By Ben Cohen, Joshua Robinson and Joe Flint March 29, 2020 5:26 pm ET The story of international sports over the past decade was one of unlimited growth, unrestrained spending and unwavering popularity. Coronavirus brought the sports business to an immediate standstill. The boom times went bust overnight.
The consequences across the business are only beginning to come into focus. Every day without sports costs the leagues and broadcasting networks huge sums of money that even savvy financial officers can’t wrap their minds around. That approach hasn’t worked in countries that were hit hard by the virus before the U.S. South Korea’s basketball league was suspended on Feb. 29 and canceled last week, while Japan played a weekend of basketball games without spectators before deciding to cancel. The Chinese Basketball Association went dark in January and still hasn’t returned.
The financial effects on teams could be felt for far longer than the pandemic. Even with serious challenges to the sports-business model, including the shrinking cable-television market, the industry as a whole had grown over the last decade. Driven by skyrocketing media rights, team valuations had traveled in only one direction: up.
Share Your Thoughts What more should the sports industry do to respond to the coronavirus outbreak? Join the conversation below. “I don’t know if there will be any inventory going forward,” said Steve Horowitz, a partner at a leading sports investment bank, Inner Circle Sports. “But if an NFL or NBA team came on the market tomorrow, the list of interested people would still be long—and none of them would look back with any regret.”
As baseball, basketball and hockey try to figure out what the rest of 2020 looks like, so far it is business as usual for the NFL. The heavyweight American sports league struck a new long-term labor agreement with its players earlier this month and now turns its attention toward new TV deals, even though the current pacts still have a few seasons left on them.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban predicts there will be a premium on content from sports leagues like the NBA when there are games again. As people around the world exhaust their Netflix queues, and with the production of movies and television shows effectively shut down, he expects there will be enormous demand for something new to watch. NBA games could help solve that problem.
In the US college sports may make a recovery but Olympic and professional sports are in trouble
NeverTrumpers
Who the fuck cares about Sportsball.... Decades of investment in stadiums and zero investment in healthcare. Good job!
We dont need your sport now
Drakspartan los eSports?
ChineseVirus
The future of sports has been delayed by 3-6 months. IF WE ALL StayHome Otherwise it could be 12-18 months.
Been corrupted by Money for years... go back to being Recreational
ChineseVirus