Sport and COVID-19

By Pete Dawson

In these unprecedented times writing a blog post about sport could be considered insensitive and inappropriate, especially when many people face uncertainties around their way of life, their jobs and their physical and mental health. Arguably, out of all the unimportant things, sport is perhaps one of the most important, providing escapism from the daily grind, a grind that for many of us would (already) be a welcome relief right now.

In the UK, this last week offices around the country have been emptying out, people have begun practicing social distancing and many others have undertaken self-imposed isolation to protect themselves and their loved ones if they or anyone else in the household shows symptoms associated with COVID-19. Cafés, restaurants, bars, theatres, cinemas and leisure centres have also been ordered to close and schools, colleges and universities essentially moved to on-line delivery in order to slow down the spread of the virus.

Sport has also been massively affected. Professional football at all levels across Europe has been suspended and Euro 2020 has been put back to 2021 in order to allow domestic leagues the chance to complete their seasons. Other team sports, such as rugby league and rugby union, also face lengthy disruptions to their seasons, with the latter already cancelling all remaining fixtures for all but those clubs in the top division. There is also the very real prospect of no domestic cricket in England except for the lucrative limited overs tournaments, and a shortened Formula 1 season. The French Open tennis tournament due to take place in May has been moved to September and the year’s first major golf tournament – the Masters – also now likely to take place in the autumn. There are also doubts about whether it would be possible for the Summer Olympics, which are scheduled to be held in Japan in July, to go ahead as planned.

All of this will have financial implications, with many sport clubs already indicating that without financial support they will struggle to survive. Several rugby union clubs for example have already asked their players and staff to take pay cuts and this is likely to be mirrored in other sports over the coming weeks and months.

The absence of live sport has resulted in subscription-based sports channels, such as Sky Sports and BT Sport, to fill up their schedules with repeats of classic contests but these are in no way a substitute for the unscripted drama of live contests. There are however opportunities for further growth and interest in eSports but I am still getting my head around this as a spectator sport as well as being slightly resentful that had it been around why I was younger I could have made some money out of this – as I like to think I was quite good at the (very) early versions of the football computer game FIFA and other sport-star endorsed computer games such as Graham Gooch’s cricket and, my particular favourite, Daley Thompson’s Decathlon. Sales of management simulation games, such as Football Manager are also likely to increase as people find alternative ways of feeding their sporting appetites.

Until this last weekend there was still some live sport to be seen. Pre-dominantly this was in Australia where matches across Aussie Rules Football, NRL (rugby league) and both the A-League and W-League (men’s and women’s professional soccer) could be seen. However, they do so against the backdrop of empty stadiums, another consequence of social distancing measures.

When sporting events are eventually allowed to re-commence it is likely that playing in empty stadiums will be the norm for a while. Sport clubs will continue to face financial implications due to the loss of income from gate receipts which for many clubs outside of the elite remains an important source of revenue but at least sports followers will get to watch the contests (providing they have a subscription) even if they cannot physically be in the stadium.

An important implication of playing in empty stadia is the reduction in home advantage. It has been suggested that a substantial part of home advantage is generated by the noise from a vocal crowd which in turn influences the decision-making of the official – referee, umpire. The process at work here is known as social pressure, a concept that is popular in behavioural economics. Social pressure is based on the principle that decision-makers – here officials – rely on salient cues such as noise from the crowd when making decisions such as disciplinary sanctions (e.g. yellow and red cards in football and rugby) and the awarding of penalties. Given that the crowd is mostly made up of supporters of the home team, then this suggests more favourable decisions will be given to the home team. This so-called home bias has been confirmed by academic literature, including some of my own*.

There are examples to draw upon here. Against a backdrop of hooliganism and sub-standard stadia, a ruling by the Italian government resulted in a number of Italian football clubs having to play some of their home games during the 2006-07 season without spectators. The impact of this was investigated by two Swedish economists, Per Pettersson-Lidbom and Mikael Priks**. They found evidence consistent with view that in the absence of social pressure the home advantage in terms of favourable calls associated with fouls, yellow cards and red cards dropped between 23 (for fouls) and 70 percent (for red cards). In contrast, player behaviour appeared to be consistent with and without the presence of a crowd.

This is an important study but limited to the extent that there were only 21 games in the sample that were played in empty stadia. In the current climate, not only is there the real prospect of looking at this across a larger number of football games played in empty stadia, but to also to compare this across a range of sports. Arguably the biggest effect could be seen in Japan, where if the Summer Olympics does go ahead, and goes ahead in empty stadia and venues, expect to see fewer medals for Japan particularly in those sports where decision-making is based on subjective judgements. Of course, this also very much depends on whether all nations as well as the athletes are willing and able to compete. It will take time for people in general, and sport, to recover. But we will and we will hopefully be stronger and more appreciative of things such as the availability of sport we have hitherto taken for granted.

References
* Dawson, P. and Dobson, S. (2010). The influence of social pressure and nationality on individual decisions: Evidence from the behaviour of referees. Journal of Economic Psychology, 31(2), pp.181-191.
** Pettersson-Lidbom, P. and Priks, M. (2010). Behavior under social pressure: Empty Italian stadiums and referee bias. Economics Letters, 108(2), pp.212-214.