Essay on COVID-19: Impact of Pandemic on Sports Activities and Professional Leagues

The coronavirus pandemic continues to impact different social and economic sectors, including sports. Sports activities will take time to regain the normality as it is not going to be normal any time soon. The pandemic has sent shockwaves around the globe and plunged the worldwide economy to what is now the sharpest downturn since the Great Depression. The outbreak of coronavirus has upended the calendar of sporting professional leagues. It is through all over suspending their events to combat the coronavirus. The global estimation of the sports industry is about $471 bn by 2018. It is an increase of over 45 percent since 2011. The trajectory seemed to be moving upwards before the coronavirus stopped the play (Schwartz, 2020). The purpose of this study is to discuss the reason why sports will not return to the normal soon and give evidence from some games that have been canceled or postponed.

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Business model of sports made up of merely three main income streams for sports leagues: commercial that concerns advertising partnership and sponsorship, sales of media rights through broadcasting, and matchday revenues from hospitality and ticketing. From the three main streams, it is that right now that all are at a standstill. Without the operation of these streams makes it challenging to resume activities as usual. Sporting companies have a wide range of employees who wait for their salaries at the end of the month. Proficient sports leagues are corresponding to entertainment firms from the perspective that each team is considered a different channel in a league. Teams have their particular staffs and enthusiast bases and identities (Schwartz, 2020).

However, the overall fixture list and rules of the games majorly organized by the leagues. The purists might not be pleased by this comparison, but the truth in entertainment and sports is that the value is directly proportional to the number of eyeballs. Primary sports depend on broadcasting income, as clearly elaborated from the data received from the most significant leagues in the last five years period. About 60 percent of the global value of over $50bn of sports accounted for only ten leagues. Every game monetizes diversely, but in general principle, organizing body dispenses the total income among the participating clubs. It is usually structured as a minimum assured payment with performance together with any competition-related bonuses (Nicola et al., 2020).

Nevertheless, individual clubs are capable of generating their income by competition of another tournament, individual agreements on sponsorship, or direct-to-consumer media subscriptions. Significantly, the financial success of every particular club depends on its interaction in the overarching league. The joint power experienced in leagues to sell media rights is incredible. The current TV deal of the NBA valued at $24billion in over nine years. The last year's agreement of the English Premier League with broadcasters is equivalent to $12 billion over three years (Nicola et al., 2020).

In comparison, the significant baseball has a seven-year arrangement of over $5 billion with the media. Many have been questioning the sustainability of this agreement concerning acceleration in "cord-cutting," while the media consumption is progressively moving to online technology (Tovar, 2020). It is evident from this short analysis that anything longer than temporary shutdown or suspension would result in leagues' inability to meet the commitment to broadcasters. Hence, the distribution of income to the clubs will be limited or even stopped.

The impact on different industries will be dramatic; no TV deals, no games, no entertainment, no business, no matchday income: no income means no income. However, different companies are coming up with strategies to adopt the new normal and respond to disruption. The approach made includes increasing flexibility of payment options to consumers and establishing contingency plans without a live audience (Schwartz, 2020). Also, maintaining an operating model of sports, exploring more diverse income streams, creating opportunities for virtual technology, and accelerating adoption of D2C service to dispense the sports content (Schwartz, 2020). Nevertheless, this strategy will not return the normality we know. Sports are all about people interacting and having fan lively. Coming up with this strategy will only maintain the business, customers, and cope up with the current situation. It is now apparent that the "normal" delayed for some time, but from my perspective, it is not soon than the majority think. The ability of games and sports to gather people together missed than ever.

Extensively, the current operation of some games and sports explains more about the "normal" not coming soon. The outbreak of COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus has killed over 170,000 persons worldwide, and nearly 2.5 million people infected worldwide as of April 22. Such cases have forced governments to take actions such as lockdown, social distancing, stay at home rules, curfews, and shutdowns (Tovar, 2020). Due to this new way of life, many sports and games have been suspended, with most having no exact date of reopening. The early reopening of sports will accelerate the spread of the disease. Only virtual games ad any other indoor gaming that suits the guidelines should be encouraged at the moment. The following paragraphs show an operational state of some sports.

Football

Just to mention a few challenges experienced in football, the Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States top-tier football league had postponed matches in the country. Recently, the postponement extended until June 8 due to the growing coronavirus pandemic. In the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the same is happening in two-legged semi-finals postponed on April 12. The African Champions League could have taken place in May (Schwartz, 2020). The CAF committee has decided to postpone the games until further notice. It is due to the growing concern on the nature of the pandemic, leading many countries to deploy lockdown.

The confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) had scheduled National League Finals between June 4 and June 7, but now they have suspended. The contest in the finals held in the Houston and Dallas areas, including Costa Rica, Mexico, United States, and Honduras, have been rescheduled for venues and dates to be determined later. In Russia, football suspended until April. The league in Russian has been the best-attended sports competition in Europe with recently more than 33,000 fans in one of its games. Similarly, the Russian Football Union decided to suspend the games on March 17 immediately. The top-fight of Bundesliga in Germany has been in suspension since March 13.

Training clubs also have been suspended by the German Football League. Indefinite suspension in the African Championship 2020 soccer tournament schedule for April in Cameroon was done on March 17 by the African Football Federation. On April 1, UEFA suspended all Europa League and Champions League games until a date not determined. Team games scheduled for June also postponed. Asian Football Confederation and FIFA have decided to suspend the Asian World Cup qualifying games. Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean new season matches have also been postponed (Tovar, 2020). From this scenario, it is evident that almost all organizations have no specific dates for reopening sports. They are not sure when the pandemic will end. Football is one of the most loved games, and at this time, virtual sports can solve the problem encountered by the fans.

Marathons

There was a scheduled marathon in London that was to happen on April 26 and put on hold until October 4. Also, the Boston Marathon was to occur on April 4 but postponed to September 14. Some of the other postponed marathons include Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, and Tokyo. Over 300,000 participants usually attend Tokyo. The last marathon in Tokyo restricted to only 200 elite runners (Schwartz, 2020).

Olympic Games

Japan's Prime minister and the International Olympic Committee have settled and concluded that the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to be put on hold and agreed after holding out for weeks as the IOC, and local organizers met due to the increasing pressure from national Olympic bodies, sports federation, and athletes. The Olympic now scheduled to happen between July 23 and August 8, 2021 (Schwartz, 2020).

Formula 1

The latest postponement in the calendar is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The earliest Formula one held could be in the middle of June. Another rescheduled race in Baku City planned to take place on June 7. In Australian Gp, the Formula one canceled after the virus infected a McLaren team member and rescheduled for March 15. The events of the Vietnam Grand Prix and Bahrain Grand Prix had been scheduled between March 20-22 and April 3-5 correspondingly. Other rescheduled races include the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, Canadian Grand Prix, and competitions in the Netherlands, Spain, and Monaco (Tovar, 2020).

Tennis

From the International Tennis Federation (ITF), 900 tournaments in the entire of its circuits postponed. It ended up in furloughing almost half of its staff. One of the high-profile events, Fed Cup Finals, which was to take place this month, was also postponed. Some of the suspended events include the professional tennis tour, 2020 Wimbledon tennis championships. It will mark the first time to call off the championships due between June 28 and July 11 since World War II (Schwartz, 2020).

Boxing

Promoters of the Word boxing heavyweight fight involving IBF's mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev and Briton Anthony postponed. The event was to take place on June 20. Tokyo Olympic boxing qualifiers for Oceania an Asia and the final World qualifying boxing for America and Europe suspended (Schwartz, 2020). The world boxing heavyweight rescheduled for the end of the year.

Basketball

On March 11, the National Basketball Association (NBA) mentioned that the season suspended until further notice after one of the Utah Jazz players contracted the coronavirus. The 2020 regular season was postponed by the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) due to the rapid spread of the pandemic in the United States the entire world. Training camps postponed after the United States extend the social distancing guidelines through April 3 (Schwartz, 2020).

Rugby

On March 13, the France rugby federation suspended all the competitions due to the outbreak of coronavirus. The women's Six Nations game between France and Scotland postponed after the Scottish player contracted the COVID-19 virus. Hong Kong and Singapore legs of the World Rugby Sevens series moved from April to October (Tovar, 2020).

In summary, the situation right now is "glass half-full" looking at the world we now exist in, but as worse as things might be now, there will inevitably come a day when our normal life resumes and sports return though that time may seem far away at the moment. When it resumes, the live viewing will be in many of the most significant months of live sports that has never happened in the world. Events and leagues will be overlapping and in rapid succession. We remain at the spirit of hope even though the cure of the virus not yet found. Also, the normality will not come soon because it will take time for the various organization to resume considering that some of the sports resources such as stadiums are turned into hospitals. Besides, clubs are contributing to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.