Impact Of Coronavirus On Sports

Adeola Adekunle

As the world scrambles to come to grips with the coronavirus outbreak, global sporting events are taking a hit.

There are now more than 194 thousand cases globally and the death toll is around 8 thousand.

The World Health Organization has designated the covid-19 as a pandemic and the list of cancelled sporting activities keeps growing by the day.

The global economy is taking a serious hit, just as many sporting activities have either being put on hold or cancelled.

Already, the top 5 football leagues in Europe have been put on hold, with some players testing positive to the virus.

There are also fears that Tokyo 2020 may be impacted but organizers insist preparations are going ahead as planned.

The Euro 2020 has been pushed forward by a year.

The Swiss Super League postponed weekend fixtures after government bans large public events, while the start of the Chinese Super League has been postponed.

The whole of China’s women’s national football team was also held in quarantine after Olympic qualifying matches were moved from China to Australia.

Coronavirus has not only succeeded in shutting down football; sports such as tennis, basketball, cycling, golf, athletics, Motorsports and many more have suffered serious blows in the hands of this virus.

If there are no games, surely there would be no ticket sales and reduced media payments. Endorsement and sponsorship deals for both clubs and players would also be affected.

For instance, Basketballer LeBron James of Los Angeles Lakers could lose as much as 400 hundred thousand Dollars for every game his NBA club does not play.

The NBA makes half of its annual 9 billion dollar earnings from media fees, but that certainly would suffer if the league does not deliver on full content.

There are calculations that if the ongoing season of the English Premiership does not continue, the league would lose 10 billion dollars. The UK Daily Star reports that loss of TV rights money, matchday revenue, European and domestic cup cash prize money would account for part of the loss.

There is also a sharp drop in club values. Manchester United have had 613 million pounds wiped off their share price in the last three weeks with the volatility of the stock markets. If you factor in other English clubs, that could jump to a loss of 9 billion pounds.

Betting sites and football viewing centres would also take a serious hit.

Back home in Nigeria, the National Sports Festival has been postponed indefinitely. This means more money in terms of preparations.

The 160-billion-dollar sports world has certainly been brought to its knees, no doubt. One can only hope for a quick end to this ravaging virus that seems bent on crippling the global economy.