SBJ Unpacks: NFL Players Score Win With Daily Testing

There seems to be more at stake every week, and this one is off to a running start with news from every corner of the sports world.

The NFL nears training camp amid pushback from its top players, the Ballon d’Or -- a staple from France Football since 1956 -- won’t be awarded for the first time in its history and the Blue Jays near a restart without a field to call home. 

How about some good news? The NHL today announced that, after five days of training camp, it had just two of a total 2,618 administered tests came back positive for COVID-19. Then came word that the NBA saw zero positive tests last week in the Orlando bubble.

Maybe we can pull off this return-to-sports thing after all. Here’s hoping, at least. 

-- Chris Smith

NFL-NFLPA STRIKE TESTING DEAL, BUT STILL WORK TO BE DONE

• The NFL and NFLPA struck a deal on COVID-19 testing procedures today, a necessary step toward maintaining progress toward an on-time season, reports SBJ’s Ben Fischer. Players won an agreement to undergo tests every day for the first 14 days of camp, at which point testing will decrease to every other day if the team shows less than 5% positivity rates. The deal also covers employees with direct access to players.
  
  
• This is a win for players, who wanted daily testing throughout camp and some of whom took to Twitter on Sunday to build popular support for their cause. It will be the start of many hundreds of thousands of tests administered throughout the league this season -- if every team brings a 90-man roster to camp, the first two weeks alone will include more than 40,000. Testing will go back to daily if positivity rates go back above 5% at any point.
  
  
• The NFL expects to spend about $75 million on tests, according to a source familiar with the matter. The league will use tests from BioReference Laboratories, the same as MLS and the NBA, and expects results in about 24 hours. 
  
  
• After days of stalemate at the negotiating table while camps began to open up for rookies, today’s deal was celebrated around the league for at least allowing camps to start on time. But it may be the easy part. Still to be negotiated: The number of preseason games, rules for players who opt out, face shields, guaranteed money in the event of cancellations and the details of how players and teams will share revenue drop-offs. 

LEAGUES GAIN MOMENTUM WITH MOST RECENT TESTING RESULTS

• Earlier today, the NHL revealed that it received two positive COVID-19 tests during the first five days of teams returning to the ice for training camp (July 13-17), writes SBJ’s Mark J. Burns. Both positive tests were players. The league conducted 2,618 tests across 800+ players during the five-day period. The NHL last week had 30 tests come back positive during Phase 2, while 13 players tested positive outside of the Phase 2 protocol. Players are expected to travel to the hub cities of Toronto and Edmonton later this week with exhibition games starting July 28.
  
  
• MLS has had three consecutive reports of zero positive cases from the 24-team delegation staying at the host hotel inside the Orlando bubble. Most recently, the league tested 1,114 people from July 16-17.
  
  
• Meanwhile, the NBA and NBPA sent out this joint release tonight: “Of the 346 players tested for COVID-19 on the NBA campus since test results were last announced on July 13, zero have returned confirmed positive tests.”

MARK MILES ON EXPECTATIONS FOR INDY 500

• Indianapolis Motor Speedway will likely need continuing government approval to run the Indy 500 with fans on Aug. 23, but IndyCar CEO Mark Miles remains confident that the race will go on “unless the COVID world crashes in on us.”
  
  
• Miles, speaking to SBJ's Adam Stern from Iowa Speedway over the weekend, said that it’s full steam ahead for now on running the race, but conceded that there are some things related to the pandemic that are outside their control.
  
  
• "Unless the COVID world crashes in on us and healthcare metrics really turn south meaningfully (in Indiana and Indianapolis), I'm quite confident we'll be able to do the race,” Miles said. “We’ve done everything that can be done. ... We continually refine those plans with outside experts -- it’s just a continuing process, and it probably will be through August until the checkered flag waves. ... We can be in a great place and have all the public approvals we need soon, and yet if Indiana became the next hotspot state or city (with Indianapolis), then things would have to adjust.”
  
  
• Miles is not ready to reveal the expected attendance, but IMS Owner Roger Penske told the Indianapolis Star recently that he’d be okay with a crowd in the 65,000-100,000 range, what he referred to as a Super Bowl-sized crowd. 

SEAT COVER PROVIDER PLEASED WITH WORLD TEAMTENNIS PARTNERSHIP

• TV viewers watching World TeamTennis over the past week got a glimpse of the 38 black-and-white seat covers with Chosen Foods branding blocking off every other row at The Greenbrier resort’s tennis stadium. They came from Toronto-based Covermaster Inc., one of the biggest providers of covers used by venues and stadiums to protect playing surfaces and cover seats, writes SBJ's Bret McCormick.
  
  
• Covermaster already handles over 90% of MLB and NFL teams and 85% of MLS teams’ seat and playing surface cover needs, including most of the tarps that are hurriedly dragged over MLB fields during rain delays. Covermaster VP Ken Curry wouldn’t discuss details of the pandemic’s impact on the company’s business, but did say they’re optimistic about 2020, largely because of the sudden widespread need to cover empty sections of seats. WTT’s use of the seat covers is a good example, allowing the league to ensure social distancing at a stadium where 20% fan capacity is allowed.
  
  

• Putting a sponsor’s logo on the seat covers also allowed WTT to create a new revenue stream to help offset the lack of paying fans. “We’re providing new branding opportunities that weren’t there before,” Curry said. “In fact, it is a positive for the stadium that’s making the best of a bad situation.” 
  
  
• One of Covermaster’s missions is to make stadiums and venues multipurpose, and that flexibility is even more key this year as pandemic public safety requirements ebb and flow. Creating seat covers that allow the owners to swap out multiple sponsors’ logos with ease is one example. Curry: "We’re adapting as we’re going along, as we see potential needs, as we’re communicating with our customers and what they’re telling us they’re looking for. And I don’t think we’ve hit the end of that.” 

WTT viewers got a glimpse of the Chosen Foods covers blocking off every other row of seats at The Greenbrier

OUTSIDE CONTRIBUTORS: OPEN TO ALL COMERS

• Tonight's op-ed contribution is from Michael Kuh, a partner in Hogan Lovells' Sports, Media & Entertainment industry sector group. Before joining the global law firm, Kuh was the lead outside counsel guiding the creation of the NWSL. He writes under the header, "COVID-19 Is Opening Up The Sports Media Landscape For Non-Marquee Sports."
• "Sports fanatics have been abandoning expensive cable sports packages that funnel millions into league coffers through rights fees and lucrative advertising and sponsorships in favor of mobile and subscription services offering popular, underexposed sports. During the lockdown, consumers’ habits changed; they have not only embraced distance learning, online grocery shopping and telemedicine, but myriad streaming services that feature live sports programming."
• To read the full contribution, click here. 

WORKING FROM HOME WITH U.S. SOCCER’S CAITLIN CARDUCCI

• With U.S. Soccer’s Chicago HQ closed the past several months, the federation’s Manager of Member Programs Caitlin Carducci called an audible early in quarantine and has been working remotely from her hometown of Columbus, Ohio. “I could either stay in Chicago in my 600-square-foot apartment by myself or I could be in my parents' basement, which is now where I've pretty much taken up residence,” she said. The move has paid off in her eyes. Carducci: “I don't think I would have been able to keep my sanity there, so I’m fortunate that I've been able to come here and be with family.”
  
  
• With 113 member organizations to oversee, Carducci is used to traveling at least once or twice a month for various games and events, which has obviously not been these case as of late. Carducci: “In my role, I'm really outward facing. … So, that was a change, and not necessarily a negative one, but definitely the interaction piece.” She added that one positive as U.S. Soccer works on guidelines for teams to safely return to the field has been being able to get input from the entire organization, as many employees’ roles have not been what they normally would be.
  
  
• U.S. Soccer has been relying on the wisdom of Chief Medical Officer Dr. George Chiampas, who Carducci said is often internally referred to as “Soccer Fauci.” She said, “He likes to tell us, ‘Always just remember the virus is in charge, we're not in charge.’ … So, we have plans, we have ideas, we’re very conservatively thinking spring 2021, we might start seeing more games, as far as on the higher level. But beyond that, if we can get some programming in this fall that would be huge.”
  
  
• Carducci is preparing for a potential return to the re-opened Chicago office after Labor Day, but knows nothing is a given at this point. “Our organization and our leadership team are being very understanding that even with all the safeguards in place, returning to an office setting is just something that some people might be a little more nervous about,” she said.

Carducci has been carrying out her work duties from her parents' basement in Columbus over the past several months

SPEED READS

• Dr. Anthony Fauci will be on-hand to throw out the first pitch at Nationals Park this Thursday as part of the defending World Series champion's Opening Day. The Nationals in a statement said Fauci "has been a true champion for our country during the COVID-19 pandemic and throughout his distinguished career."
  
  
• The MLS is Back Tournament is averaging 231,000 viewers across Fox, ESPN, ESPN2 and FS1, and the broadcast windows for several games is contributing to lower figures, SBJ's Austin Karp reports. Four of the 14 games to date have aired at 9am ET, and none of those games have topped 175,000 viewers. ESPN and ESPN2 are combining to average 236,000 viewers, while Fox and FS1 are averaging 224,000. For more on MLS viewership, see tonight's SBJ Media newsletter.
  
  
• In this week's SBJ, Mark J. Burns catches up with NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird about being the first U.S. pro team league to return from the sports shutdown. When asked what grade she’d give herself and the NWSL thus far for the Challenge Cup, the first year commissioner said she’d wait until after the tournament and once “the health of all of the players and staff is secured.”
  
  
• There is a "good chance the college basketball season will look different this winter," and Wichita State AD Darron Boatright is "preparing for all of the what-if scenarios," per the Wichita Eagle. In the case that fans are allowed in arenas but social distancing must be followed, Boatright said that WSU has "briefly explored the possibility of hosting games at Intrust Bank Arena." The downtown Wichita arena has "about 5,000 more seats than Koch Arena, WSU’s on-campus arena."
  
  
• All-sources handle for the first four days of the Saratoga Race Course's 40-day summer meet was nearly $81 million, a 9.4% increase over last year’s figure of $73.4 million, per Daily Racing Form's David Grening. Due to COVID-19-related restrictions, "which include no fans on-site and only limited owners with no access to mutuel machines, nearly all money wagered on Saratoga came via account-wagering platforms."
  
  
• The Ballon d'Or has been "cancelled for the first time in the award's history" due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the soccer calendar. Organizers of the award announced in a statement that the "conditions for the prize to take place had not been met." 

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. Select stories from Sports Business Daily are free, outside the paywall, for the foreseeable future. Below are today's headlines:
   
  
  • NFLers Want Stronger Safety Protocols Before Returning To Play
  • Blue Jays Eyeing PNC Park After Canadian Government's Decision
  • MLB Gains Momentum With Small Number Of Positive Virus Tests
  • Stadiums Get More Time Following MLS Expansion Delay

SBJ UNPACKS -- THE ROAD AHEAD

• Check out the most recent editions of our "SBJ Unpacks" podcasts around COVID-19:
  
  
  • Calm app Chief Medical Officer Omar Dawood on his company’s deal with LeBron James and other mental health dynamics amid the pandemic.
    
    
  • Aspen Institute's Tom Farrey discusses a potential return for youth sports and share a few rays of hope
    
    
  • Speedway Motorsports Chief Strategy Officer Mike Burch on the logistics that went into NASCAR's All-Star race.
    
    

2020 SBJ THOUGHT LEADERS RETREAT (VIRTUAL)

• Aug. 13, 2:00-7:00pm ET (by invitation only)
  
  
• The road ahead has never been more challenging -- and it has never been more important for executive leadership to pause, learn, reflect and relax in order to prepare themselves to step up and navigate what the future holds. This year, we are continuing the tradition of Thought Leaders, creating the industry’s most intimate, senior-level event with a virtual program.
  
  
• Content will include:
  
  
  • Mindful Leadership with Pandit Dasa
  • The C-Suite Imperative: Corporate Responsibility & Social Impact
  • The New Fan Experience: A 360-degree approach; a 365-day Journey
  • Reinvented: A Conversation with Agent Leigh Steinberg
  • Supporting Social Justice Reform: Backing Words with Action
  • Navigating the Road Ahead: Fundamental Shifts We Can Expect in the Sports Business (group discussions)
    
    
• In addition to the compelling content, we will have plenty of time for some of the best virtual networking activities of the year, including:
  
  
  • Jack Daniel’s whiskey tasting
    • Aquimo golf (live challenge)
    • Aquimo cornhole (live challenge)
    • Cooking demo with "Iron Chef" Marc Forgione
    • A private set from John Popper and Brian Wilson of Blues Traveler
    
    
• For more information please visit, www.Thought-Leaders-Retreat.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.