Five years ago, in Wuhan, China the beginning of a worldwide pandemic was starting to spread. In a matter of months all sports leagues across the world were all paused to keep people safe.
The sports industry is one of the most lucrative in the entire world and Prof Smith and Prof Skinner from Loughborough University cite that the total global sports industry was valued at $390 billion. However, professional sport saw a huge loss in income due to a lack of broadcast rights, ticket sales, sponsors, and merchandise, it is predicted to take years to return to pre-pandemic levels.
The Premiership has sadly lost three teams, London Irish, Worcester Warriors, and Wasps, with Covid-19 playing a massive part in that, the loss of revenue from lack of ticket sales was the leading factor in these teams going under, and are still yet to make a comeback despite speculation.
Things are very different now than they were, for example, Louis Rees-Zammit, NFL International Pathway Player made his debut for Gloucester becoming the club’s youngest ever Premiership player. Gloucester came seventh in the Premiership and have only done better than that once with very little success in the five years to follow with an empty trophy cabinet apart from a Premiership Cup.
When League Two was paused Cheltenham Town were in a great run of form, they had won five games in a row and drawn their most recent game and many fans were confident it was The Robins time to earn promotion to League One being a few points off instant promotion sitting in fourth.
Unlike the Premier League who played out the rest of their games a few months later, League Two was stopped and the rest of the games were all based on points per game for the first time ever resulting in Cheltenham controversially finishing in fourth, they were on a great run of form and had a game in hand which many fans believe they would have won, bumping them into the top three, earning instant promotion.
Cheltenham then went on to win the first leg of the play-offs against Northhampton 2-0, however, four days later in the return fixture Northhampton pulled off a great comeback winning 3-0 and pulling promotion right from Cheltenham’s grip.
The effects of Covid 19 didn’t just make changes in the 2019/20 season for Cheltenham Town, the pandemic meant that the Robins played the following season behind closed doors, and had some of their most successful moments in an empty stadium. Cheltenham welcomed Manchester City which is a once in a life opportunity that Cheltenham fans had to miss.
The Robins also won League Two and had to lift the trophy infront of an empty stand and again didn’t have the many financial benefits of winning compared to if they had the success any other season.
The effect of this pandemic cannot be understated, it pushed back some of the biggest sporting events in the world, however, sport is the one thing that kept people together, and governments knew that, allowing football matches to be played behind closed doors.
Tokyo 2020 Olympics and the 2020 Euros were both pushed back a year and as a result, created many unforgettable memories and a sense of comradery that will never be matched as the whole world came together to fight a horrible pandemic that sadly took many lives.
