The New York Times. April 04, 2020

SCORES ANALYSIS COMMENTARY SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2020 B9

N

Joyce Sanz recently called Comcast hop-

ing to reduce the $164 her family pays each

month for cable television and internet. An

after-school program manager at an ele-

mentary school in Miami, Sanz wanted to

trim expenses in case the economic fallout

related to the coronavirus pandemic lasts

months.

Sanz said she had asked the Comcast

customer service representative for a dis-

count or deferred payment options. No dice.

She asked to be charged the prices offered

to new customers. No can do.

Finally, she spotted a specific line on her

bill. “I am paying a sports fee,” she told the

representative, recalling the conversation

later during an interview.

“Oh, we can’t take those out” was the re-

sponse, leading Sanz to the obvious ques-

tion:

“If you are not giving the service, why do

I have to keep paying for it?”

Comcast and other cable and satellite TV

companies are still providing subscribers

with sports channels, of course. Sanz can

still watch Fox Sports Florida, Fox Sports

Sun and ESPN. But without live games fea-

turing the Miami Heat, the Miami Marlins

or other professional or college teams,

those channels have been shells of their for-

mer selves.

Nobody knows when major sports might

be played widely again. Games would cer-

tainly be embraced by fans, but the sports

ecosystem has taken a back seat to deeper

concerns of public health and the global

economy.

But sports leagues, television networks

and television distributors are already fir-

ing the opening salvos in what will be an ex-

hausting war to determine who should pay

for hundreds of millions — perhaps billions

— in economic damages.

“You always lawyer for the thing that will

never happen,” said Erin McPherson, the

head of consumer content and partnerships

at Verizon. “And the thing that you think will

never happen, happened.”

As that takes shape, most American

households will have little choice but to con-

tinue paying for live sports even as sports

channels are reduced to reruns of historic

games, documentaries and sports video

game simulations.

“They won’t throw money at their

customers when their costs of goods hasn’t

changed,” Craig Moffett, a co-founder of the

media research firm MoffettNathanson,

said of TV distributors.

That is not the case in England, where

pay television subscribers can more easily

buy sports channels separately. Sky Sports,

the main provider of televised sports there,

is allowing customers to pause their sub-

‘Without live sports, the value proposition to most households just isn’t terribly compelling anymore.’

CRAIG MOFFETT, co-founder of a media research firm

ANDREA LEVY

What Are We Paying For, Anyway?

By KEVIN DRAPER

With No Live Games

on TV, Cable Subscribers

Are Balking at Paying

Sports-Related Fees

Continued on Page B11

Wallace Spearmon, a two-time Olym-
pian in track and field, got what he
wanted when the International Olympic
Committee finally bowed to pressure
from athletes and national Olympic orga-
nizations and postponed the 2020 Tokyo
Games for a year.
It made sense given the coronavirus
pandemic. But the financial ripple effect
might jeopardize his ability — and that of
thousands of other American athletes —
to train for the Games.
“Hopefully the athletes don’t feel this,
though we know we probably will,” said
Spearmon, who is training in Arkansas
to compete in the 200 or 400 meters. “A
lot of us are already struggling to get by.”
The anxiety is growing because the
postponement has left the United States
Olympic & Paralympic Committee with a
$200 million cash crunch that could leave
athletes without the modest living and
training stipends they rely on. The deficit

comes while the committee simulta-

neously makes a push for the 2021 Sum-

mer Games and the 2022 Winter Games

in Beijing.

The organizations that run the individ-

ual Olympic sports in the United States,

known as national governing bodies,

were already trying to figure out how

they will manage without income they

were set to receive from thousands of

events that have been canceled because

of the pandemic.

In recent days, U.S.A. Cycling laid off

or furloughed 40 percent of what had

been a 70-person staff. U.S. Rowing cut

its staff by a third, also through a mix of

furloughs and layoffs, and cut pay for

much of the staff that remained.

Now, funding from the U.S.O.P.C. is up

in the air.

“We have a rainy-day fund, but it’s

raining awfully hard, awfully fast,” said

Rob DeMartini, the chief executive of

U.S.A. Cycling.

The looming crisis is a result of the

U.S.O.P.C.’s unique financial structure,

which relies so heavily on nearly $200

million it receives every other year from

its share of the U.S. media rights fees that

NBCUniversal pays the I.O.C. to televise

the Olympics.

Unlike other national Olympic organi-

zations, the U.S.O.P.C. receives no gov-

ernment funds. It pays for its operations

and helps fund athletes and the national

governing bodies of its sports through

the sale of media and sponsorship rights

and some modest fund-raising.

The problem for the U.S.O.P.C. is that it

does not get its share of the NBCUniver-

sal money until after the Games occur.

That money represents about 40 percent

of the U.S.O.P.C.’s budget and allows it to

distribute annually about $100 million,

including $13 million in stipends directly

to athletes and more than $75 million to

the national governing bodies for their

sports.

For example, in 2016, U.S.A. Cycling

received $2 million from the national

A $200 Million Delay Means Lean Times for Many Olympic Athletes

Wallace Spearmon is training for the 200 meters and the 400 meters, but he

is worried that many athletes, including himself, cannot afford another year.

ITSUO INOUYE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By ANDREW KEH

and MATTHEW FUTTERMAN

Continued on Page B10