There were many who felt that the sporting landscape needed a reality check prior to the Covid-19 Pandemic, certainly Covid has been the catalyst for change.
The feeling was that some athletes were being paid salaries that the sport could not afford, while the administration of sport was becoming bloated when it came to staff numbers. The efficiency of the various organisations and whether they actually delivered what was expected was coming under more intense scrutiny.
Already players have had to take wage cuts, while so too have some working in administration, while others have lost their jobs. That is never good to see, although as mentioned in some cases it was inevitable. What is regrettable is that some of those jobs could have been saved had the senior staff who have remained taken a salary cut. Or had the boards taken the hard decision of reducing management in order to save the jobs of many who do the day-to-day work.
There is likely to be another major change when things start to return to some semblance of what we used to regard as normality. Competitions will become more localised for starters, as travelling across international borders is something that we will no longer be able to take for granted. There may also now be far more rigorous checks before and after teams and fans are allowed to travel to attend such tournaments.
Another reason why we will see a reduction in international tournaments has already become clear. This is the matter of insurance.
While many who had booked travel to attend events such as the Tokyo Olympic Games have seen their travel insurance companies reimburse them, when they have gone to rebook for the rescheduled games in 2021, they have been advised that the same cover is no longer available. This may not sound like a major issue, albeit frustrating, but it will affect many considering travelling.
Having a far more far-reaching impact is the news coming from the sports themselves that their Insurance companies have advised that they will no longer be insuring for the cancellation of a tournament or event. This will have a huge impact on the sporting landscape, even though few events tended to be cancelled.
Those host cities considering bidding for an event will now be a little more hesitant. If they are unable to have insurance to cover a cancellation they face the possibility of a huge financial loss. As we have seen with Covid-19 this is no longer an unrealistic possibility.
While it may appear on the surface disastrous for International sport it may actually prove a blessing in disguise. As one senior administrator advised it will see some sports being a little more discerning when it comes to their International competitions.
This individual believed that superfluous tournaments will disappear and more emphasis will be put on other events which will increase in stature and relevance to the fans and the athletes. In other words a streamlining of the event portfolio which will in turn allow the sports to dedicate more time in making the event more meaningful and memorable.
Wimbledon, which was one of the few events to have taken out insurance against a Pandemic admitted that it has been a time-consuming and laborious exercise working through the claim.
Back in June the then CEO of the All England Lawn Tennis Club Richard Lewis told the Daily Mail, “It’s a wide-ranging policy but part of the reason why it takes so long to work through is that everything is looked at, so there’s no blanket payout. It’s looked at line by line quite literally, every cost, expenditure, bit of income, revenue, whether it has to be repaid, all that sort of thing.” The pay out is expected to be around GBP£114 million.
It was revealed that The All England Lawn Tennis club had taken out a £1.5 million per year insurance policy for the past 17 years to cover such a possibility. Not many other sports had such foresight.
Mr Lewis, who has stepped down as Chief Executive, also revealed that Wimbledon would not be covered in 2021. He told Inside The Games, “What I would say about the future though is that when I first started in 2012, there were some signs that things were not insurable, because of communicable diseases that had taken place like SARS and swine flu. In the immediate aftermath you can’t get insurance but fairly soon after that, you can start to get insurance again, the market returns.”
A number of insurance companies have taken a large financial hit with the Covid-19 Pandemic, and whereas the market may return, the insurance experts Not The Footy Show contacted believed that they will be “erring on the side of caution in the foreseeable future.” Which means that the market for the Sporting federations national and International may take longer than previously to bounce back.
That in turn will mean that they cannot possibly increase their risk by hosting an unlimited number of tournaments. Clearly, as we were advised, the focus will have to be on less events on which a greater importance must be placed.
At the end of the day this could be a good thing for all concerned, as the international arena will return to being a place where fans go to view quality, rather than quantity.
