In an ordinary year, Point Guard College would be finalizing registrations for the 10,000 kids at its more than 115 basketball camps across North America. Sports specialty camps are another casualty of the coronavirus quarantine, and as summer approaches, things are looking dire. Camp registrations are down by 50% from a year ago. And there are more fundamental problems: Many of those camps are held at college facilities, which closed their campuses months ago.
“Nearly 60 colleges have canceled our facility rentals,” said PGC owner and President Mano Watsa, “so we’re anticipating losing most of our camps this season.”
For sports-specialty camps, this looks like a summer of discontent. Heightened concerns about health have parents worried about sending their kids anywhere — especially overnight. Add to that the uncertainty and transient nature of state regulations regarding group activities, and you’ve got a sort of imperfect summer storm.
ProCamps was planning on having instructors like NFL stars Larry Fitzgerald and Saquon Barkley (below).procamps
“This was going to be a record year, but our business is sports and events, and right now, sports are nonexistent, and events are illegal, so …” said Eric Liebler, president of 21-year-old ProCamps. Consequently, the 75 or more one- and two-day camps across America, with pro athletes including New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald and Houston Astros outfielder George Springer scheduled for this summer are on hold. Registration was around half of what it was last year.
“We haven’t canceled, but we’ve notified those registered that everything is postponed until we can figure out dates that work,” Liebler said. “We’re trying to be optimistic, but also realistic.’’
This age of restricted travel means camps will have to be regional. Overseas groups of campers from Europe and Asia used to pay premium prices; now they’ve disappeared.
“We’re all really [in] a holding pattern, and for me, that’s the first time in 35 years,” said Steve Gibbs, the owner and president of Hoop Mountain, which runs events across 22 states, including the “elite prospect camp” at Roger William College in Bristol, R.I. Normally, that camp is in July; this year, it will be in August — if it's held. A drop-dead date for a decision of June 1 is approaching fast. “It’s like planning a wedding,” Gibbs said. “You can’t do it in less time.”
We’ve already seen distressed retailers and manufacturers pushed into bankruptcy by the COVID-19 cash crunch. Most of those were already in decline. Many sports camps were also being squeezed pre-pandemic, victims of the specialization trend that sees kids playing their chosen sport almost year-round, and in many cases paying to do so, outside of school.
“The decline that was already there is being accelerated,” said Leigh Klein, CEO of Five-Star Basketball Camp from 1993 to 2016 and still an industry consultant. “When they can open, camps are facing depressed margins and lower scale — that’s a disaster in any business. There was also an increasing amount of sponsorship and marketing dollars for camps, but those budgets have been cut, and that will have a big impact on the business model. Camps will have a lot of pressure to survive.”
Even if some sports camps are able to operate as states open, there’s the conundrum of how team sports can be played and coached with the requisite social distancing and face coverings. “Will everyone need their own ball?” Klein asked.
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The natural inclination across events and experiential marketing has been a pivot to online. PGC was working on that two months before the quarantine sidelined sports, so its summer schedule now includes a two-week online shooting course and various virtual versions of PGC, more than 50 in total. Those digital “camps” are priced at $195-$295, versus $795 to $895 for the brick-and-mortar versions.
The Sports Broadcasting Camp, held in New Jersey for kids 12 and up, recently moved its entire curriculum online for first time in its 19 years. “We just felt it was something we had to do,” said camp GM Dave Siroty. “We’ll still have a lot of guest speakers; the only thing I regret is that they won’t get to be inside of a studio. The good news is that we can get more kids in the program this way.”
ProCamps' Liebler is taking careful note these days of his two daughters’ habit of online video soccer instruction, at a time when the backyard is the best available field of play. Nonetheless, “We built a brand name with ProCamps for more for 20 years, so we’ve had a healthy debate on what a virtual camp would look like and how much value they could have,” he said. “Right now, it’s tough to see a path forward with virtual camps, but none of us are experts in this, and the government regulations are fluid, so it’s really almost an hour-to-hour thing. All I know is that I watched a TV game last night with all these people in crowded stands — that seemed like a very long time ago.”
Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
