A Major League Baseball season to be played entirely in the Arizona desert without fans, and with teams isolating themselves from the outside world.
The N.B.A. taking over a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip so its stars can dine and dunk in their own bubble — but only after the league gets access to instant coronavirus tests.
Mixed-martial-arts fights live on TV from a private island … somewhere.
More than a month into the coronavirus shutdown, the American sports industrial complex is getting creative, or perhaps desperate, searching for a moonshot that might bring professional athletics back to a nation largely cooped up at home and suffering from collective cabin fever.
Fans are clamoring for something, anything, to distract from the pandemic and restore sports to the rhythm of American life; even Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the presidential adviser on infectious diseases, recently mused about seeing the Washington Nationals defend their World Series title.
Meanwhile, owners, executives and athletes — and all the related businesses and workers who depend on them — are increasingly worried about the economic damage from this prolonged, inescapable off-season.
But the hurdles to any return are numerous, and they start with securing access to tests for the virus and persuading players and officials to agree to strict confinement, among other conditions.
Over the past two decades, the business of sports in the United States has ballooned into a chunk of the economy that generates well over $71 billion annually and employs tens of thousands of people, from superstar athletes to hot dog vendors. But all of that has ground to an abrupt halt. The financial losses climb every day, as games go unplayed and are absent from television, and entire seasons could be canceled.
So used to calling their shots, leagues now are at the mercy of public health experts and elected officials who are treading cautiously as they weigh the needs of a popular industry that depends on physical proximity against the risk of events that could enable the virus to spread.
“I don’t think we are going to see huge arenas full of people for a long time,” Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles said in a telephone interview. “I do think you can have games without audiences. We watch much of our sports through television. I think you can create some bubbles. We are hungry for it. It’s a necessary step to build our confidence.”
While several leaders, including President Trump, have embraced the idea of games broadcast live from a quarantined environment, most concede that even that would pose large challenges. And the prospect of fans actually going to a game — an activity Americans spend $19 billion on per year, according to the professional services network PwC — is far off in the future, perhaps even 2021.
The outlook for leisure spending is already bleak as jobs are lost at a pace unseen since the Great Depression — 22 million people have filed unemployment claims in the past month. And a recent Seton Hall University poll showed that Americans, a majority of whom follow sports closely, are not eager to risk their health to attend games. Of the respondents, 72 percent said they would not go to arenas or stadiums if leagues resumed play before the development of a coronavirus vaccine — something scientists say is at least a year away.
Rick Painter, an Air Force veteran who lives in Viera, Fla., said he had spent $3,500 on two tickets for an April 5 game between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics, with plans to buy a jersey of the Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo and to sit behind the team’s bench. Now, Ticketmaster has his money and is not giving refunds, because the games have been postponed but not technically canceled.
“So, you asked me if I’m desperate for sports to come back. Part of me is, ‘Hell no, they’re a bunch of whining babies,’” Mr. Painter, 58, said. “Part of me is, ‘Hell yeah, I miss sports.’ Part of me is, ‘What about my $3,500?’”
David Stanley, 59, of Santa Monica, Calif., said he wanted to see the Los Angeles Rams in person again, but not before the outbreak had passed. “It will be very strange with no crowds at the games,” he said of joining a potential TV-only audience for the N.F.L. team he has loved since the 1980s. “But these are weird times, so what’s normal anymore?”
During the global recession a decade ago, the challenge for sports teams was the limited ability of fans and businesses to spend on tickets and advertising, said Marc Ganis, a consultant who advises N.F.L., N.B.A. and M.L.B. teams. “This time is completely different because it involves whether fans will feel comfortable sitting among strangers,” he said. “It’s not just a financial challenge, it’s a health problem.”
Leaders of the sports leagues have been speaking with Mr. Trump, and some are part of a task force on restarting the economy.
Televised baseball games with no one in the stands may be good for the American soul, but it will hurt Major League Baseball’s bottom line, even at a time when the sport’s finances have become increasingly tied to television coverage. In 2019, M.L.B. revenue grew to $10.7 billion, yet the game again struggled to draw fans to stadiums. In the absence of ticket sales, players would be under pressure to take pay cuts while risking their health and perhaps that of their families.
After the season was postponed, the league and the players’ association reached an agreement for teams to advance $170 million of the year’s $4 billion in total salaries through May 24. The players agreed to give up the remainder of their salaries if the season were lost, while still receiving full service-time credit that would help them earn more money in future seasons. Going forward with a plan to play in empty stadiums would require another negotiation.
M.L.B. officials say Arizona, where half of the league holds its spring training, has enough hotel rooms and baseball diamonds to put on some version of The Show. They estimate that some 3,000 people probably would need to be tested regularly — players, club staff members, umpires and the broadcast contingent.
“What are you going to do with family members?” asked Mike Trout, the sport’s biggest star, whose salary breaks down to $222,222 per game.
“My wife is pregnant, what am I going to do when she goes into labor? Am I going to have to quarantine for two weeks after I come back? Because obviously I can’t miss that birth of our first child. So, there’s a lot of red flags, there’s a lot of questions,” Mr. Trout said in an interview on NBC Sports Network. “Obviously, we would have to agree on it as players. But I think the mentality is we want to get back as soon as we can, but obviously it’s got to be realistic.”
The N.B.A. has been ascendant on social media platforms, but even before the virus prompted a shutdown, the league was considering ways to address declining television ratings, such as changing the length and timing of the season as well as adding an in-season tournament.
The league had already lost hundreds of millions because of its rift with China last October, and it doubled its credit line to $1.2 billion in anticipation of an extended shutdown. One team owner, Tilman Fertitta of the Houston Rockets, reportedly sought a $250 million loan to keep his restaurant and casino empire afloat after furloughing 45,000 workers.
On Friday, the N.B.A. said it had agreed with its players union to gradually reduce player salaries if the 2019-20 season is lost. And after a meeting with team owners, Commissioner Adam Silver said the league did not know when it could even talk about restarting.
“Our revenue, in essence, has dropped to zero,” Silver told reporters Friday night. He added: “There is a strong recognition that there are thousands of jobs impacted by the N.B.A. Not just the ones that fans see, meaning players and the basketball staff, but when you include the day-of-game arena workers, the N.B.A. is responsible for roughly 55,000 jobs.”
Ideas for a basketball comeback have largely centered on whether a “bubble” could be created in a place like Las Vegas, which hosts numerous college basketball tournaments, the N.B.A. summer league and a showcase for its developmental G League each year, using giant hotels with arena and convention space.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship has a facility in Las Vegas that it could use for mixed-martial-arts bouts. But state regulators in Nevada suspended all fights there, prompting the U.F.C. president, Dana White, to search for other options, including a private island.
By the luck of the calendar, the N.F.L. has not suffered the same losses as the other major professional leagues. The league has a sizable reserve of cash and access to credit, and teams do not have to pay players’ salaries until the regular season begins. All N.F.L. teams are profitable but they too would be in trouble if the shutdown extends into the fall and disrupts television contracts and ticket sales.
Some owners are also under financial constraints because their businesses outside football are struggling. The owner of the Miami Dolphins, for instance, is active in real estate and has stakes in other businesses, like fitness centers, that have been affected by the downturn.
For college sports teams — which generated $14 billion in 2018 — and their universities, the outbreak has been costly. When the N.C.A.A. canceled the Division I men’s basketball tournament, which generated more than $1 billion last year, it quickly reduced its payouts to member schools by two-thirds.
Since then, the signs of financial strain have become an almost daily drip: Old Dominion dropped wrestling, Cincinnati dropped men’s soccer, and Louisville’s athletic director cut his own salary 10 percent while beseeching coaches to follow suit.
The stoppage of highly lucrative sports programs has been part of a broader fallout for colleges, which have taken hits to tuition, room and board, and even federal research funding. A higher education trade group predicted a 15 percent drop in university enrollment nationwide, meaning a $23 billion revenue loss.
For university athletic departments that might be counting on negotiating a new apparel deal, like the 10-year, $119 million pact that Washington began last year with Adidas, there has been more bad news: The sportswear giant has been so damaged that it needed a $3.3 billion loan from the German government.
For university presidents and athletic directors, there are no moonshots on the drawing board.
“We’re different than professional athletics,” said Bob Bowlsby, the commissioner of the Big 12 Conference. “Our teams are populated by students. If universities aren’t in session, there won’t be any college sports.”
Tyler Kepner, James Wagner, David Waldstein and Sopan Deb contributed reporting.
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