Without a doubt, COVID-19 imposed great effect on the overall business field in 2024. This can be seen especially to small and medium enterprises and the economy around the world. Cities locked down, businesses are closed down, every kind of entertainment, sports events are all being canceled and postponed for almost half years in 2024. Started as a health crisis, the butterfly effect that COVID-19 brought then quickly turned this crisis into a global economic crisis. Coming to 2024, we are still living with the pandemic, and all of the businesses are still facing challenges to recover from it.
Contents
1. Major Sports Events Canceled/Postponed
Source: The Times of Israel
Sports as a major contributor to the economy for a country is being recognized by all governments. However, as COVID-19 is easily spread through any close or physical contact, most sports events, whether it’s international or regional, have been postponed to safeguard the athlete’s health. One of the biggest sports events that has been affected is The Olympics 2024 that was supposed to be held in Tokyo, Japan. Another big match in football leagues that has been postponed is UEFA 2024. You can check this website 55goal.com for the live soccer score of all soccer games today or football leagues.
2. Empty Stadium, Strict Measures
Source: The New York Times
After a long period of resting, many football leagues are back to game, but with strict measures imposed on the players. As the countries are still in the recovering stage for COVID-19, there are lots of significant issues that need to be taken care of to ensure the safety of sports events of all kinds. In short terms, athletes, vendors and fans will need to adapt with the new practice to prevent the outbreaks of pandemic. Most of the soccer games are played in empty stadiums with no audience, and broadcasted to the TV and live streaming site. There are alot of sites that update real-time football live scores with instant goal replay. It covers thousands of football and soccer games today to ensure the fans do not miss out on any exciting moment.
3. Closure of Gyms, Fitness Studios, Parks etc.
Source: ABC News
Not only sports that COVID-19 is affecting, but this happened to physical activities such as gyms, pools, fitness studios, parks and dance. All of these centres are being shut down to control the outbreak of pandemic which has then created new opportunities and new business models. The business and community has adapted the trend after months of staying at home. Some create online content, such as fitness tutorials on social media, dancing and yoga classes held online so that the students can still follow at home. Many of the studios are offering their online classes at a reduced rate to encourage participation. Educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and high schools are also moving their class to online so that the student is able to utilize their time at home even during the quarantine.
4. Impact on Professional Athletes
Source: Daily News Egypt
One of the groups that face challenges in this pandemic period would be professional athletes that are supposed to go for matches and training. Professional athletes such as football players, gymnastic players and all require consistent training to maintain their performance and stamina. However, with this Covid-19 where all social activities are canceled and cities being locked down, it is hard for the athletes to continue their daily training. This might impose pressure on the athletes as they need to stay fit during this period and make sure their performance can be maintained.
Furthermore, for international events such as the World Cup and The Olympics that are held only once every 4 years, the canceled/postponed of matches will cause the athletes to miss their best state. Some might be doing their last participation due to age or health issues and this pandemic might cause them to have quit the competition. Some football team or star players also face risk to lose their sponsorships due to the impact COVID-19 brings in the sports industry
5. Bad Impact to Country Economy
Source: Council on Foreign Relations
Sports is undoubtedly one major income for many countries. A football or soccer match that is held can drive the economy in large scale. The global value of sports brings to the economy in global is estimated to be around USD756 billion per annum. It has created millions of jobs for the people while now in another meaning, millions of people are at the risk of losing their jobs at this moment. The economy that is driven by the sports industry is not only limited to professional athletes, but at the same time includes the sports retails industry, sporting services, infrastructures, tourism, travel, media broadcasting, bookmakers, transportation and many more. And even if leagues continue, in-stadium experience is still not allowed at the moment in order to control the outbreaks of Covid-19. Fans would still switch to watching live streaming of matches or follow live scores over the internet.
Conclusions
Recuperating from this COVID-19 Pandemic will be a long and extreme excursion for sports such as football, marathons and physical activities. The whole sports ecosystems built from players, owners, fans, producers, broadcast media and related businesses would need to find their way out of this misery period. To minimize the negative impacts of COVID-19 in the sports ecosystem, businesses need to find innovative ways to engage with their fans. New business models would be needed to maintain the whole operations of the sports world.
Not only a global economic crisis, the well-being of society is also at risk where people tend to be less active physically and have an irregular lifestyle. The lack of exercise can also impact on the mental health of people. This is because stress might arise when humans are being isolated too long from the normal social life they have previously. In this condition, we should try to practice home exercising to maintain physical and mental health. For those that have limited spaces at home to do equivalent exercise, it is advised that we can go for alternatives and light workout such as stretching exercises, dancing, housework and etc. that keeps yourself active during the day.
