plan is for the season to begin on the weekend of July 5th in Austria.

MotoGP

A very similar story for MotoGP only the current planned return date is a month later than F1. As things stand, the first race in line that is yet to be postponed or cancelled (judging by their website) is the Czech Republic GP on August 9th.

Cricket

The vast majority of cricket tournaments we run games for on Superbru are reliant on international travel meaning we aren't expecting there to be many cricket picks to make for a little while. The IPL has been suspended indefinitely and it remains to be seen if there'll be a T20 World Cup later this year as planned.

In England, government rules suggest cricket might stand a chance of returning in July and there are suggestions that both the Test series against the West Indies and against Pakistan may still happen a little later than planned.

Tennis

There's no sign of any major tennis tournaments happening soon. The French Open has been rescheduled for September/October while Wimbledon has been cancelled completely. Nothing concrete has been said regarding the US Open amid suggestions that it could be moved to the less-affected West coast of the United States.

Golf

We'll all be out of practice by the time golf picks are required on Superbru again, but once they do return, there'll be a lot of them to make in quite a short period of time. The PGA Championship has been moved to August 6th, the Northern Trust, BMW Championship and Tour Championship have all been moved back a week in late August/September, the US Open will now start on September 17th before the Ryder Cup planned for September 25th and the Masters is now set for November 12th.

Cycling

Each of the Grand Tour events we cover on Superbru have now been rescheduled. The Tour de France will take place at the end of August, with the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana overlapping each other during October.

International rugby

World Rugby has postponed all of the international Tests planned for July, including Japan v England, NZ v Wales, Australia v Ireland and South Africa v Scotland. The Rugby Championship remains a question mark.

Other sports/tournaments that we haven't mentioned also remain question marks!

Tournaments that will not be returning after concluding their season early: Scottish Premiership, Greene King IPA Championship, Momentum One Day Cup, Major League Rugby, Rapid Rugby, Top 14.

Superbru standings for tournaments that are concluded early will remain and 'count' in our archives so long as at least 50% of the planned schedule was completed.