Wimbledon to receive $141M through pandemic insurance: Rpt

Religion of Sports CEO Ameeth Sankaran joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss how the coronavirus is impacting sporting events, as Action Network reports Wimbledon organizers will receive $141M through pandemic insurance after cancelling the event.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Meantime, we're also tracking the impact to sports. Of course, live sports getting canceled or postponed across multiple different organizations here when you look at the MLB, the NBA, and now Wimbledon as well getting canceled for the first time since World War II. So there's a lot going on here.

For more on the sports space, I want to bring on Religion of Sports CEO Ameeth Sankaran, who's joined us before on the show. Ameeth, it's good to see you again. When we look at this, I mean, it's getting desperate out there when we think about live sports coverage.

It sounds like the NBA and ESPN might be moving forward with a horse tournament, something that you might be able to see in front yards, backyards normally across the country. What are you making of the way that sports leagues here are going to have to get a little creative to bring some live sports to their fans?

AMEETH SANKARAN: Well, yeah. Thanks for having me here. Yeah, I think, look, our business is about telling human, emotional sports stories. And we believe that sports change lives. We just recently wrote a piece that talked about how in many crises is sports, a lot of times, is the first thing that elevates and allows people, all of us in societies to come out of this, whether you look back at the Boston Marathon bombing or 9/11 and so forth.

And so I think that the lack of live sports, I think has not only a huge economic impact to what you're alluding to around networks and brands and all of the like, but it also puts all of us in an even more difficult position around how do we deal with all of this, what's our outlet, where do we take the lessons that we all impart from sports, and how do we take this away.

And so what I do think, though, it does is it starts to set us up for amazing moments like the Olympics and so forth, where things will come together, and you will have nations come together and be able to think about sports and the collective wisdom that comes from it, beyond just the event itself.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, I mean, you've tracked a lot of-- I mean, I think you're right. A lot of people get some inspiring stories from the players behind the games, not necessarily even the games themselves. I mean, it's kind of just something you watch pass the time. Obviously, a lot of fans are very passionate about the games themselves. But the stories off the field and off the court are also something that you've documented.

And we've talked about that documentary with Steph Curry before on the show. But I mean, how can you actually advance some of those stories without the actual live sports going on as well? Is there a fear potentially that maybe leagues might not be able to come back from some of these things, at least in the short term, when you think about what the NHL wants to do with this, when you think about the XFL having to cancel their first debut season through all this? I mean, there are some leagues that are going to be impacted more than others.

AMEETH SANKARAN: For sure. I mean, I think sports, unlike-- I mean similar to every other industry, is going to be impacted-- are going to be impacted. I think in a lot of ways, the impact is going to lag a little bit because it just-- you know, there's tangible issues that exist with proximity and seating in a lot of events spaces and so forth. So I think there are those just challenges. The reality is no one knows when it comes back. It will come back.

The question, though, around production and how it impacts us I think is twofold. We think about things around, again, it's not necessarily related to the live sporting event, but it is around it. We are leading in deeply to audio, and I think that's one place that even in this moment, it allows us to go create great content remotely, make phenomenal sound, have editing done. And we have a team that's got a lot of depth in that experience and is working through this to maybe even have an increased pace because people are available at home.

And then on data, we have a lot of content we have created. And so there's still a lot of work that can be done. You're right, though. As you get into the times when we need to go out and do more production work and so forth, we just have to work with the realities of the constraints in front of us.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and who knows? Maybe there will be some good stories to come out of the horse tournament as well. I'm not sure if I'm too optimistic based on the way that ESPN's been streaming these video game tournaments out there. But for now, we'll leave it there. Ameeth Sankaran, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

AMEETH SANKARAN: Thank you. Appreciate it.