Downfall of the Sports Industry Due to the Pandemic of COVID-19

1. Introduction

The pandemic outbreak and transmission of COVID-19 disease have affected worldwide every region. Entertainment and Sports regions are one of the most distressed as they have gone a major volume of revenues as all their events are paused entirely. Games and Sports, inexact, will remain to be below some pressure in the upcoming months though when the world twitches adjusting to active the daily normal life cycle. When the economy is completely unlocked, noticing the people using face masks, sanitized and social distancing would be usual (Mann et al., 2020). Though, still, some questions will be arisen- how the sports and gaming atmosphere is going to manage with their procedures post and continue pandemic time. Many sports and athletics events were postponed till the month of March 2020 due to the limitations compulsory by the national governments throughout the world (Parnell et al., 2020). Especially, the Tokyo Olympic-2020 events, which were scheduled this year in July have been suspended by IOC (the International Olympic Committee) to the next year due to the increasing the COVID-19 infections and also worry about this pandemic not finishing (Culbertson et al., 2020). IPL or The Indian Premier League is the famous cricket tournament in the world. This league was suspended till March 2020 by BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India), and later the league was rescheduled in the month of September last week to November first week, 2020 without any spectators in the stadium (Madan et al., 2020). Also, the ICC World T20, which is listed in October 2020, but it’s also probable to reschedule to the coming year 2021 by ICC which is known as the International Cricket Council. The postponement and rearrangement of sporting events have left the supporters dissatisfied. Many games are played in front of a filled stadium, but due to this pandemic situation, social distancing is very much needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. So, the players will not be receiving the gratification of fascinating the supporters-full stadium as they would be enforced to perform in front of unfilled stands or without spectators. No visitors were allowed in the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) during a cricket match between Australia and New Zealand in March 2020. This match didn’t go well so the organizers had to call off the leftover series. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic which transmitted all over the world at the starting of 2020 was not only an immense risk to the health system but also a great threat to the whole sports industry. Numerous famous sports leagues, for instance, the NHL and NBA, and also the most famous soccer leagues in Europe, decided to delay and reschedule their events to avoid the community transmission of the COVID-19 disease (Vaishya et al., 2020). Back in March 2020, a survey states that a few fifty-six percent of participants thought that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a main significant impact on the sports industry negatively as an entire. The famous business data platform “Statista” shows the public views of COVID-19 impacts on the sports industry in Fig.1 (Statista, 2020).

Figure 1.

Public views on impact of sports industry during pandemic COVID-19

(Image Source: ‘Statista’ data platform)