News Roundup: How Coronavirus Is Impacting the Sports Industry Thus Far

In an effort to keep the sports-video-production community as informed as possible, here is a brief list of sporting events impacted by the coronavirus outbreak in North America (as of Wednesday, March 11):

Pro Sports

• The state of Washington is banning large gatherings of more than 250 people in the city of Seattle, which will postpone a Seattle Sounders home match vs. FC Dallas on March 21 and all Seattle Mariners home games through the end of March.
• San Francisco will officially ban events over 1,000 people, including Golden State Warriors games, as decided by Mayor London Breed and city health officials. Effective Wednesday, the ban will last at least two weeks. This will immediately affect the Warriors, who have a game scheduled against the Brooklyn Nets at Chase Center on Thursday, as well as the Giants, who were planning on hosting the Oakland A’s in a Spring Training game in Oracle Park on March 24.
• The San Jose Sharks released a statement Monday after Santa Clara County announced it is banning all public gatherings of more than 1,000 people, saying the team will adhere to the guidelines but has yet to release details on how it will move forward with the upcoming three home games set to take place during the ban.
• MLB, MLS, NBA, and NHL have have temporarily closed locker rooms to media, restricting access to players and essential staff.
• The ATP and WTA tennis tours’ BNP Paribas tournaments at Indian Wells in California and the women’s world hockey championships in Canada have been canceled.
• Several days following the cancellation of South by Southwest in Austin, the MotoGP Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas has been postponed to November.

College Basketball

• The Ivy League is deciding to cancel all spring athletics competitions through the academic year.
• USC is banning fans from their home athletic events through March 29.
• Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has issued an order to cancel large gatherings in the state, including all athletic events. This will affect the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament in two ways: the First Four scheduled in Dayton on March 17-18 and both first and second rounds scheduled in Cleveland on March 20 and 22.
• CBS Sports and Turner Sports, said they don’t know how coronavirus concerns might affect their coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament, but “everything is proceeding as scheduled” as of now.
• The College Basketball Invitational (CBI), a postseason tournament (founded in 2007 that consists of 16 teams from across the country) has been canceled.
• The Ivy League canceled its men’s and women’s basketball conference tournaments Tuesday.
• The Big West Conference and Mid-American Conference will host its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments without spectators this week.
• The ACC Tournament will go on as planned at the Greensboro Coliseum, as will the NCAA tournament first and second rounds scheduled next week at the same venue, without any restrictions on fans or the media.
• The first two rounds of the NCAA Division III basketball tournament are being held without spectators, host school Johns Hopkins University announced.
• NCAA has yet to announce anything for this week’s conference championships or next week’s Division I men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments.

Beyond North America 

• The Tokyo 2020 Olympics torch lighting ceremony in Olympia will be held without spectators. Nonetheless, the International Olympic Committee and local organizers say the games are still on. On Wednesday, The president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee received an apology from an executive board member who said the 2020 Games should be delayed a year or two because of the coronavirus.
• As for Europe, all sports events in Italy have been canceled until April 3. CLICK HERE for a more detailed listing of soccer and other sports events that have been cancelled in Europe.

Esports

• On the esports front, Riot Games is moving the League of Legends Midseason Invitational from May to July 3-19 (with a location not yet set) and adjusting dates for the summer split. With the new scheduling, the summer split will take place before the MSI.
• E3 2020, which was planned to take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center this June, has been cancelled.
• The eMLS Cup has officially been cancelled. Planned on being held at SXSW in Austin, this announcement comes after the cancellation of the annual event.