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NCAA Bars Fans From March Madness Tournament Due to Virus

NCAA Bars Fans From March Madness Tournament Due to Coronavirus

(Bloomberg) -- The National Collegiate Athletic Association will hold its upcoming men’s basketball tournament in arenas without spectators as it seeks to contain the coronavirus outbreak, marking the biggest disruption yet to the U.S. sports world.

NCAA President Mark Emmert said Wednesday that the event known as March Madness will take place with only essential staff and limited family in the arenas. The same will be true for the women’s basketball tournament and other upcoming college championship events.

NCAA Bars Fans From March Madness Tournament Due to Virus

“While I understand how disappointing this is for all fans of our sports, my decision is based on the current understanding of how Covid-19 is progressing in the United States,” Emmert said. “This decision is in the best interest of public health, including that of coaches, administrators, fans and, most importantly, our student-athletes.”

It’s an unprecedented step for the biggest annual event on the U.S. sports calendar. The tournament, which makes up the vast majority of the NCAA’s revenue, is scheduled for 14 U.S. cities, starting March 17 and ending with the Final Four in Atlanta next month. That scope makes it a bigger undertaking than even the Super Bowl.

NCAA Bars Fans From March Madness Tournament Due to Virus

Sports teams and leagues across the country are starting to come to grips with the new coronavirus, also known as Covid-19. The NBA’s Golden State Warriors will start playing games without fans. And baseball’s Seattle Mariners are looking to move games in the early part of their season. The Seattle Sounders have already postponed an upcoming Major League Soccer game.

There are more than 1,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S., up from just a handful a few weeks ago. The virus has disrupted business worldwide, with supply chains compromised, travel slowing, and events of all kinds being canceled or postponed. When International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach spoke to reporters last week, almost every question he took was about the viability of the 2020 Summer Games, scheduled to start in Tokyo in July.

Affected Cities

Though not as big a commercial entity as the Olympics, March Madness features 68 teams and games in more than a dozen cities. They include stops in Washington state, the site of the country’s first major outbreak, plus California and New York, which have declared states of emergency.

Hosting games without spectators would allow the NCAA to keep players on the court and continue its all-important nationwide broadcasts. Last year’s tournament averaged 10.5 million viewers per game, and the finals drew over 19 million.

The men’s basketball tournament is just a part of the vast number of athletic events that the NCAA oversees, but it’s of critical important to the Indianapolis-based oganization.

More than 80% of the NCAA’s $1.1 billion in annual revenue comes from the event. The vast majority of that is the organization’s broadcast deal with Turner Sports and CBS, which was recently extended through 2032 and currently pays about $827 million per year.

Broadcast executives spoke earlier this week about the prospect of games without fans on-site.

The telecasts would look the same, but with fewer crowd shots and a slightly quieter atmosphere, according to CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus and Jeff Zucker, chairman of AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia News and Sports, which owns Turner. Both said that they expected ratings to be unaffected by the empty arenas.

Not ‘Concerned’

“That really is not something we’re really concerned about,” Zucker said.

NCAA leaders have said that they were exploring all possibilities for the event as they monitored the spread of the virus in the U.S.

Chief Operating Officer Donald Remy also said that the organization had business interruption insurance that it believed would cover some losses incurred because of an outbreak.

That would be important for colleges around the country, both in the NCAA’s top tier and lower divisions. The NCAA divvies up money ever year to help pay for scholarships, travel, lodging and medical costs, and also to reward teams that do well academically and who succeed during March Madness.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eben Novy-Williams in New York at enovywilliam@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Cécile Daurat

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