Almost every sporting event has been cancelled at this point. With the announcement this morning that the Tokyo Olympics are going to be pushed back a year, there really isn’t any practical way for other sports to go ahead this season. The Olympics was the be all and end all of sporting competitions, so with that delay comes the cancellation of everything left. The reason a lot of sports hung on this long though is money, so just how much is being lost with all these cancellations and postponements?
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Let’s start with the Olympics. Rio cost just over $13 billion even though first estimates only put costs at $3 billion, so to cancel or postpone an Olympics is a massive deal. Even without the cost of the games themselves, host countries get a major spike in tourist money as people come to see the games.
Right now, Japan has reportedly spent $12.6 billion into the games, which is almost certainly going to skyrocket with the announcement of the postponing.
The average Australian full-time salary is $86K, so for a bit of perspective, the amount of money that has been put into the Tokyo Olympics you could pay for 146,511 Australians salary for a year.
But what about other sports? Last year, the AFL’s full revenue was $793 million dollars. A third of that – $314.7 million – went back into the clubs, and just under $60 million went back into community programs like AusKick to help build up the code. The season hs been suspended until May 31st, but the AFLW season was immediately cut off at the semi finals.
The NRL have also just announced that they’re postponing their season. In 2019 they recorded a total revenue of $528 million, with a surplus of $30 million.
Outside of footy, Cricket Australia have suspended a number of ODI’s and scrapped the final of the Sheffield Shield. Cricket Australia turned over $485 million in 2019, of which $100 million went to the players and the umpires. A further $22 million went back into community cricket and local clubs.
Of course, Australia isn’t the only one getting hit with sports cancellations. The NBA’s total revenue for 2019 was $8.6 billion, with each team worth an average of just under $2 billion. The Premier League season has been put on hold, but their top earning clubs last year were making some serious cash. Liverpool made $277 million, Manchester City made $275 million, and Chelsea made $265 million.
With the global economy already in a downturn, the disruption to major sporting codes isn’t going to help the situation. When the numbers are laid out though, it’s easy to see why so many codes held on until the last minute to cancel.
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