What’s happening in professional sports right now? (A curiosity break with Andrew Brandt)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What does the future of American sports look like? Okay, okay—we know this is out of our wheelhouse. But this week, we’re examining how the global pandemic has affected one very specific corner of the economy: professional sports leagues. Expert Andrew Brandt lays out the scale of losses due to cancellations in an industry that generates $80 billion a year just in direct revenue for North American leagues—plus several hundreds of billions more in indirect revenue for ancillary businesses (like the folks who staff the arenas). Andrew Brandt is Professor of Practice and Executive Director of the Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at Villanova Law School. A contributor to ESPN and Sports Illustrated, he is also the host of the ‘Business of Sports’ podcast. Twitter: @AndrewBrandt Clips from CBS Evening News, NBC Sports, and ABC News. Further reading: The Coronavirus’s Economic Effect On Sports Could Be Staggering: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-coronaviruss-economic-effect-on-sports-could-be-staggering/ Nearly 75% of Americans Wouldn’t Attend Games If No COVID-19 Vaccine Is Developed, Poll Says: https://www.si.com/sports-illustrated/2020/04/09/poll-sports-coronavirus-return Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Now to the unprecedented shutdown of virtually all professional in college sports in this country.
0:07.0	The NFL needs to be planning for every possible scenario, up to it including not being able to play at all in 2020.
0:15.6	The virus had already scared many fans away from arenas and stadiums
0:19.9	before the leagues and players associations pulled the plug.
0:23.4	Coronavirus is the opponent no team prepared for this season.
0:27.0	From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics with
0:38.3	Nick Hanauer, a conversation about how capitalism actually works.
0:43.0	I'm Nick Henauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:48.0	I'm David Goldstein, Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures.
0:57.0	So Nick, I have a confession to make.
1:01.0	Another? Yeah, something I don't know that you know about me that
1:06.2	maybe runs counter to my character is that I'm a sports fan. No, I knew that.
1:14.0	You don't even have to confess that.
1:15.0	Yeah, a big sports fan.
1:18.0	I grew up, we had season tickets to the Philadelphia Eagles growing up.
1:22.0	What league is that?
1:23.2	Is that basketball?
1:25.5	Yes, and that's your confession
1:27.4	that you couldn't care less about sports.
1:30.7	Correct.
1:31.2	But it turns out, Nick, that a lot more Americans are like me than they are like you.
1:39.2	And you know what?
	...

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