Let’s talk about the biggest comeback in sports history.
After the coronavirus pandemic cancelled
months of games, tournaments and races
athletes are starting to compete again.
Major sports had to come back.
Being away was getting expensive.
So is it all worth the risk?
How have athletes been affected?
What about the fans?
And will sports ever be the same again?
The Great Depression, two world wars
hurricanes and wildfires
they’ve all, to some extent, derailed the big sports.
But nothing like this pandemic.
Putting an actual number on the financial hit is hard.
But we’re talking billions.
It’s an industry that affects so many others
and on a global scale.
Not just in lost team revenue but for the stadiums
and arenas, the TV rights, tourism, travel, retail
services, betting and all the rest of it.
Now if we just look at US stadiums alone
and the salaries of the people who work there
people like the hot dog sellers, T-shirt vendors
cleaners, and security staff
the pandemic is expected to wipe out
about $370 million in people’s wages.
So the urge for sports to come back is strong.
But let’s not forget why they were banned in the first place.
Remember how bad things got in Italy?
For a while there the town of Bergamo
was one of the hardest hit places in Europe.
They traced the spread of the virus to a football match
in Milan in February between Bergamo’s team
Atalanta, and Valencia, a team from Spain.
That day tens of thousands of fans travelled on buses
and trains to the match where they hugged and celebrated.
One doctor called it a “biological bomb”.
And in the early days a lot of people
just didn’t take it seriously.
This is Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz
goofing around with reporters’ microphones
a few days later he tested positive.
And not long after that the NBA shut down.
So there were plenty of reasons for suspending play.
Nobody wanted to risk spreading the virus to players
spectators and, well, everyone else.
So that meant hitting pause.
But if you’re an athlete — it’s not that simple.
Athletes only get a limited number of years
at the top of their game.
Tiger Woods needs four more Majors
to break the record for most titles.
Serena Williams is 38 but she’s still two shy of breaking
Margaret Court’s record for the singles title.
Now think about the Olympics for a second.
Athletes train for four years
so they peak in time for the games.
That’s 15,000 of them.
But the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo
have been postponed for at least a year.
Athletes have had to get creative.
There are lots of unknowns.
Will the Olympics even go ahead?
And who’s going to cover the losses?
The International Olympic Committee has offered
to chip in with $800 million.
But some estimates suggest it could cost Japan
as much as $6 billion.
Olympians lose out too.
They lose out on the biggest stage they’ll ever be on
Basically sitting on the bench costs money.
A lot of it.
It’s why the major sports are risking a comeback.
Contracts with broadcasters are the biggest source
of revenue for almost all major sports.
The English Premier League have agreed to
a three-year contract with broadcasters
worth $12 billion.
The NBA has a TV deal worth $24 billion over nine years.
And each NFL regular season game is worth nearly
$24 million in revenue from TV rights alone.
Money’s been short all around.
A lot of players have taken pay cuts.
But as teams plan their comebacks
the virus hasn't gone away.
And there's still no vaccine.
In the US they’re trying something new.
Men's basketball, the NBA, and soccer, the MLS
are going to be holed up at Disney World in Florida.
Teams will live, train and compete in a sealed off
virus-free bubble.
It’s a lot of disruption.
Still, it comes down to choice.
And that goes for any future vaccine too.
But as countries have started lifting their lockdowns
sports have said it’s game on.
It was easy enough for rugby to resume in New Zealand
with full contact and full stadiums.
They declared themselves virus-free in June.
But other sports have returned without their fans.
Like Korea’s K League.
Or pro baseball in Taiwan
where teams played in front of cardboard cutouts
and robotic drummers.
The Bundesliga is back too.
But the empty stands are as weird for the players
as they are for the fans.
A recent study suggests more than half of sports fans say
they won’t feel comfortable in large crowds for a while.
The big sports are expected to find ways to survive.
But it’s the smaller sporting communities
the amateur and youth leagues
that might struggle.
And what about women’s sports?
With money drying up
there’s not much to go around.
There may be some positive outcomes from all this.
To cut costs and the risk of global travel
some tournaments might rethink their schedules.
And that would be a good thing for the planet.
There might even be conversations about whether
they’re paying superstar athletes too much money.
Sports are expected to get back to normal eventually.
And plenty of fans will tell you they really need it.
Real world concerns about the virus though
mean the comeback could be seen as risky business.
For the athletes and their fans.
But at the end of the day sports is a business.
And if anything, the pandemic has exposed
just how big of a business it really is.
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