The Impact of Covid-19 on Our Favorite Sports
The pandemic has brought hardship to millions around the nation, and as we enter this new year, sports fans are still grappling with nail-biting seasons of cancellations and disappointment. We all remember back in the spring of 2020 when everything took a downward spiral. Regardless of what type of sports fan you are, you remember the day your team didn’t return to the court, field, rink, etc. You endured an anxiety provoking summer with the rest of the world and as the fall arrived, so did Covid-19 guidelines to approve whether players’ safety was in jeopardy if a season was to commence. The lucky few who got past the red tape learned early on that, like an injury, a Covid-19 outbreak could take players out of several games in a flash. For some sports, extra precautions were taken to promote isolation and prevent the virus from spreading within teams. On July 7th, nearly 4 months after their shut-down, the NBA’s games and players moved into “the bubble” in Orlando, Florida. Other precautions for sports included the lack of audiences and increased Covid-19 regulation rules such as regular testing, two-person limits in practice facilities, and no leaving the bubble without an excused absence. Despite the setbacks, the sports community continues to fight for its ability to hold games, from players to organizations. The NFL lost almost 4 billion dollars in revenue and the NBA lost 695 million dollars from the regular season games that were canceled due to the pandemic’s disruption in March. Now we’re in 2021, so let’s take a closer look at the financial impact this pandemic has had and could have on two major sporting events.
NBA All-Stars
Braving rain, soot and snow for their favorite teams, sports fans are a crucial component of professional sports. While the fans’ ability to excite a stadium of players is almost essential to a good game, those same people serve another crucial, financial, purpose. Take the NBA’s All-Star weekend — a festival held in February preceding the NBA All-Star Game — for example. An average of 19,318 people attend the All-Star game every year. In 2020, the cheapest ticket for the All-Star game was $1080 and the priciest was over $4000 (Miller 2020). Even if everyone paid the lowest price, that would generate over 20 million dollars. Many more attended the costly activities building up to game night, which would only elevate the NBA’s revenue even more. It’s not just the ticket purchasers in the stadium bringing in capital either, it’s the viewers at home too.
Sporting News says, “All-Star weekend is considered one of the NBA’s most valuable TV assets” (Bernstein 2021). Tens of thousands come to the game, but millions watch from home. With Covid-19 delaying and canceling much of the sports world this year, fans are hungry for any content no matter if they watch that particular sport or not. Despite having no more than 25,000 people in the stands, nearly half the population was predicted to be watching the Super Bowl this year, which put the NFL in the right market for advertising deals and exposure; a Super Bowl ad slot averaged over 5 million dollars this year. The NBA is looking in the same direction to compensate for the loss of their crowds. But talk of the relevance of the event in the face of Covid-19 is putting pressure on the NBA to cancel the All-Star game entirely. Already, it’s been pushed from its original February date to early March.
The NBA claims to have an ulterior motive for moving forward with the games, releasing a statement that claims their goal was to, “Allow for a game to financially benefit historically Black colleges and universities and Covid-19 relief” (NBA 2021). For now, the All-Star game will keep its March 6th date while the NBA continues to find safe ways to bring in crowds.
Super Bowl LV
While the NBA has been successfully operating in a bubble, the NFL has had a somewhat relaxed season, and the smooth sailing didn’t stop for their main event. The Super Bowl hit CBS on its usual February date. The stadium occupied only 25,000 in person attendants, which took a hefty financial hit as this was only about ⅓ of the average, and 7,500 of those seats were exclusively donated for free to front line workers. The other 30,000 seats were occupied by cut-outs that were sold to fans for a hundred dollars each. In spite of this, 96.4 million viewers were recorded to be watching from the safety of their homes, meaning most American households were tuned into CBS that night. This turnout was not unexpected, which made the famous Super Bowl commercial slots in demand.
Variety says CBS reported to be “virtually sold out” of ad slots around February 3rd (Roberts 2021). The pandemic has not done much to mitigate the colossal prices that companies pay for tiny blocks of time during commercial breaks. Reportedly, 5.5 million dollars was paid by VIAcomCBS for a thirty-second window. But the pandemic did seem to eliminate some big competition for ad time. Beverage suppliers Coke and Pepsi, along with car dealerships Hyundai and Audi, opted out of commercials this year. With all that has happened to the nation recently, they removed themselves to allow space for advertisement highlighting the challenging events of 2020. It’s unclear if their drop out was for said reason or to boost their reputation. Regardless, this clearly did not affect the pricing, competition or “hype” surrounding advertisements for arguably the first big occasion of the New Year.
Conclusion
In the face of Covid-19, the sports industry has held strong, successfully hosting one of their biggest events of the year and preparing to hold a second soon after. This was not without hiccups and the trail here was virtually untraveled. Still, as we continue through unprecedented times the hope for more sports to come grows with the rollout of vaccines. Already, high school athletes in many states are getting prepared to begin spring sports, or start their fall season that was delayed. The Summer Olympics, originally scheduled to take place last summer, is seemingly set in stone to continue for this summer in Tokyo. As the world grows more accepting and familiar with safety guidelines including not only safe gameplay, but Covid-19 safety, the road to re-introducing all sports widens, and fans look hopeful to a fall season filled with all their favorite players.
Sources:
