Sporting Kansas City had just packed Children's Mercy Park to the brim for a 4-0 blowout of the Houston Dynamo when the coronavirus pandemic brought not just the Major League Soccer season but the entire sporting world to a standstill.
Suddenly, what looked like such a dream start for the club — on the pitch and off — had the makings of a nightmare.
Many professional sports league, such as the NFL and European soccer leagues, have lucrative television contracts and big-money corporate sponsors that fill their substantial coffers. But the domestic soccer league in the U.