The sports industry’s first COVID-19 affected season "ended [last] week" with the final game of the World Series, and its "successes and its failures generated a trove of data for the rest of the U.S.," according to Cohen & Radnofsky of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Leagues had both the "resources and incentives to get back to work," and sports were "months ahead of other industries that depend on gathering a lot of people in one place." The pandemic seasons "taught America that learning to live with coronavirus is about psychology and economics as much as it’s about science." As cases "surge around the country again," the lessons from sports include:
- "Testing is crucial."
- "Act like you are in a bubble."
- "Pandemic fatigue is real."
- The biggest risks are "not what you expect."
- The "financial outlook is bleak."
The professional leagues all "placed bets on the same big idea: the more testing, the better." The lesson for everyone else "isn’t necessarily to pursue daily testing for everybody at all costs -- though that is the ideal frequency for organizations that want to contain an outbreak." It is that no professional leagues that "could afford such plentiful testing opted for less of it." The transmission rates between opposing players in outdoor sports such as football, soccer and baseball "appear to be low." There "hasn’t been a single documented case of infection linked to professional sports being played outdoors." But football teams find themselves "worrying about another situation that is core to many workplaces: meals." Meanwhile, the past few months have taught sports that fans are "important but not essential -- at least for now." But the economics of sports "depend on getting fans back in arenas as soon as possible." What the leagues have done so far is "spend money to lose less money," and that "isn’t a sustainable business model" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 10/31).
