As the emergence of COVID-19 became worldwide news, the illness spread globally soon thereafter through virus exposure from contact and international travel. Businesses and schools everywhere are shutting down and encouraging everyone to work from home. But what happens to the industries that live off of people being collectively together in one place?
The sports industry has taken a turn to the mass hysteria. With obligations to protect the health and wellness of the players, staff and fans, arenas and leagues all over the world have suspended fan attendance indefinitely (Knoblauch & Schilken, 2020).
Specifically referring to the NBA, teams have considered keeping and playing the remaining games of the season, only with the players and essential staff. This will not only change the whole atmosphere of playing a NBA basketball game, but will also be a huge revenue loss for team’s and their front offices. They will miss out on sales through fan attendance, merchandise, and concessions, which makes up a large portion of each teams income (Reiff, 2019).
To keep fans attending games, ESPN announced very early this morning on Twitter that there is a chance that games may be moved to cities where the virus has not yet shown a prevalent outbreak.
The NBA league announced that they will be meeting with the owners of each team late morning today on a large conference call to discuss actions moving forward. Therefore, news about next steps concerning fan attendance at games should be announced soon.
As for the NHL and NFL, various teams have expressed delaying the games because they have no desire to play without fans in attendance (Feur, 2020).
So what happens next? As COVID-19 continues to spread, hopefully a vaccination or containment plan quickly develops. But what does this mean for the world of live sporting events? If a no fan attendance policy is implemented, how long will it last? Will the loss of revenue for so many leagues around he world be too large to recover from? If fans are prohibited from attending games, how much will teams scale back on their front offices?
From the perspective of a professional sports team’s front office employee, we are concerned about health and safety of fans, but our own personal careers are on the line. I am in sales for the Chicago Bulls, but won’t be able to continue selling tickets to fans if they are not allowed in the arena. This is definitely a difficult and important conversation that each organization is having with their staff, as the future of the virus cannot be predicted. Many of us fear we will lose our jobs temporarily or even permanently. I’m sure it is the same way with other departments that may be deemed as non-essential if this idea of no fan attendance becomes reality for leagues across the world. At this point, all we can do is sit back and wait for the NBA league offices to call the shots. It will be interesting to see how the world of live sporting events is altered through this global epidemic.
Resources
Feur, W. (2020, Mar. 11). NBA, NHL owners oppose playing games without fans, NY coronavirus cases quadruple in 48 hours. Retrieved from: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-latest-updates-outbreak.html.
Knoblauch, A. & Schilken, C. (2020 Mar. 11) How the coronavirus is affecting sports leagues and events. Retrieved from: https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-03-09/coronavirus-latest-news-sports-world
Reiff, N. (2019, Sep. 24). How the NBA makes money. Retrieved from: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/071415/how-nba-makes-money.asp
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