Written by Presely Field, Staff Writer
COVID-19 must be stopped. Simply put, it has ruined many people’s lives and it has also had a major impact on sports across the country.
The NBA was the first professional organization to suspend it’s play due to COVID-19. Soon after the announcement, many leagues followed in their footsteps, including the NCAA Division l basketball tournament. March Madness is one of the biggest sporting events over the course of four weeks; it brings in millions of dollars in revenue for universities and colleges, as well as the NCAA.
The basketball tournament generates $867.5 million annually from television and marketing rights alone, according to the institution’s website–the event composes a significant portion of the NCAA’s yearly revenue. In 2019, the NCAA earned an estimated $933 million when factoring in media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships (Fox Business, 2020).
However, the March Madness tournament is just one event that has been affected by COVID-19. The NCAA has also cancelled every spring sport’s regular season, in addition to the College World Series. The summer classic is hosted in Omaha, Nebraska every year at TD Ameritrade Park.
It is expected every year that the city of Omaha will bank around $70 million each year from the event. In comparison to March Madness, the College World Series is not as large of an event, but the result of COVID-19 is still costing both the NCAA and Omaha, Nebraska considerable amounts of money.
The NCAA hosts 90 championships every year, with only five of those championships generating enough revenue to sustain the cost of putting them together (NCAA). The cancellations of spring sports, regular seasons and championships has been a monumental loss for the NCAA, due to the disastrous COVID-19 outbreak.
