To use the cliché of a longtime coaching friend, the second quarter is usually one of adjustment before you regroup, reassess and take a breath at halftime.
For most people the real life second quarter of 2020 was unlike no other, and as we hit halftime of the year and move into the third quarter, the assessment not just of what happened to get us here, but how we keep moving forward with what we learned, will be vital, sports business or not.
On a personal note, we started Q2 like we have before, the annual trip to the MIT Sloan Conference in Boston and lots of advance planning for events, innovation and great learnings and success going forward. The BIG EAST Tournament, the World Congress of Sports, a trip with Columbia to Spain to learn more about Real Madrid were all on the short list of a busy month. We spent the first Sunday of March in the city on the Upper West Side in Central Park before our daughter Christine headed back to the University of Georgia and our son Andrew wrapped up a great quarter with Drexel interning for Soledad O’Brien. Everyone knew the Pandemic was an issue, and there was lots of talk about what would be happening but things kept moving forward.
And then Rudy Goubert tested positive and started a chain of events that stopped life as we know it in many ways…and the spiral as we all know continued. Political finger pointing, lack of leadership in key places, the emergence of decisive local leadership in some ways, masks, social distancing, economic peaks and valleys, remote learning, George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, the Confederate flag, Christopher Columbus, Return to Play, staged reopening’s, games without fans, no games, cancelling of summer camps, more remote learning, loss of loved ones, miraculous recoveries, great reporting by some, shoddy and biased reporting by others and the list goes on and on. I lost a good friend, gained a new young nephew, had another young cousin diagnosed with Leukemia out of nowhere, had another colleague beat the odds to return home from a respirator and so it goes. Everyone has their stories, everyone hopefully keeps moving forward.
Even amidst the chaos there were lots of lessons to be learned if you just looked and opened ones mind to what a new normal may look like. Team Marketing Report had a good look at some key learnings in our business here. We have seen the positive impact athlete activism can have, as well as the impact young people can have in moving an agenda forward. We have learned that we can use technology to positively connect with people in real time while still doing our jobs; some have learned how to better manage their precious time, others have been crushed under the weight of being trapped at home without a break…those people are the ones we need to keep in mind.
We have seen the backlash of being tone deaf and narrowly focused, which has led to hopefully having a better understanding of the value of proactive communication and LISTENING and reading the room…team work is more important now than ever…as well as the lessons of being comfortable while being uncomfortable. If one thing has emerged from the quarter maybe its that we can best find solutions by expanding the reach outside of our normal…and trying to agree to disagree in a positive fashion while extracting some nuggets of best practices that we can apply to what we are doing.
Those best practices of what we are doing are also going to involve the reinvention of the professions of many in our industry. While return to play is important and will help ease the growing burden of all at the top levels of sport, the stark reality is that no fans in stands, especially in indoor buildings, means that in all likelihood more cuts to areas like sales and marketing will be coming. No matter how altruistic and community minded one is, there is a growing bottom line that is turning red and will take months to settle in, and then perhaps years, to rebalance. As one longtime pro on the team side said to me this week…”It’s like we are a startup, with a quarter of the staff expected to run a business coming back to life, and we all worry if we do our jobs well, senior management will wonder why we need more help again?”
While one of the hardest pills of the quarter to swallow came on the last day…the official cancelling of the Minor League Baseball season and all the lost wages and experience that brings…the reality is that reexamining ones skills, employed or not today, and figuring out what you need to add and more importantly, how your skills can be reapplied elsewhere, is going to be really important. You are in ticket sales? How are your digital skills, your social skills, your finance skills? You are in communications? Do you know every aspect of how to use a mobile device to tell stories? If not start learning. One thing that we have learned this quarter is the value of the pivot…from Fanatics making masks to equipment companies building PPE…that kept businesses relevant and engaged and helped them bridge at least part of the gap to the other side of these challenging times. Working remotely has given people the ability to reassess time management, and with that, makes them more organized. The loss of life to COVID, and the protests around racial inequality, have in many ways opened doors for cause marketing and social responsibility, all of which have been simmering as key parts of business and now can help lead the way out for some. This is especially true for those who have been climbing the ladder, the successful 35 to 50 year olds who are making a good living at a team, a league, or a brand, but have enjoyed their job so much that they have been doing much of the “same old,” albeit very well. Those behind them, the digital natives on a lower pay scale or just entering the marketplace, may have many more of the answers to needs in a “new normal” that is now digital first and frankly, may be more cost effective despite the lack of experience as things move ahead. The ones with great angst now just graduating or just out in the marketplace have the benefit in many cases of a different set of skills, and frankly, much less debt and baggage, and when jobs open up down the road might be some of the first choices.
Those a little older and experienced, sharpen the set of skills, it’s a great exercise whether its needed or not. Complacency may be the killer if budgets keep tightening.
The biggest thing this quarter has taught us on so many levels is to expect the unexpected. Almost every day brought a new challenge, a new question and on many days a new opportunity. Examining and seizing those opportunities, no matter how small, is how we can pivot from halftime and maybe a run for at least part of the second half of 2020…and beyond. Like the best games you have seen…there are going to be lots of struggles still…the question is what did you learn, how can you apply it, and how can you surround yourself with the right pieces to not succumb, and find ways to stay positive, and keep moving ahead.
The clock is ticking, lets keep playing in the game.
