Tens of thousands of Little League games have already been canceled.getty images
In what may be an apocryphal tale, one-time FBI most-wanted list regular Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, to which he supposedly replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” For the same reason, we focus on the largest sports properties at Sports Business Journal, but even as we commiserate over the financial and psychological losses of the NCAA canceling the 67 games that comprised its men’s basketball tournament, or the NBA and NHL postponing hundreds of games, or MLB delaying its season before it could even begin, there’s this sobering thought: Little League Baseball, which has 6,500 leagues playing in 84 countries, has already missed tens of thousands of games.
“We’re trying to think of it as an extended rain delay,” said longtime Little League Baseball President Steve Keener. “Like everybody else, we’ll have a plan when and if, but right now there are too many ifs.”
Even at the youth end of the sports spectrum the coronavirus crisis has produced profound effects, both financial and personal. Encino, Calif., financial adviser David Hilton is a paradigm for both, since he’s the local Little League president and the father of three sons, ages 12, 10 and 7, whose baseball activities are now restricted to their backyard.
Being in a warm-weather climate, Encino’s Little League teams played opening games on the first weekend in March. Their seasons were suspended less than a week later, along with the rest of American sports. The 50 teams in Encino’s Little League will miss 850 games if they resume play by May 12, the soonest Little League optimistically said it could return.
“My sons, especially my youngest, are missing baseball a lot,” Hilton said. “For my 12-year-old, this is his last opportunity to play. The only thing harder is that they all have birthdays around now, so they’re missing all those festivities and friends.”
Added Keener, “What we’re hearing most from our volunteers and parents is the frustration of kids who are missing schools and activities like ours.”
Echoing the comments of big league commissioners, Keener has not yet set a “drop dead” date for the resumption or cancellation of the season. Financially, he said, the worldwide Little League office is solid, even if the Little League World Series Series on ESPN winds up being scuttled.
On the local level, financial concerns are more immediate, even in an area as well-heeled as Encinco, where the Little League is known as “the doctors and lawyers league.”
No games mean no concessions, so as of last week, Encino Little League’s snack bar revenue was $60,000 short. Most of the league expenses are funded by registration fees of $295 per player. However, a truncated or canceled season could necessitate refunds, in which case the league would be unable to pay the two full-time employees who maintain its six baseball fields.
Normally, Encino’s season ends on the first weekend of June. Now, like its big league brethren, Little League Baseball must figure out how to reschedule its season, keeping in mind that the tournament that feeds into the Little League World Series is normally played through the summer and into August.
Encino’s Little League also shares sponsor concerns with big league sports. Little League Baseball teams are often sponsored by local businesses like car dealers and restaurants, many of which are likely to be financial casualties of the coronavirus. “We ask each of our 50 teams to get a $1,000 sponsor,” said Hilton, “and that just isn’t going to happen now.”
There’s another strong connection from Little League to America’s largest sports properties: They both know that sports will be a vital part of any re-entry. “We’ve seen many times after a natural disaster that, after restoring the essentials, the next thing communities want to do is restore youth sports, like Little League,” said Keener. “It’s always a big part of getting things back to normal.”
