How will the return of sports affect the rest of the live event industry?
Let’s take a look at which events are back, which events are coming back, and how that will affect the overall event industry. In short, businesses that rely on live events to remain solvent will find creative ways to return. Everyone else will watch, study, and learn.
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Which sport is setting the trend for live events returning?
The first US sport to come back was MMA. The event was UFC 249 which took place as a broadcast without a live audience at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Jacksonville, Florida on May 9. UFC 250 top place on May 30 at the Apex in Las Vegas. Note, the Apex is a fighting facility owned by the UFC.
Why is the virtual/broadcast return of MMA important to the sports & event industry? Well, for a number of reasons. First, someone needed to take the brave, bold, perhaps completely reckless first step. Being the first event to return screams, “we’re more afraid of losing our jobs and our business than of COVID 19 (and related health and liability concerns).” And I mean, ALL of the liability concerns.
Aside from health and human safety, companies will absolutely be concerned about liability. I.E. what will happen if a major corporation hosts an event, and at the event a participant, speaker, sports star, or worker gets sick. Will they get sued? What if the event becomes a “super spreader” event, meaning dozens to hundreds of people get the disease? No bueno.
The UFC is perfectly positioned to be the first sport to come back. Why? Liability. People will want to watch the next big hyped UFC sports event, whether there are thousands of people screaming in the audience or not. The threat of COVID is real. But perhaps not as scary as the threat of getting killed or physically disfigured in the octagon… Live on TV and the internet.
If you’re poised to fight Connor McGreggor for five, five minutes rounds in the Octagon, you might be more afraid of getting beat up, or worse, being humiliated, than contracting Coronavirus.
Superstar UFC Lightweight, Justin Gaethje, is not afraid of getting COVID 19, and you have to watch 20 seconds of this clip to see his perspective: if MMA fighters are afraid of Coronavirus, check out this clip from the Joe Rogan experience:
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In other news, Cornhole is on ESPN… What does this say about sporting events?
We’re desperate for SOMETHING folks.
Which makes an excellent segue into broadcasting 6 games per week of Korean Baseball on ESPN. Whoo… Uhhh… Sigh… hoo… At least one thing we find interesting about Korean Baseball is the fact that when you Google KBO, the first result is gambling odds. Apparently, gamblers are desperate to gamble on something, and even Korean baseball must be more interesting than gambling on Cornhole. No offense cornhole.
MLB owners negotiate with the MLB Players Association.
On May 31st, the players association submitted a proposal requesting they play a full season of 114 games among other demands. The owners denied the proposal as they prefer a shorter regular season with about 50-60 games, focused on getting to the postseason quickly, and probably more importantly, paying the players pro rated contracts, to offset the devastating loss in ticket sale revenue.
The owners hope to complete the post season before the second wave of the virus strikes, causing games to come to a halt again. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is willing to force a shortened season and distribute salaries if the two sides cannot come to an agreement. The forced season would be approximately half of the player’s desired length.
You may be asking, why do the MLB’s negotiations matter? Aren’t we supposed to be talking about events? It matters because the owners of MLB are trying to make cost-effective decisions with the time they are allotted to start and complete the MLB season.
Sports teams make money off of fan attendance, concessions, parking, merchandise, anything you indulge in at a live sporting event. Now, the only income the MLB will be receiving is from broadcasting rights.
The return of the NBA
On June 4th, the NBA confirmed the start of the remaining 2020 NBA season without an audience. The league is tipping off an eight-game regular season on July 31st in Orlando Florida at Walt Disney World. The NBA projects a potential Game 7 of the Finals series to take place on October 12th.
Players and coaches will be allowed to golf and eat at outdoor restaurants while maintaining social distance on the Walt Disney property.
Every day the players will be tested for coronavirus within Disney’s campus. If a player is tested positive, the player will be removed from the team and treated individually. No staff will be allowed into the players’ rooms and hallways will be carefully monitored to avoid crowding.
The continuation of the 2020 NBA season is important to the event industry because of the methods and precautions the NBA is taking to continue the season uninterrupted. This also shines a light on event/broadcast companies making their way back. Someone has to broadcast these games to reach viewers.
An event/broadcast crew has to be added to the “NBA City” they are creating on the Walt Disney World campus.
Although the crew will be limited, we should look at this as the silver lining for the event/broadcast industry. There is hope that event and broadcast companies will pick up and thrive once again.
The event world is returning
Although these are only a few examples of what sports teams are doing to continue their season, it is important to look at their methods and how fast they are moving things along. We will soon have other sports to watch besides nonstop Cornhole on ESPN.
With Florida leading the charge in re-opening, we can look to them for examples and methods on how we as individual states and businesses can re-open and operate with more caution. Sports making their way to our televisions is a sign that events will start to come back but with extra health precautions.
In conclusion, we’re only a couple months into the pandemic, and we’re watching the reopening of the event world unfold. And it makes sense that businesses that rely on live events to stay solvent (sports and music), will come back first. I will go out on my very last limb and say, businesses that don’t depend on live events for revenue, will sit on the sidelines to see what happens.
Once it looks safe from the sidelines, conferences and tradeshows will return. Those with the most to lose and least to gain from live events will be the last to come back.
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