New York (AFP)

Major championships suspended, matches without spectators, American sport takes, in turn, radical measures to slow down the coronavirus, a shock wave for an industry which generates tens of billions of dollars per year.

NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS ... One after the other, the big leagues of American sport suspend or postpone their season and align themselves with the measures taken in countries a priori much more severely affected, like Italy.

"A shock wave" is what created, for Patrick Rishe, professor at the University of Washington in Saint-Louis, the announcement of the positive case of the French basketball player Rudy Gobert, the first professional sportsman in North America reached by Covid-19, and the postponement, sine die, of all the encounters that this entailed.

For the moment, the matches are only postponed, and not canceled. Patrick Rishe underlines that NBA and NHL "could easily", if necessary, "extend their season during the summer, because they play indoors".

Baseball, which is played outdoors and whose schedule already stretches until October, "could be more likely to cancel games," he said. The season has already been postponed for at least two weeks.

In such a scenario, the consequences would be quite different.

"This year is pretty devastating," said Andrew Zimbalist, professor of sports economics at Smith College (Massachusetts), because "all leagues depend, at a minimum, at 40% of box office receipts."

For the ice hockey championship, the weight is even higher because it derives from television broadcasting revenues significantly lower than those of other major sports.

But overall, the four major leagues, basketball (NBA), American football (NFL), baseball (MLB) and hockey (NHL) "are in a solid financial position, so they can probably absorb this loss of income," says Andrew Zimbalist.

If the rest of the regular season is canceled, the NBA could lose $ 500 million, estimates John Vrooman, a professor at the University of Vanderbilt, and doubles it in the event that the play-offs (the final phase of the championship) would not be played.

"So sooner or later all matches in all leagues will have to be resumed" so as not to jeopardize their financial equilibrium, he said.

- Unpaid players? -

Television broadcasters pay billions of dollars to these four leagues each year, but Andrew Zimbalist said the channels are unlikely to seek financial compensation in the event of cancellations.

In general, he says, the league and broadcasters agree to extend, free of charge, the contract beyond the originally scheduled deadline, as compensation.

The financial burden of a truncated season could be mitigated by insurers, even if many seem to be based on so-called force majeure clauses.

The latter establish a list of unforeseen events likely to allow compensation, often natural disasters, sometimes a strike, and occasionally a pandemic "but this is not usual", according to Andrew Zimbalist.

In its collective agreement, the NBA had, it included the epidemic among the cases of force majeure, which would allow the teams not to pay their players for the matches possibly deleted.

The NFL, whose season is only supposed to start in September, is less clear, while NHL and MLB do not mention it in their basic document.

For championships of lesser stature, notably that of football (MLS), the effect of cancellations could be more marked.

In the case of young leagues, like the all-new XFL, American football's little thumb against the NFL, the consequences can be dramatic. "I don't see them surviving a situation like this," said Andrew Zimbalist.

The NCAA organization, which manages a good part of university sport in the United States, will also suffer after the cancellation of its annual basketball tournament, the second sporting event in the United States after the Super Bowl.

But it is an amateur sport organization, whose athletes are not paid.

For Patrick Rishe, a wave of cancellations of NBA, NHL or MLB matches would not affect professional athletes or club owners as much as the little hands of sport.

"The people who work in halls or stadiums at the bar or as hostesses, they are the ones who will suffer the most," he warns. "They don't already earn much, and they only get paid if the event takes place."

© 2020 AFP