What is the Possibility That Some Sports Simply End? Could There be a Permanent Covid Contraction?
Mates,
I came across this article about MLB and how the players and owners seem pretty far apart about starting a season. And even if they reach an agreement, what if there is even the slightest fly in the ointment re: C-19 issues re-emerging? I wonder also about the downstream effects of having cancelled a bunch of other spring sports and conceivably some or all of the fall sports for kids all the way up through college. What effect will having what amounts to a 'gap year' on sports have across the age groups?
Do you run the risk of all of the sports having a permanently, and possibly significant, reduced level of participation? So you cancel MLB or the NBA this year, does anyone even care about it next year? If kids don't get to play this summer, do you suddenly permanently lose maybe 50% of the young players? For instance, we have frequently talked about declining participation in football and does a cancelled season greatly accelerate the issue? Do you literally wipe out whole smaller school teams, grade schools right up through high schools?
Anyway, here is the article that talks about the MLB impasse: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29307988/mlb-players-reject-latest-offer-ask-league-set-2020-season-schedule
Tonight's question/issue: If there is a 'gap year' for sports, do you think we permanently end or reduce participation in those sports or, for instance, permanently choke out smaller schools at all age levels that were just barely fielding teams in the first place?
Hope you are all enjoying a fine Summer evening,
XM
I think what you’re getting at is reason number one why they NEED to come back, or at least some do. You’d be surprised how quickly people will move on to something else.
baseball, in particular, has been dying for a while and this could completely kill it. The only benefit it has is that it’s the only sport on for 12 weeks from mid June to late August.
yeah, baseball was the one that i was thinking of. i mean as a tiger fan the organization is a train wreck for years. they were probably seating about 50 people (note: exaggeration) per game and i can't imagine many were watching/listening either. other teams have attendance issues. if nobody is watching on TV and your youth leagues are shrinking, seems like you have a systemic problem that might not ever get fixed.
Baseball attendance peaked before the Great Recession and attendance has not fully recovered. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/misc.shtml
For demographic reasons it is unlikely to ever rebound to the 2007-2008 peak. Attendance for all sports in the US (except maybe the NBA) has not recovered to pre Recession peaks. And MLB attendance now is much higher than the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, and most of the 90s. But I think the biggest lingering effect is going to be a Recession-like depression of attendance.
I would pay good money for the WNBA to go away.
No thanks, it's a great sport to bet on and make some consistent $$$ on
This comment interests me. Please explain.
Pinpoint betting the unders early on in the season. Start focusing more on betting the overs once all-star break hits
So you have a verified system ... I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I'm looking forward when WNBA players demand to be paid the same as NBA players.
I don't follow the WNBA or anything, but I'm glad it exists.
Logged in just to upvote.
Over the past couple years, MLB owners have made more than $5B in profits.
That's a lot of cabbage. I am amazed that sport can generate that type of revenue but hey, I guess more power to them and the players if they can persevere.
Profit or revenue? I find this number highly unlikely, if true they are more profitable than any other sport and by a good margin.
Profit. It's the main reason why it's so appalling that the owners are (apparently) unwilling to operate a condensed season at a minor loss during a pandemic. But that's another discussion, I guess.
If they were actually making $5B/year, then a season that starts in mid June wouldn't be a net loss. You're ascribing one-sided motives to the issue of a having a season, something which is 99.99% of the time wrong. The player's union at one point was demanding full season pay for less than a full season's work. It's easy to say "the teams can afford it", well, first, no, the small-market teams can't. Not - "should but won't" -CAN NOT-. Second, why? They're not guaranteed $X as part of their contract regardless of what happens. Work is an agreement, I give my time and my skills, my boss pays me accordingly. And this isn't a work from home thing where maybe I can be just as productive in 35 hours as I was in the office at 40 - these are entertainers. If U2 cancels a show, the arena isn't going to pay them as though they put on a full set.
It HAS to be a compromise, I'm willing to bet the owners would be willing to take a bit of a loss to get the season started, but it's still got to be a give and take on both sides.
Please note, I'm not all on the owners side, I want them to give more, the quality of the baseball should be higher since the players won't experience as much burn in a 4 month season as opposed to 7 months, and given the fans desire to watch ANY sports, ad revenue should be up (which doesn't help the owners now, but will help in future tv negotiations. I'm just saying it has to be a give and take on both sides, and from what I've read, the give failure right now is on the players association.
How much of that 5B is TV money (guaranteed income regardless of demand / actual people watching)?
if sports were stock, I would sell my entire baseball position and buy a whole lot of MLS. Outside of historic baseball cities (NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc) baseball is dying.
I've heard we're going to completely switch over the metric system in the next couple years too.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/193466/total-league-revenue-of-the-mlb-since-2005/
They made over $10 billion in revenue last year. Can’t find anything on profit.
No way half of that is profit. Sports teams profits are generally very low compared to their cost. I am not asking anyone to feel sorry for the billionaires, but these teams are generally not super profitable unless you can sell the team for a lot more than you bought it.
Six months ago, few people likely loved the status quo more than MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and the group of owners who employ him. Having just completed the third year of a five-year Collective Bargaining Agreement with the players, baseball revenues continued to soar, with estimated profits during those years totaling $3.57 billion even before accounting for the $2 billion windfall from the BAMTech sale to Disney.
So simple math, 5.57B divided by 31 (30 teams + MLB) divided by 3 years = $60M per team/yr. Sure, I'd be pretty excited by $60m - but on the scale of what it costs to run a team? I'm not sure what BAMTech is, and you can't count on that long term, so 3.57 billion /31 /3 = $38.4m per team per year.
So they've been profiting at the rate of 2 good player's salaries. *GASP* the horror, what kind of greedy monsters are these?!? They take on significant risk and employ thousands of people and yet they still demand to be paid in the same scale as the top end of their employees salaries. BASTARDS!!!!
Sorry Sleepy, you don't get to paint them with the full on evil brush, it just doesn't work.
Getting the season going has to be a compromise. Is it possible that the owners are being dicks because they're going to lose stadium revenue? Sure, of course they are, they're owners. At the same time, they do have a bottom line they have to meet. If the players don't play, there's no money for them either. It's in both side's interest to find a middle ground. That middle will end up with neither side getting everything they want. As a fan, the longer it goes on, the more it hurts both of them, so I hope both sides get their collective heads out of their asses and let's play ball.
38.4 seems much more likely, and given that baseball has vast differences between teams because most big TV contracts are regional, you can bet there are more than a couple teams just barely breaking even
I'm sure some of the small market teams are losing money. Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, Red Sox eat up a huge percentage of the gains. The only reason they stay within shouting distance is the luxury tax.
There's a reason Moneyball was necessary, and interesting enough to become a book/movie. Oakland's owner wasn't kidding when he said there was no more money available for players. He's an owner, so yes, inclined towards penny pinching, but there really wasn't any more money.
define "couple of years" and do remember to divide whatever profit is made by 30 clubs. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/12/21/mlb-sees-record-107-billion-in-revenues-for-2019/#712918a95d78 Forbes suggests revenues at 10.7B and costs at 9.7B. Divide by 30 is 33m per team (it's not that clean of course, and MLB gets their cut too, but I'm trying to keep this simple).
So the teams are profiting at the tune of ... 1 expensive contract player per year. MLB owners don't tend to get in because of year by year profit, they get in because the team value goes up.
The NBA is going to take that June to late August window from them too, so they won't have that to themselves anymore. They'd been thinking of shifting the start of their season from October to December for a while. Thanks to COVID, they now have to do that and I don't think they'll go back.
The pressure at least in the short term will be particularly acute in the MLB, which lacks revenue sharing and where it isn't as easy to broadcast the games without fans and share the media rights. Leagues that are already struggling, like the NHL, are also especially vulnerable.
Public universities will also have tremendous financial pressure to cut programs in light of budget shortfalls--what was lost already from March Madness is going to cause significant damage.
I could see contraction pressure in MLB, the NHL, and in college 'revenue' sports as well (as the economics have been interrupted). This could linger a few years or longer, depending of course on how long the overall recovery takes.
Actually, I have read MLB might expand by a couple teams to recoup lost revenue by selling new franchises. So long as cities want to think of themselves as “major league” and there are rich guys who like the limelight, there will be a market for that. It also would enable them to set up four divisions per league and go with 4 champions and two wild cards, increasing playoff participation and dollars. Personally, I love baseball. Biggest problem is the unfair revenue sharing structure that guarantees the Yankees and Dodgers and other rich teams will have a chance every year (assuming semi-competent management) while teams like the Marlins and Pirates have to suffer a decade of losses trying to rebuild to compete. Sure, Tampa competes most of the time, but only on the fringes.
I think that school teams will take a hard hit, for simple budget reasons. Almost certainly budgets will be down; cutting marginal sports seems like an easy way to do that. But were these the schools where "serious" youth athletes were playing?
What's more interesting to me is the youth athletic league world (thinking here of travel baseball, offseason 7-on-7, etc). My sense is that many of these operations are not super super profitable. They also require lots of travel (which might be unappealing after the virus & is not inexpensive) and lots of equipment (again, expensive). Finally, the coaches, refs, administrators, etc who keep these events running -- how will they be paid? Presumably they are not working for free. How will leagues be able to afford field rentals, etc?
The most interesting (and underdiscussed, imo) impact of COVID on pro sports revenues, to me, is luxury boxes. My business regularly rents luxury boxes for client & employee morale purposes; that's not going to be renewed because our clients and employees won't want to go to them. My sense is that those are huge revenue drivers, and they may take a long, long time to jump back.
I spoke with our business and operations director the other day in preparation for starting voluntary conditioning this week. He stated that if all of these expectations are carried out, it will cost the district 400k in just hand sanitizer and additional sanitizing measures to run all the sports this season.
So, actually, speaking specifically about travel baseball--it's grotesquely profitable. Most coaches are parent volunteers, umps are paid maybe $75 per game. On the other hand, the head of USSSA makes about 700-800K per year for youth travel baseball. He and others involved will be pushing hard to get this going again. It's the local youth leagues that are in trouble.
Jesus, really? Thanks for the info, that's gross.
My source is a friend with a kid heavily involved in TX travel softball. who is legitimately worried that the travel softball infrastructure will be decimated because of COVID.
Travel and tourney industry is OBSCENE. The director of a regional volleyball club near us is in the seven figure range with 20-30 teams at every age group. $6,000+ per kid and they spend $300 of it each tourney and about $50 per kid on jerseys. You supply transportation, hotel, shorts, shoes...and coaches are volunteers.
I'd say it's 50/50. I could see local leagues boom early on to keep close to home, travel issues, fear of "spike" areas etc may limit what parents do
Umps $75 a game? You sure of that?
I ran a men's softball league years ago and talked to umps all the time and they usually made 20 or 25 bucks a game. Be totally shocked if they are paying 2-3 umps each 75 a game. Each game was usually 1 to 1.5 hours.
They lived for tournaments where they would do 8 games or so over a weekend and make 200 bucks
times have changed, I suppose different areas pay a bit more or less. Even if it were $75 as a high end...compared to what they rake in, the organizers are still making obscene money on little kids hoping this is their shot at the pros...
I think I saw an article once, about the investment in travel sports, and you could pay for most smaller colleges with the amount of money dumped into travel sports organizations. Granted, the life lessons and the games are great, but if travel organizations ended and kids remained in their community leagues it might be a different picture. Assuming you can avoid corrupt league management such as our own community baseball programs. The director coached teams that fit his son's age groups and it's ironic how 'draft' day the top talent was not there...it was later revealed he would hold back registrations for kids he knew and his charitable nature...would just add 'late' registrations to his small roster...and win each game by 30 runs. Such a great guy.
MLB would be in serious trouble if they don’t have or at least get on the same page to have a season.
The NHL and NBA and their respective PA’s have come together and agreed upon resuming their season, when and where and how it would look. If it happens or not is out of their hands but MLB trying to pay players a percentage of a pro-rated amount of games to be played is ridiculous and I don’t blame the players for not being happy about it. The 94 strike took a lot out of baseball, only for them to turn two blind eyes to allowing steroids into the game which helped it regain popularity. They can’t even open the same book, more or less get on the same page. I think the a games the owners are playing and the stubbornness by the players will really really hurt the game.
As for your question, regardless if there is a ‘gap year’ or not, I wouldn’t be surprised to see many smaller schools and some larger ones cut back their athletic programs of non-revenue generating sports.
I think the bigger threat is too small colleges and non revenue sports at larger institutions than any middle or high school programs. The MLB will be hurt if they don’t have a season but it’s not as if it’ll dissolve. The NBAPA is going to have some headaches that they’re going to have to deal with if Kyrie succeeds in getting the season cancelled. I believe it would result in the owners opting out of their current CBA and the players association would go into the new negotiations with very little leverage and a frustrated fan base, especially if football does play.
I know it is just one child, but my 13 year old is basically going nuts not being able to play sports. While he tries to keep himself busy with other activities. There is a big empty gap for him without sports.
I know there may not be the case across the board, but I do believe there are several youths that are just anxious to get back to the lives they are so use to......
You're not alone, and it's not just sports being interrupted. With public pools, camps, even playgrounds being closed or having capacity severely restricted; it's a real struggle to find ways to keep our kids entertained and active.
Honestly, if sports die over this, it would be just another example of the greatest over-reaction in the history of the world. I am not a COVID denier. But at the same time, it’s not exactly airborne stage-4 cancer justifying cancelling ANYTHING for more the a very short term. As more info has come out, the mortality rate has come down to way below 1% and unlike so many other diseases, we can actually identify pretty well who is likely to have a good outcome and who is likely to have a bad outcome. People over 70 or people with CERTAIN preexisting conditions are at risk. Kids, healthy adults under 70 (especially those under 50)have a Incredibly low mortality rate. The only sports that should cancelled are those that are played by elderly or sick people.
While you’re right about the mortality rate, we have seen some alarming findings such as a similar to Kawasaki disease in young children, those in their 20’s/30’s having Covid induced strokes, etc. We also don’t know if this causes any long lasting respiratory issues.
The Kawasaki disease scare turned out to be nothing. Kawasaki existed long before Covid and the rates of this “new Kawasaki” are near zero. Same with the people in their 20/30s having strokes. Yes, a very small number of people in that age group did have strokes. But pre-corona, a number of people in their 20s/30s has strokes. The unfortunate problem with both the Kawasaki scare and the stroke scare was the reporting. Just because several kids who had Kawasaki or several young adults who had strokes HAD Covid doesn’t mean that the Kawasaki or strokes were caused BY Covid. The bottom line is that millions of people had Covid - it is completely expected statistically that a percentage of those people would fly ave strokes, heart attacks and Kawasaki. The percentage of young adults who had strokes with Covid is no higher than the percentage of young adults who had strokes without Covid.
Sadly, the media didn’t report it this way and contributed to the panic surrounding this disease.
I agree with some of what you say but " The percentage of young adults who had strokes with Covid is no higher than the percentage of young adults who had strokes without Covid"??? I'm pretty involved in the area and highly doubt that this is true. Data or source?
Just out of curiosity, are you a medical professional? This is what the CDC says about the Kawaski connection:
https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2020/han00432.asp
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is providing 1) background information on several cases of a recently reported multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); and 2) a case definition for this syndrome. CDC recommends healthcare providers report any patient who meets the case definition to local, state, and territorial health departments to enhance knowledge of risk factors, pathogenesis, clinical course, and treatment of this syndrome.’ -
While it certainly appears to be quite rare and the numbers that have been seen so far don’t change the general conclusion that for children, Covid is likely problematic than the flu, this certainly doesn’t seem consistent with anyone doing a study that reaches the conclusions you have.
With regard to strokes, this paper certainly seems to suggest there are do e doctors who believe there is a relation. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200604095600.htm
it is in fact possible for Covid to still be relatively low risk for younger people while at the same time there is still growing proof of additional rare complications.
I think people's opinions of Covid are going to change a lot the next few months. It was only a few areas really getting impacted by Covid the last few months (Detroit, Tri-state area, Washington, Calfornia, etc.), however, cases are now spiking in new reopened places that weren't really affected before (and have high populations of elderly) and there is no indication that they are planning to do anything to stop it on a federal or state level
And Big Brother is making sure every death is classified as COVID. Thanks Swamp.
I know people in the field doing investigations and this is corrupt America at work. Watch your freedoms.
Keep that tin foil hat on buddy. Oh and BTW, in addition to MAGA I thought your boy was supposed to drain the swamp. We're going on 4 years now, how's that going?
Tin foil...lol isn't there some MSM your rather be checking on? Has to be a Biden article or two out there somewhere. The irony. If it's not your direct and specific tunnel it's wrong. So tired and used up.
The reason I think it’s wrong is because there is actual evidence that if anything, desths are undercounted, not ovecounted. On the other side all zi hear are anecdotes. From several sources that are generally viewed as pretty center.
‘The reality is that assigning a cause of death is not always straightforward, even pre-pandemic, and a patchwork of local rules and regulations makes getting valid national data challenging. However, data on excess deaths in the United States over the past several months suggest that COVID-19 deaths are probably being undercounted rather than overcounted.‘
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-covid-19-deaths-are-counted1/
‘Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said during an April 8 White House coronavirus briefing that many who succumb to the virus do have other underlying conditions. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t dying from COVID-19.
"Those individuals will have an underlying condition, but that underlying condition did not cause their acute death when it’s related to a COVID infection," Birx said. "In fact, it’s the opposite. Having an underlying condition and getting this virus, we know is particularly damaging to those individuals."
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also has pushed back against what he called “conspiracy theories” that the U.S. is overcounting the coronavirus death toll. On April 9, he said on NBC’s "Today" show that there’s “absolutely no evidence that that’s the case.”