Business Items Today

There has been a lot of reporting on “Long-COVID”.  According to the CDC:

“Long COVID is broadly defined as signs, symptoms, and conditions that continue or develop after acute COVID-19 infection. “

No one should come here for medical information but there may be a part of the sports world that is suffering from the economic consequences of “Long-COVID”.   Take yourself b ack to 2020 when the pandemic was running rampant in the US and many areas of the country were in “lockdown mode”; people were encouraged to stay at home and many public institutions simply closed down.  One such public institution that had to close was the Baseball Hall of Fame; it generated next to no revenue for 2020 and a significantly diminished amount in 2021.  Unfortunately, it seems that in our post-COVID that revenues for the Hall of Fame have not returned to previous levels

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a non-profit entity which means that its tax filings are publicly available.  According to a report at Sportico.com, here are some data from filings with the IRS:

• Prior to COVID, revenues were in the range of $13-14M per year
• In 2021, revenue was $9.4M
• In 2022, revenue was $2.4M

The 2021 revenue figure is inflated by money the Hall of Fame received from government funds aimed at keeping the economy afloat and from what are characterized as “generous donations” from private sources.  Those government funds are no longer applicable, and the private donations have seemingly returned to pre-COVID levels leaving the Hall of Fame in some financial straits.

Moreover, there is an ominous sign out there related to 2023.  When Mariano Rivera was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the summer of 2019 – – before anyone ever heard of COVID – – the attendance for that weekend ceremony was approximately 55,000 visitors.  When Scott Rolen and Fred McGriff were inducted in the summer of 2023, the attendance was about 10,000 folks.  This report at Sportico.com has more data and more information about the Hall of Fame’s financials.  Perhaps the underlying problem is a heretofore unrecognized economic dimension to “Long-COVID”?

Moving on …  The state of college athletics in the “revenue sports” is chaos.  The combination of the transfer portal with the explosion of money available for athletes via Name Image and Likeness rights (NIL) has produced significant changes in the athletic landscape – – and not all of those changes have been for the good.  The creation of NIL Collectives – – entities that allow college athletic boosters to pool their monies to use in the recruitment of players is one of those “not-purely-positive changes”.  However, their existence raises a question in my mind that I do not have an answer for.

Imagine an NIL Collective that seeks to advance the sporting fortunes for good old Whatsamatta U.  The folks who run the collective – in consultation with the head coach of course even though such consultations may not be recorded anywhere – go out and seek to find a top-shelf QB and a half dozen studs to play on the offensive and defensive lines because that seems to be all that the team needs to contend for next year’s CFP.  After a careful national search for such players and after negotiations, that NIL Collective secures the services of exactly what they and the coach believe are the necessary ingredients for gridiron success next season.

So … the athletes are not necessarily students at the college even if they take real courses and get real grades in those courses for work that they do on their own.  They are where they are doing what they do because the NIL Collective has paid them for those services.  And if that is even remotely the case, then why shouldn’t those athletes be considered employees of the NIL Collective such that the Collective must pay appropriate employment related taxes?

One last “business item” today …  There are reports that execs at Disney – – the owner of ESPN – – and the NFL are in negotiations that might give the NFL an equity stake in the Worldwide Leader in Sports.  According to those reports, ESPN would take over some if not all of the NFL’s media properties such as the NFL Network and Red Zone TV.  Such a transfer of media properties to ESPN makes a lot of sense from the perspective that it puts media-savvy folks in charge of those NFL properties potentially giving them more room to grow.

However, the idea that the NFL would have some equity stake in ESPN could prove a bit awkward when it comes time to negotiate the next media rights deals for NFL games.  The other networks may sense that all is not on the up-and-up when one of the competing bids comes from an entity partially owned by the seller of the media rights.  And, when the NFL sits down to negotiate directly with ESPN, it would be negotiating with itself.  Seems awkward to me…

Finally, here is an entry in The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Business, Big: An organization dedicated to grinding dreams into the dirt.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………