SBJ Unpacks: Coronavirus -- Back In The Octagon

Today started with a devastating monthly job report showing 14.7% unemployment, a rate the U.S. hasn’t seen since the Great Depression. It ended with a modest rally on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 up about 2%.

That sense of profound gloom punctuated by some optimism pervaded the sports world, too, where the UFC says it's all-systems-go for UFC 249 tomorrow in Jacksonville, set to be the biggest sporting event in the U.S. in nearly two months.

To me, the most intriguing question of the day was found on the NFL ticket markets, which kicked into life after the 2020 schedule was released Thursday. I say that because it’s a measure of what really matters: The fans’ opinions on the risks posed by live sports, and their own gauge of how quickly they think things will go back to normal.

What did buyers think about purchasing tickets to football games in September given the situation? Mixed bag. Per my colleague Karn Dhingra, SeatGeek said demand had doubled year-over-year; Tickets For Less said volume was down 20%. Reports have been all over the place. But in any case, it appears to be better than the worst-case scenario some had feared. 

--- Ben Fischer

ALL EYES ON UFC'S RETURN IN JACKSONVILLE

• UFC joins the short list of early resumers this weekend when it puts on a pay-per-view event in Jacksonville, the first of three spectatorless events in eight days for the promotion in that city.
  
  
• With a 25-page plan that will revamp its operation, in a state that is one of the first to re-open, the rest of the sports industry will be watching closely. UFC COO Lawrence Epstein discussed that plan, which mandates social distancing but does not completely lock fighters and staff away from the outside world, with Bill King on the latest episode of the SBJ Unpacks podcast.
  
  
• “What we’ve done is about as good as you can get if you’re going to do an event in a somewhat urban environment,” Epstein said, drawing distinctions between the UFC’s plan and that of Professional Bull Riders, which is holding its first three events on a remote ranch north of Oklahoma City. “There are a lot of things you can do to create a de facto bubble.” 
  
  
• UFC has reduced staffing to less than half of the 300 typically used at its events, housed in a single hotel with few outside guests. It has secured more than 1,200 test kits to be used during a week-long stay. It will implement social distancing, limiting groups to certain zones of the arena based on their responsibilities. But it won’t create a perimeter to restrict their movement, instead advising them to act responsibly.
  
  
• “One of the challenges is that states are opening up,” Epstein said. “It’s no longer a situation where it’s only essential businesses or that most hotels are closed. In Florida, most hotels are taking reservations from anybody. There’s no doubt as time goes on the virus is still going to be an issue. So creating these de facto bubbles is going to get more challenging. And that’s where we get back to the shared responsibility, where this stuff can be accomplished if everybody holds up their side of the bargain.”

NASCAR MOVING QUICKLY TO LAND TITLE SPONSORS FOR NEWLY ARRANGED RACES

• With NASCAR set to return to real-life racing in nine days, executives across the sport have been working on a variety of business deals to get affairs back in order, reports SBJ's Adam Stern. NASCAR is in the advertising market seeking title sponsors for its newly arranged races, sources say, and it has also been in touch with local track sponsors and government officials regarding the three venues that were just stripped of a race. Meanwhile, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on an earnings call Wednesday that the appetite from his network’s advertisers for the May 17th event at Darlington Raceway is robust.
  
  
• The sanctioning body is busy on all those tasks and more after a hard week that included deep layoffs across tracks and other departments.
  
  
• Sources say that NASCAR has been looking for one company to title sponsor both Cup Series races and the single Xfinity Series event at Darlington over that four-day span, but that it’s also evaluating just selling them individually if need be. A source said the May 17th Cup event on its own was going for a price in the high six figures. If NASCAR is not able to find a sponsor in time for the makeshift races, it’s possible it could just give the entitlements to some of its premier partners -- Geico, Coca-Cola, Xfinity and Anheuser-Busch -- to give them extra value.
  
  
• Meanwhile, tomorrow’s Pro Invitational Series iRacing event will be the finale for NASCAR’s esports effort; advertisers that bought into the series during the shutdown included IBM, Verizon, Progressive and FedEx.
  
  
  

GENESCO CEO TO SPONSORS: "LEAN INTO THE KNOWN"

• NFL sponsors and other brands wondering about football marketing this fall should follow the league’s lead on the schedule release and “lean into the known,” said Genesco Sports Enterprises CEO John Tatum, whose clients include league sponsors A-B InBev and PepsiCo, and a series of team-level sponsors. Tatum told SBJ's Ben Fischer, “The NFL’s not going away, so I think about things like packaging and sweepstakes and so forth around the Super Bowl, you should absolutely market and build those programs. ... But absolutely realize that if something were to happen, you wouldn’t want to be locked into things like dates, and that could change.”
  
  
• Some of Tatum’s “knowns” include messaging. An emphasis on honoring front-line workers in health care and other industries will work, and sponsorship giveaways will likely shift to hand sanitizers, masks and the like. Hospitality can be assumed to shift to more controlled, small-group suites away from big open gatherings, too. Less known is any expenditure or plan that relies on big crowds at games, or exact dates.
  
  
• Tatum addressed the marketing dynamic after the schedule release last night, approving of the NFL’s decision to commit to schedules even with all the variables in play. “It’s better to be positive and proactive,” he said, suggesting it was better to have plans that might need to be changed than no plans at all. “Everyone’s got an opportunity to adapt if you swing the bat.”

SURVEY: TEAMS MAY BE FACING LONG-TERM ATTENDANCE CHALLENGE

• A survey by Kantar Sports MONITOR, which examined sports fans’ attitudes about the COVID-19 pandemic, found that while 26% of fans indicate that they’ll go to sporting events as soon as it’s allowed, two-thirds say they’ll only do so if they’re sure it’s safe (45%) or won’t go until a COVID-19 vaccine is developed (20%). And an additional 8% of sports fans say they won’t go to sporting events anymore -- which, while a low number, would represent a sizeable hit to teams’ bottom lines if fans follow through with this sentiment.
  
  
• The survey was fielded from April 23-29 among 2,000 Americans who self-identified as sports fans. It also found that 76% of sports fans’ daily routines are either extremely or very interrupted by the pandemic, compared to 61% of non-sports fans.
  
  
• One issue becoming more relevant is hygiene. The survey found:
  
  
  • 62% of sports fans agree, “No matter what the product is, I will pay more if I know it's clean and sanitized” (vs. 53% of non-sports fans).
  • 75% of sports fans believe it’s somewhat/very likely in five years that, “People will no longer shake hands.”
  • 68% of sports fans believe it’s somewhat/very likely in five years that, “Facemasks will be a normal part of public life in America” (vs. 61% of non-sports fans).
  • 37% of sports fans are extremely or very worried about cash exposing them to the coronavirus (vs. 20% of non-sports fans).
    
    
• To see more of the survey, click here or visit www.sportsatlas.com.

PUBLIC MESSAGING TOP OF MIND IN MLB-UNION TALKS

• MLB and the MLBPA are expected to begin negotiations next week over the league’s return-to-play plan once the league provides the proposal to the union, per SBJ's Eric Prisbell. The most contentious issue promises to be players’ salaries. How the two sides, whose relationship has been quite strained, come to a resolution may be neither smooth nor swift. What will be interesting to monitor is the public messaging. It’s lost on no one how bad the optics will be if both sides are seen as squabbling over millions while the nation confronts the worst unemployment numbers since the Great Depression.
  
  
• The two sides reached a rather quick agreement in late March on stipulations related to a 2020 season, but the language in that agreement is left to interpretation. The union believes they’ve already agreed that players will receive prorated salaries based on the number of games played. MLB believes negotiations should be reopened now that it looks like the season would start in fan-less venues, which means ticket revenue would be nonexistent for some, if not all, of the season.
  
  
• Among the primary questions: What incentive do owners have to play 80-100 games in a regular season without asking players to take a pay cut if many, if not all, games would generate no gate revenue? Will players be willing to take pay cuts while also possibly putting their health at some risk by playing in 2020? Which side will bend, and how long will it take for a resolution to emerge? It’s a huge hurdle to clear before a season can start.

WORKING FROM HOME WITH RYAN DEMPSTER

• Ryan Dempster and his family spent almost 40 days quarantining in different rental homes around Lake Geneva, Montana, before returning to their home in Chicago. That certainly made for some interesting video shots for the MLB Network and Marquee Sports Network analyst. Dempster now sets up shop in his basement, where he has an office with accommodating lights, camera and a green screen. “The kids only run through every once in a while, so that's good,” he said.
  
  
• Dempster and Marquee had plans for him to host a monthly late-night style talk show in front of a live studio audience called “Off The Mound” this season. For now, Dempster has pivoted to hosting a weekly show on Fridays from his home, featuring interviews with players and personalities over video chat. Anthony Rizzo and Mike Trout were some of the first guests. Dempster took inspiration from the likes of Jimmy Fallon continuing his talk show remotely, and his goal is to let guests “have a little bit of fun and (for) people to see that human vulnerable side of them.”
  
  
• Dempster, who pitched nearly nine seasons with the Cubs, knows the team wasn’t expecting their RSN to be getting off the ground with no baseball being played. “They're launching a network right in the middle of a pandemic, unbeknownst to them, and that's tough,” he said. “Being somebody who was hired on at the beginning, I wanted to make sure that we had every possibility for the network to thrive a little bit. So, they let me kind of take the reins on it -- which has been great -- booking guests and ideas within the show.”
  
  
• Should MLB return this summer, count Dempster as a fan of the league’s proposal for three divisions based on geography, which would mean teams like the Cubs and White Sox would play each other many more times than in a normal season. “Wow, talk about a really cool thing for the city, to help a city that's had to be in lockdown and bring a lot of banter and a lot of fun stuff amongst Cubs fans and White Sox fans,” he said

• Want to share what your work-from-home setup is like? Reach out to SBJ's David Rumsey.

Dempster sets up shop in his basement, where he has an office with accommodating lights, a camera and a green screen

OUTSIDE CONTRIBUTORS: SOUNDS OF SILENCE

• Tonight's op-ed contribution is from Gad Yair, an Israel Institute visiting professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who writes that Tom Brady and LeBron James both may never play again in front of fans.
  
  
• "Careers are at stake. Age plays a big role in sports -- just ask Brady, who turns 43 this summer. Athletes who trained for the Tokyo Games may lose their opportunity. High school and college players, meanwhile, may not get a chance to make their mark and get attention from recruiters."
  
  
• To read Yair's contribution, click here.

SPEED READS

• The NHL's reopening plan has "shifted" from completing the regular season to "instead staging a 24-team tournament that would include a best-of-three play-in round," according to sources cited by Larry Brooks of the N.Y. Post. Issues related to testing -- "procuring enough kits, swabs, and attendant equipment and labs to enable regular testing with rapid results -- remain outstanding."

• From ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski late Friday afternoon: "In municipalities where coronavirus testing has become readily available for at-risk healthcare workers, (NBA) teams opening facilities for voluntary workouts will be allowed to administer Covid-19 tests to asymptomatic players and staff."

• The Patriots will allow season-ticket holders who are considered high-risk for COVID-19 to get a refund for 2020 and hold their seats for 2021. In an email earlier this week to current ticket-holders, the team said people at risk “because of age or underlying health condition” can seek the relief if they ask before the 2020 season starts. According to the CDC, that includes anyone over 65, or anyone who has lung disease, serious heart conditions, diabetes, severe obesity or otherwise compromised immune systems, such as cancer survivors. It’s too early to say exactly how requests will be handled, but it’s not the team’s intention to seek medical documentation. Earlier this week, the Jaguars also said anyone “facing a COVID-19 medical hardship” is eligible to “take a year off with no effect on their membership status or loss of their seats.”
  
  
• The Single-A South Atlantic League Charleston RiverDogs on Friday released details of how they will have Riley Park Field ready when baseball returns. The detailed plan “follows the journeys of fans, employees, and on-field personnel from the moment they arrive at the ballpark until the moment they leave.” They are the first MiLB team to publicly release such a plan, per SBJ's David Broughton.
  
  

• Esports Observer's Graham Ashton writes how the timing of the pandemic "could hardly have been worse for the League of Legends European Championship (LEC), which had brought on numerous new commercial partners for the 2020 season, and was preparing its debut live event in the Hungarian market."
  
  
• Name, image and likeness issues aren't necessarily at the top of the list for Jamie Pollard during the pandemic. The Iowa State AD told the Ames Tribune, "Put it on the pile of challenges right now. There are two ways of looking at it: You probably couldn’t pick a worse time to put that challenge into the mix, but then you might not have been able to find a better time, because if we’re dealing with new stuff, might as well deal with it all at the same time."

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:
  
  
  • Sources: NHL Shifts Return Plans To 24-Team Tournament
  • NHL Cancels Games Slated For Europe During '20-21 Season
  • Several NBA Execs Concerned About Psychological Effects Of Return
  • Changes Abound For IndyCar's Restart Plans In Texas
  • Impact Denied Use Of Training Facility Despite MLS Plan
  • Newsom Still Not Convinced Fans Will Attend NFL Games In California
  • Miami-Dade Mayor Expecting Sparse Crowds Initially When Sports Return
  • CFL Commish Says League Likely Facing Canceled Season
  • Jumbotron Contractors At Barclays Center Not Paid During Shutdown
  • Saints Donate Food To Rival Cities As Part Of '20 Schedule Reveal

SBJ UNPACKS -- WEATHERING COVID-19

• Check out the most recent editions of our "SBJ Unpacks" podcasts around COVID-19:
  
  
  • UFC COO Lawrence Epstein joins Bill King to discuss the ways it revamped event operations in order to resume fighting.
  • John Ourand is joined by the NBPA's Michele Roberts to discuss the pandemic’s impact on athletes and leadership in a time of crisis.
  • MELT Sports & Entertainment founder Vince Thompson dishes on what sponsors in college sports face as they navigate the uncertainty of the football season.
  • Bill King speaks with Dolphins President & CEO Tom Garfinkel about the franchise’s vision for a “new normal."
  • Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment's Hugh Weber on his experiences leading the Hornets through crisis during, and following, Hurricane Katrina.

SIGN UP NOW FOR LEADERS WEEK DIRECT: MAY 18-21

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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.