What Will it Take for the 2020 Tennis Season to Resume without Spectators?

Tennis without spectators?

It is the new reality facing the sport in 2020 as the Coronavirus Pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the health and economies of nations across the globe.

Today on the Lucky Letcord Podcast, Bret McCormick joins to talk about his article on the subject, and some of the findings he has made about the feasibility of playing the tour without its fans in attendance.

What we learned:

It's not as simple as it sounds.

There are new costs associated with keeping the on-site officials and players safe and they will impact bottom lines.

Perhaps even more important is the fact that tennis' sponsorship deals are built around on-site presence, and this will also make things more difficult for tennis moving forward into a world of events without fans.

McCormick thinks that deep-pocketed events will have a much easier time of moving forward without spectators and at least recouping some potential losses with television revenues and the sponsorships associated with those events.

These are the factors that tour organizers must assess to the very best of their ability before taking off on this brave new course. They must also consider what type of bad press would come from a setback and the risk of losing market share in a sporting world in which other sports move forward without spectators.

Thanks to Bret McCormick for sharing his insights. Follow him on Twitter at @Bretjust1T

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