SBJ Unpacks: Coronavirus -- Where Do Things Stand?

First the good news: It’s looking likely that sports will return this summer, according to comments by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases and a member of the president's coronavirus task force, on Snapchat.

The bad news: It’s looking likely that sports will be played in empty venues for the foreseeable future.

Dr. Fauci’s exact quote is that sports can return if “nobody comes to the stadium." Fauci: "Put [the players] in big hotels wherever you want to play and keep them very well surveilled. ... Have them tested every single week.”

This return to normalcy is going to take a little while.

Stay safe, everyone.

-- John Ourand

SPORTS BUSINESS STORIES THAT STOOD OUT TO US TODAY

• In a 30-minute conference call with VP Mike Pence, some of the most influential execs in college sports said they would not have games if students are not allowed back on campus. The quote that stood out to me from this CBS Sports clip came from Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby: “Our players are students. If we’re not in college, we’re not having contests.”
  
  
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom threw cold water on the idea that his state would host games with fans this year. Newsom: “The prospect of mass gatherings is negligible at best until we get to herd immunity and we get to a vaccine.”
  
  
• WWE announced staff layoffs, furloughs and salary cuts as it battles the pandemic. This Bloomberg News story offers a good recap.
  
  
• PGA Tour officials are expected to announce this week their intention to resume the season on June 11-15 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, multiple sources told Golf Digest.
  

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF MAJOR SPORTS OUTFITS?

• The ever-changing nature of the coronavirus pandemic has made any scheduled dates for sports returning to action a continually moving target, writes SBJ's Bret McCormick. There are 11 leagues suspended indefinitely. Four are suspended until May and three until June, while pro tennis is currently stopped the longest, on pause until July 12.
  
  
• Listed below is a snapshot of some major sports leagues/organizations and where they currently stand with regard to the resumption of play.

Download the State of Leagues

GATORADE SHIFTS MARKETING PLANS FOR BASKETBALL AWARD

• The Gatorade Player of the Year awards for high school basketball are typically rolled out at this time of year, but for the high-profile boys honor, the pandemic forced the brand to shift its typical in-person presentation to a social media rollout. While the girl’s award (won by Paige Bueckers) was done in person weeks ago, Gatorade marketing exec Amanda Turak tells SBJ’s Austin Karp that once quarantine became more of the norm around the country in the third week in March, the brand and its partner, Paragon Marketing Group, began planning for a virtual surprise to highlight the boy’s award.
  
  
• Fast forward to yesterday and two brand ambassadors -- Celtics F Jayson Tatum and future Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade -- used their personal Twitter feeds to announce Emoni Bates as the 2020 winner. Tatum, also a former Gatorade player of the year, did a FaceTime chat with Bates. Content was then rolled out on other platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Bates’ father also sent the brand a cell video showing his son’s surprise reaction when talking with Tatum. Turak said of using Tatum: “We’ve used him previously, and it’s so great because he has so many ties to the program. Just being able to have a former POY give another POY the award -- it means a lot.”
  
  
• Gatorade normally would be making plans for awards later this spring around sports like baseball/softball and track & field, but Turak tells SBJ the brand is “still assessing everything” given the fact that most spring sports have been canceled.

TASTE OF TENNIS AMONG ANCILLARY EVENTS IMPACTED BY SHUTDOWN

• AYS Sports Marketing runs the event series Citi Taste of Tennis, in which prominent chefs cook with pro players in front of a paying audience. The events coincide with tournaments in a number of international locales and have been hit by the ATP and WTA suspensions of play. Taste of Tennis events in Indian Wells and Miami were canceled in March and the status of others surrounding the Citi Open (D.C.) and U.S. Open later this year is also uncertain, AYS CEO Penny Lerner told SBJ’s Bret McCormick.
  
  
• The impact on Lerner’s 25-year-old business included complete refunds for all tickets purchased so far in 2020. “It’s expensive, I would say mind-blowing,” she said. Taste of Tennis’ title sponsorship deal with Citi is almost a decade old, but it’s not yet clear what impact the canceled events could have on the sponsorship. Lerner said conversations were “ongoing.” She added: "We are OK today.” AYS has already renegotiated contracts with other vendors.
  
  
• So far, Lerner hasn’t enacted cost-cutting measures on the Philadelphia-based business that she runs with her mother, Judi. They’ve kept on their five full-time employees, as well as an intern. Lerner has applied for several financial relief programs, she said, including the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program.
  
  
• AYS has maintained three separate revenue streams for about eight years and the company is leaning on one of them right now, its consulting business, while the live event and travel agency businesses sit dormant. They’ve used the Taste of Tennis’ social media accounts for a new series called #WhatsInUrKitchen where they show live cooking demos with chefs and tennis pros. I'm really blessed that we have those three streams and that is what will take us through this mayhem, this dip,” said Lerner.

WORKING FROM HOME WITH WEST VIRGINIA'S KELI ZINN

• West Virginia Deputy AD Keli Zinn has had no problem transitioning to working remotely, turning what had previously been a night/weekend office into a full-time workstation at her home about 20 miles from the Morgantown campus. Zinn is the Mountaineers' lead for communications on COVID-19, so she’s been spending plenty of time keeping messaging flowing internally and externally. While work certainly hasn’t slowed down, Zinn has taken advantage of the flexibility and casualness of being at home. “I haven’t worn a pair of heels in a month and make-up is optional -- there’s some upside to that,” she quipped.
  
  
• Zoom and Microsoft Teams are the most-popular services for the WVU staff, and it’s not uncommon to have 25+ people on a call. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised how effective it’s been to communicate via the technology, particularly with large groups,” Zinn said. She even believes that once normal operations resume, WVU may supplement some in-person meetings with video conferencing. Think out-of-state donors meeting virtually with coaches, administration, etc., or student-athletes utilizing the tech for more efficient schedules.
  
  
• This coming weekend would have been the Mountaineers’ spring football game, and Zinn is admittedly missing the action on the gridiron. “It’s hard to spend a month not seeing the guys on a practice field and gearing up for the season,” she said. But while players can’t congregate, a $40 million renovation of the school’s football facilities has pressed forward, with the bulk of that construction team able to continue working, Zinn said. “I spend quite a bit of time making sure that’s progressing as smoothly as possible and responding to the challenges that exist,” she noted.
  
  
• Quarantine has certainly taught Zinn, an SBJ "Forty Under 40" honoree last year, some valuable life lessons, like the fact that organic milk lasts a lot longer than regular milk and tastes the same, in her opinion. More tips: “There is no banana bread recipe that can compete with Bob Evans. … Cutting your husband’s hair is like a motto in life -- Go high! Don’t ever go too low because you can’t recover quickly from that.” One final thought: “Always have excess toilet paper. It won’t expire, you can store it anywhere, and someday, it will absolutely be needed.”
  
  
• Want to share what your work-from-home setup is like? Reach out to SBJ's David Rumsey. 

Zinn has been acting as WVU's communications point person on COVID-19

SURVEY FINDS SPORTS BETTORS STILL SEEKING WAYS TO WAGER

• WHY Group and Scout 360 -- both under the Horizon Media banner -- conducted a survey within the Finger on the Pulse panel with 1,067 U.S. adults from March 25-30 to see how the habits of sports bettors changed since the COVID-19 outbreak. Around 806 of the respondents claimed to be a sports fan. SBJ's David Broughton noted some key findings:
  
  • 40% of sports fans and one-third of all people saying they’ve at least dabbled in sports betting prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
    
    
  • 45% of sports bettors (20% of sports fans overall) say they are still wagering on sports. How? On classic and simulated games/events. For example, nearly $3.3 million was wagered earlier this month on the U.K.’s Virtual Grand National, a simulated production of the Grand National Steeplechase that was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
    
    
  • Nearly 40% of fans say they are making more “random” bets with friends and family, like "Will the store have toilet paper?" or, of course, the latest coronavirus figures.

SPEED READS

• SBJ's David Broughton notes that during a youth sports-focused webinar hosted today by the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, the organization's top exec, Tom Farrey, said that participation will almost certainly take a big hit. He noted that children ages 6-12 who were “regularly” participating in a team sport dropped from 45% in 2008 to 38% in 2014 and has remained flat ever since. "We could see another drop not just from a recession, like in 2008, but from a safety standpoint because of the coronavirus. I think it will absolutely have a bite on the travel teams.”
  
  

• Does the current landscape change the new MLS CBA? That was a question posed by ESPN’s Taylor Twellman to Commissioner Don Garber this afternoon on the digital show “Banter.” Garber responded by briefly saying the league has initiated that specific conversation with the MLSPA, writes SBJ's Mark J. Burns. Garber: “We're going to have to sit down with our players and start discussing with them ways in which they might be able to help as we manage through the economic impact of the crisis.” In other words, might the players be asked to possibly take a pay cut? The if and how to that hypothetical remains to be seen at this point. According to Garber, no “firm proposal” is currently in front of the union, which is led by Executive Director Bob Foose.
  
  

• Short form video service Quibi saw 1.7 million downloads in its first week, a number that outperformed internal forecasts, per founder Jeffrey Katzenberg. While that number pleased leaders of the service, it paled in comparison to the launch of Disney+, which tallied 3.2 million app downloads on its launch day alone. Katzenberg pushed back on that comparison on the “Recode Decode” podcast. “I know people keeping saying, ‘well, how about Disney?’ No no no. … They’re in a different business, they have the greatest library in the history of mankind. To even be put in the same sentence with Disney is flattering, but we’re in a different world.”
  
  

• Summer camps are a source of revenue for many college athletic departments every summer, and the pandemic is going to throw a wrench into many of those programs. The Lansing State Journal noted Michigan State athletics on April 3 canceled its summer sports gatherings, which normally see “6,000 to 8,000 people come to East Lansing for about 60 different athletic camps.” The Wisconsin State Journal noted the Badgers have canceled summer programs, and an “audit of the athletic department’s finances in 2018-19 showed that sports camps produced $3.2 million in revenue with $1.3 million in expenses,” and the 2019-20 budget “projected $2.75 million from camp revenue.”

• NFL teams are preparing for a potential “rush of players” for the June supplemental draft amid the uncertainty of a 2020-21 college football season, per Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson. Terez Paylor, alongside Robinson on the “Yahoo Sports NFL Podcast,” argued that returning seniors will have several factors to weigh in their decision-making process. “It depends totally on where you’re at and how much help you need -- whether you need to provide for your family. Desperate times call for desperate measures. While the supplemental draft isn’t ideal for many prospects for many reasons, this is a different kind of time.”

• The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis said the talent pay cuts at ESPN are the “ultimate sign” that the pandemic is “going to affect everybody” in and around sports media. Curtis: “It’s not just your local newspaper that was already strapped before the pandemic began. It’s not just a website like FanGraphs. It’s the mother ship. … That’s a big deal when it gets to ESPN. I’m also fascinated about how, whatever cuts may come after this, will change the way ESPN looks when and if this pandemic is ever behind us.”

NEWS YOU NEED FROM SPORTS BUSINESS DAILY

• During this crisis impacting the sports business, we want everyone to be up-to-date on the latest news and information. SBD's "Coronavirus & Sports" section is free, outside the paywall, for the foreseeable future. Below are today's headlines:
  
  
  • Rubin Raising COVID-19 Relief Funds Through All In Challenge
  • Newsom: Fans Shouldn't Plan On Going To Games Anytime Soon
  • Dr. Fauci Speculates MLB Could Start Up In July In Empty Venues
  • MLB Providing Key Participation In Nationwide COVID Antibody Study
  • MLB, MLBPA Still Working To Determine Viability Of Arizona Plan
  • Team Execs Optimistic NHL Can, Will Finish Season
  • NBPA President Chris Paul: Season Resumption Is Waiting Game
  • Kim Pegula Details Tough Decision On Layoffs As PSE Hit Hard
  • Speedway Motorsports Laying Off 15% Of Workforce Amid Shutdown
  • Lightning's Jeff Vinik Aids Local Community During COVID-19 Crisis

SBJ UNPACKS -- WEATHERING COVID-19

• Check out the most recent editions of our "SBJ Unpacks" podcasts around COVID-19:
  
  
  • Mark Ein, who owns an ATP/WTA event and Overwatch League team based in D.C., discusses the tennis event and the sport at large, as well as esports' growth during the shutdown.
  • SBJ's Bill King & Michael Smith discuss how college athletes and the NCAA come back on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Nielsen Sports' Jon Stainer discusses data explaining how consumers are spending their time and perceiving brands/teams during these trying times.
  • As MLB eyes a potential return in Arizona, SBJ's Bill King & Eric Prisbell examine the potential and the possible pitfalls of this particular path back.

VIRTUAL WORLD CONGRESS PART 3: JOIN US APRIL 22

• Hear interviews with Sarah Hirshland, CEO, USOPC; Chris Curtin, Chief Brand & Innovation Marketing Officer, Visa; Micky Lawler, President, WTA; Allen Greene, AD, Auburn; Dr. Brian Hainline, Chief Medical Officer, NCAA; Erika Nardini, CEO, Barstool Sports, and more. More than 800 execs have attended the previous episodes, so take advantage of this opportunity to network with people from across the industry.
  
  
• To register, go to www.WorldCongressOfSports.com.

Something related to coronavirus and sports business catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it.