Nearly all sports in the United States were forced to completely halt operations during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States beginning in March 2020. Individual sports such as golf, mixed martial arts and auto racing were the first to resume operations in May, with baseball, ice hockey and basketball following in July, without fans in attendance. The breadth and length of the cancellations was unprecedented in American history, as even during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, sports continued to be played with fans (only the 1919 Stanley Cup was canceled midway through due to the illness hitting one of the teams; baseball was played as normal as the peak of the flu season hit during the offseason, while football, still in its unorganized regional phase at the professional level, played reduced schedules).