Sport & money do not mix well
You know what's common between Naomi Osaka's withdrawal from French Open, and the ESL and IPL's desperation to find an alternate location?
The dominance of businesses that run sports, over ...the actual sport.
You need press, to increase viewership. You need another league, to increase viewership. You need players to play in midst of an entire pandemic, to get viewership. No viewership = no advertising money. No viewership = no opportunity to sell merch. No viewership = no point of a paywall.
In this beautiful read by Tortoise Media, Simon Barnes digs deep into a world where the ball, quite unfortunately, increasingly lies in the court of businesses that govern sports, rather than the sport itself.
Reading Time: ~15 mins