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Rugby league
Rugby league was the last professional team sport in the UK to be halted following the coronavirus outbreak, but the consequences have been disastrous. The Toronto Wolfpack drastically pulled out of top competition in July and action has been halted this season due to outbreaks of the virus at various clubs.
Many rugby league clubs live from day to day and rely heavily on match day income to stay alive as viable businesses, although they have been helped by the government’s licensing scheme and an emergency loan of 16 million euros. pounds on May 1 and another 12 million pounds. on November 19.
The biggest concern for the rugby league’s advancement is the renewal of the Sky TV deal, which expires at the end of 2021. Super League clubs were recently informed that Sky Sports’ offer for a new TV contract for the The competing broadcasting rights will be around £ 20 million a year.
The offer, which has yet to be accepted and further haggling is expected, is roughly half the annual figure paid by Sky under the current deal, suggesting tougher times ahead.
Ross Heppenstall
Rugby Union (men)
Of all professional sports, the financial implications for rugby union were possibly the most dire, given its overwhelming reliance on entry receipts and corporate hospitality sales. The Rugby Football Union has forecast revenue losses of £ 145 million with no crowds at Twickenham and it is expected to take up to six years to make up the shortfall. Pay cuts of up to 20 percent were introduced, while the governing body eliminated 139 jobs. Premiership Rugby clubs were also hit hard.
With the new strain of the virus making the prospect of crowds at Twickenham remote for the Six Nations, there appears to be little hope for an immediate rebound in RFU finances, while the pandemic could have also affected the value of the new broadcast deal. for the Six Nations and Fall Trials when the contest comes out in January.
Premiership clubs still face extreme financial pressure, given their reliance on crowds for revenue, although a new £ 110 million three-year streaming deal with BT Sport provided some stability.
Gavin mairs
Rugby Union (Women)
Covid was a game changer for women’s rugby, literally. Matches in the Premier 15s were cut to 35-minute halves and scrums were limited by as much as 75 percent in an effort to reduce the amount of face-to-face contact.
Finding a title sponsor for the Women’s Six Nations will be the first litmus test if the women’s game is to recover. The pressure was mounting on the tournament organizers ahead of the 2020 edition and they will feel it more acutely than ever in a World Cup year.
Women’s sport is believed to be the only sport to be featured in the postponed Olympics and will have its own standalone masterpiece in the same year, likely to raise its profile like never before.
At the club level, the enormous investment the Exeter Chiefs have made in their newly formed squad has sparked glimmers of hope that senior teams will emerge unscathed from the pandemic, although many men’s clubs have not had the money to follow suit. the Chiefs.
Fiona tomas
Tennis
Tennis regained some ground after a miserable summer in which it lost its biggest tournament, Wimbledon. The US Open went relatively smoothly but without crowds, and in the face of the NBA play-offs, television viewership figures plunged.
In Britain at least, tennis escaped a crippling financial blow thanks to the All England Club’s insurance policy forecast for ‘communicable diseases’, which yielded a £ 174 million payout.
On the international stage, the Women’s Tennis Association tour suffered more than any other. His income is heavily dependent on Chinese events, and he was hit hard by the cancellation of all professional sports in that country.
In a world where travel has become a logistical nightmare, it won’t be easy to keep the carousel spinning in 2021. The only upside is that Covid-19 can force conflicting tennis administrative bodies to work together for once. If they continue to fight like rats in a sack, the sport will soon find itself staring into the abyss.
Simon Briggs
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