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During a typical year, North America’s “Big Four” sports leagues rake in upwards of $40 billion in revenue. However, it goes without saying that 2020 has been anything but a typical year and it’s a foregone conclusion that that sum will be significantly lower when this seemingly endless 12-month span mercifully comes to an end after the NBA, NHL, and MLB all effectively ceased operations last month in the craziest 24 hours in the history of sports.
There’s zero doubt every person who made the decision to put their league’s season on hold would’ve preferred to exhaust every other option before hitting the pause button, but once Adam Silver had his hand forced by Rudy Gobert, it became clear that anyone who tried to ignore the reality of our current situation was setting themselves up to have their legacy cemented as “that guy who helped kill a bunch of people.”
The past few weeks have shown that “You can’t put a price on human lives” is a far more controversial statement than I would’ve thought, and while most people seem to understand the importance of prioritizing public health over profit, there are some figures who are having a harder time coming to terms with that concept. This includes the impressively ill-informed Mike Gundy as well as Dana White, who has gone Full Tough Guy as he does everything in his power to keep the UFC going.
While some events have been postponed to an undetermined date in the hopes of eventually salvaging them, organizers at Wimbledon recently made the decision to cancel the Grand Slam entirely, and as Darren Rovell reported on Wednesday, they probably had an easier time making that call thanks to the $141 million they’ll receive for doing so thanks to an insurance policy that was purchased 17 years ago to protect them from the threat of a pandemic.
Wimbledon reportedly paid $2 million a year for pandemic insurance for the last 17 years
(Total: $34 Million)
For this year's cancellation as a result of the Coronavirus, Wimbledon will reportedly receive $141 million from the policy.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 8, 2020
Rovell spoke to insurance attorney Jonathan Pray to get a little more information on the topic, and the Denver-based lawyer said many athletic organizations are currently examining a “force majeure” clause designed to cover “unexpected acts of God or nature” in an attempt to get some compensation.
While that term is open to interpretation, Wimbledon apparently went a step further while negotiating its aforementioned policy to ensure “pandemic” was explicitly defined and will net a solid $107 million because of it.
I can’t wait for the conspiracy theories that are going to come out of this.