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The next step arrived just past 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, not long after Rudy Gobert, a center for the Jazz, was reportedly found to have tested positive for COVID-19. There, in 36 words of carefully crafted black and white, came the news from the NBA league office.

“The NBA is suspending game play following the conclusion of tonight’s schedule of games until further notice. The NBA will use this hiatus to determine next steps for moving forward in regard to the coronavirus pandemic.”

And now, officially, everything is on the table for American sport, which has spent the past few days trying to figure out what’s appropriate in a time of global concern.

Mostly, there had been a batch of half-measures: The NCAA announced Wednesday, for instance, that its upcoming basketball championship will be conducted exclusively in front of TV lenses, and not fans (including the East Region, scheduled to be played in two weeks at Madison Square Garden).

Already the Nets-Warriors game, originally scheduled for Thursday night at San Francisco’s Chase Center, had been declared a fan-free zone in accordance with that city’s ban on large crowd gatherings in an effort to combat COVID-19. The Ivy League had gone a step farther, unanimously canceling all spring sports one day after eliminating its basketball tournaments.

Every hour, it seemed, brought similar reactions. The Atlantic 10 Tournament opened at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center with fans in attendance for two preliminary games Wednesday; beginning today, those games will go on without spectators. One by one, almost every other conference followed suit.

And then the NBA shut its doors.

And suddenly, that recalibrates our definition of “new normal.”

And now we have to wonder: What else is coming? Can the NCAA really conduct its billion-dollar showcase event, in essence, in remote TV studios, honoring its broadcast commitments while barring the door on its fans, an exercise that would surely come across as base and cynical, to say nothing of being potentially reckless?

What about The Masters? President Trump’s 30-day European travel ban will either wreak havoc with the field at Augusta National or force foreign golfers to scramble to get here by Friday.

And what of Major League Baseball? We are two weeks away from Opening Day, and it feels like there are any number of possibilities about how the pandemic will affect the Pastime. There is talk of keeping games in Florida and Arizona. There is talk of shifting games to cities so far unaffected by COVID-19. Neither option seems terribly wise.

There is, of course the last option before the nuclear option, which would be to follow the NCAA’s lead and play games inside empty stadiums. I’ve experienced that one before, and it was a surreal experience that, we may find, might quickly become the norm.

This was April 29, 2015, a glorious spring afternoon in Baltimore, a bright sun filling an impossibly blue sky, and even well past it 20th birthday, there was still no better place on earth to spend a day than Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the civic jewel hard by the Inner Harbor, next door to where Babe Ruth’s old man once tended bar.

Baltimore was in the midst of a turbulent week of unrest. Freddie Gray, 25 years old, had died after being injured while in police custody. The city percolated and stewed for a few days. Its public schools were closed. The first two games of the Orioles-White Sox series were preemptively postponed. As tensions eased, the decision was made to play on getaway day, with one provision:

No fans were allowed in. The Orioles won 8-2. The concession stands remained padlocked all day, with no one to buy Natty Bo beer, or Oreo-flavored churros, or Chipper-loaded kettle chips. In the seventh inning came the official attendance — zero. That’s a record that, we thought, would stand forever.

And now, soon, suddenly, everywhere, it might be tied. Regularly.

Thirty-one years ago, the North-Atlantic Conference held its basketball tournament at the Hartford Civic Center, and no fans were allowed in because of a measles outbreak on the campus of Siena — which, ironically, won the tournament. Afterward Siena coach Mike Deane said, “Well, that was something — something I hope none of us ever has to experience ever again.”

Now, everyone will, right up until they play the song on the last Monday night of the season. One Silent Moment.