Businessweek Extra - Jon Wertheim

And I was excited to talk to him because obviously he knows tennis very well. We talked to him every year, as you say, at the US Open. He's been tracking that, but also tracking the broader world of sports. He's been writing a lot. We also got to talk to him sort of get the backstory on a big story that he did for sixty Minutes a few weeks ago. You and I both watched with our families. Really enjoyed catching up with him. Check it out. Well, we're not in

a great place, honestly. UM. I mean, one of tennis's great virtues is it's global cast, but in this case that is a liability, and so this is a sport where everyone's on a plane almost every week, and player has come from all over and it's really been tough. I mean, there's no guaranteed contracts, there's no players union. Um, Roger Federer is going to be just fine, Serena Williams

is going to be just fine. But there are a lot of players who are run of the mill, you know, very respectable, serviceable pros that are really feeling the pinch right now. And I think the big question too, and I think we see this in all sports, is just the uncertainty and if you blow out your knee, the doctor will say, here's your rehab schedule, and if everything

goes well, you'll be back by September. And if you have a rain delay, you can look at the weather map and you can prepare when the baseball game is gonna resume. I think just the fact that there is no endpoint here has really been something that's been very destabilizing to to a lot of athletes who I think have lost some some sense of purpose here and they're just not quite sure how hard to train. It's it's been very strange time, and certainly uh Ted tennis players

among them. So what kind of assistance could be coming their way? Is being asked for? I think about you know, each of these individual athletes to some extent are kind of a mini small business potentially, and I do wonder. You know, we've certainly got gotten small business small business assistance, you know, from the federal government. But I'm just curious if there's any kind of assistance you know, coming their way. It's certainly I'm assuming, is being asked for. It's a

great question. I've thought about that too. You're absolutely right. I mean, these players are basically that they're independent contractors, and you're right, there's they're basically small business owners. And I wonder about their eligibility. There has been talk about setting up some kind of a fund for players. I mean, the good news is that they're not incurring expenses. So it's very expensive to fly all over the world and employ a coach and a trainer and a physio and

getting massages and rackets strong. I mean, the good news is that none of them, no, none of the players really have those expenses right now. But it's unclear. I mean, both both tours, the a t P which is the Men's Tour, and the w T a which is the women's are allegedly coming up with I'm sort of a relief program. There's also the question of how deep does this go. I mean, there are more than a thousand

players that have rankings. Do you fund the guy ranked number five hundred or do you limit this to just the kind of players that you and I would see at the US Open. Uh? So far, it's been a lot of discussions and not a lot of checks being cut, right, And and I guess one of the questions sort of kind of synthesizing of this together is we don't know what what the endpoint is. We saw the French Open come out and sort of make their move. We saw

Wimbledon get canceled all together. We're still waiting, I believe, to hear from the US Open. How much uh, how much did the French kind of to not put to put not to find appointed sort of mess this up for everybody. Yeah, we should point out that the French Open,

which is traditionally uh starts around Memorial Day. The French Open said we're canceling, and then a few days later they said, oh, and by the way, we're going to grab this date on the calendar in late September and early October and uh, everybody else and Tennis said, wait a second, you can't do that. And the French Open said we're going to offer fifty million dollars in prize money. Um, it's interesting. I mean, I don't know. If you saw the sports news today, one of the stories, um that

didn't involve FIFA corruption. One of the stories was that the UFC, how's this mystery island where they're gonna hold Kate. I said that it's fascinating because it's honestly, yes, sort of say this is crazy, this is borderline irresponsible, and by the way, why not. And I think tennis actually is in a position. Look, you've got two players are on the other sides of the net. You don't have the social distancing issues you have with contact sports or

sports like basketball. You need about five cameras to cover tennis. And I'm thinking tennis actually lends itself to some creative problem solving here. So I don't know if we're gonna see Roger Federer on a private island, but I wouldn't be surprised if people got sort of entrepreneurial about tennis. Are pretty fast. Let's get back to our conversation with John Wortheim, executive ttor, senior writer at Sports Illustrated, contributing

correspondent to sixty Minutes. So we talked tennis, We talked a little bit of UFC there, John, the whole world of sports, though. I mean, we think about the NFL, we think about the NBA, we think about Major League Baseball, all sorts of contingency plans being made. The President speaking with the big commissioners last weekend. What I mean, you're talking to people all the time about this, what happens next? When it comes especially to professional sports, it's a great question.

I mean, usually in times of crisis, sports bring us together, and whether it's nine eleven or Katrina or war, sports have this sort of unifying quality. In this case, I can't think of anything worse since I mean, you've got this communicable, you know, infectious disease, You've got this terrible virus, and what could be worse in putting sixty people in one play, been telling them to all stand uh in tight quarters and then I'll go down the same escalator

when the game is over. Um, So it's really problematic. I mean sports are sort of about the worst thing you can do for this virus um. I think the big question is just how creative are sports willing to get? And somebody said, hey, we should play the NBA Playoffs on a cruise ship. Well, I don't know if that's such a ridiculous idea. I mean, the sports are really been moving towards the viewer at home, the viewer on their phone, and away from the family arena. The media

rights matter more than ever. Maybe this will accelerate that, but I think this, I think sports are going to sort of have to decide how creative they're willing to get. And we keep hearing about this closed door scenario where games are played, um, not in front of fans, but just so that they're TV cameras and we can all watch these at home. I think some sports are sort of lending themselves to that more than others. Some sports

are pre the NFL, they're only eight home games though. Yeah, but put the put the game, put TV, and doesn't matter if they're fans in the stands or not. There's some logistical you know, there's some logistical challenges there. But I just you know, we keep talking about flattening the curve and when we're going to get back to some

symbols of normalcy. I think sports are going to be about the last thing, uh to resume, just because the idea of packing twenty fans into an arena to watch a basketball game is about the worst thing you can imagine. So it's it's really interesting and I think, um, you know, we we've obviously never had anything like this, but I think sports are going to have to figure out sort of how how creative they're willing to get because you know, the the NFL starting the first Sunday in September doesn't

seem particularly likely right now. Right So, John, so this is something in terms of the sports world, at least in your view. Do you anticipate that in one easily We're still dealing with the after effects of it on the sports world. You know, I'm reluctant to sort of speculate too much. I mean, I feel like we all need to kind of respect the unknown here. Ideally, you know, when when there's a vaccine, I think it's a different ballgame,

But I don't know. I mean, would would you let me let me turn this on you guys, would would you guys go to a game? Or yeah, a lot of people have to say yeah, exactly, and you know, and we we know this, We know this from how

we got into this message. It only takes one person, and you know, the idea of of standing in row twenty three for three hours with thousands of others just I don't know, even if the games are held, I'm not sure how many people actually show up anyway, but I think, you know, it's who knows what's going to happen,

But I think could be a wash. Basically, Yeah, well it's been interesting to see, you know, we talked about tennis, but also to see golf trying to deal with this, which I feel like it goes back to something you said at the top of the conversation, which is, you know, very international sport. You think about putting something on like the Masters, the concern is as much for the players

right as the fans. So you play it without fans, but you've still got people coming from from all over the world, and while you're not, you know, like doing a lot of physical interaction with each other, and still you know, there is still is some sense of proximity. But I guess there's also a huge amount of money on the line here. And the economics get pretty complicated. Yeah, I mean, I think this is sort of a classic

struggle right between between health and and finding. I mean, we see this in our our daily uh you know, in our daily presidential press briefing, tension between public health and this is economic crisis and health crisis. But I I think you a sport link golf, a sport like tennis, there's only one locker room, and a tennis player made this point to me, and I think it's a really good point, which is, listen, we all want to get back out there, we all want to be making money.

This has been financially devastating. But it takes one player's racket stringer who is on back of a flight from Slovenia. I mean, it's just the flukiest interaction, and you're talking about dozens and dozens of players all in one locker room, and you know it, it just takes one positive. And we saw this with you know, with with the soccer

game in northern Italy. It just takes one positive. And I think you're right, even if there are no fans in the stands, you still have You've got players, you've got officials. Someone's kind of operates those cameras. Someone's got to be in the broadcast truck and suddenly, even in this this closed door scenario, even without selling a single ticket, you're still talking about hundreds and hundreds of people on

the ground. Um. So yeah, I think that the threshold for when is it healthy enough and when are we economically desperate enough, that's something that's gonna be really interesting to monitor well and listen, it's been interesting to monitor the Olympics and how long it took them to really back off. I mean there's the penultimate, you know, gathering of athletes from all over the world, thousands of people who come to see it. Uh, and you understand why it took them a while to do it, but you

know they had to. And you do wonder about the future of these kinds of events, especially if we continue to see, you know, viruses continue to be kind of a part of our world. John, I mean, I think that's what's really scary about all of this, that there there's a COVID nineteen because they were eighteen predecessors, and we may get a vaccine for this, but who knows when the next one is coming? And who knows if

if we go back to normal. And then in October they say, you know what, there's been a flare up. Everyone back in shelter at home. And I mean, the Olympics is just again to what I was saying before. Imagine somebody said, you've got It's exactly what he said, Carol. You've You've got millions of people coming from all over the globe. You have athletes from all over the globe. They're going to be staying in something called the Olympic Village.

They all are staying together. You almost could not imagine a worst scenario for an infectious disease. So you know, I mean it sounds trite, and we keep hearing words like unprecedented, but I really think this is a pivot point in street that we are all, uh, we're all

going through right now. And so John, I do want to I want to switch gears a little bit because I was excited to talk to you, in part because the report you did recently on sixty minutes about Africa and basketball players was really well done, just a nice piece of investigative journalism. My family and I were big sixty minutes fan. We love when you when you do stuff on that program, tell us a little bit about the story and and maybe where it goes from here.

Obviously we're in a in a different world. Um only got about a minute here to do all of that, but I wanted to make sure we talked about it. Uh yeah, I mean a lot, a lot of story shorts. There's been this tremendous and tremendously successful wave of African players into UH into basketball, into the NBA. It's been a great story. But there has been an underside to that, which is a lot of players that have come to the US under very dubious circumstances and have not been successful.

And there a lot more tragic figures and there are heroes here. And basically I'm a long story shore. What we discovered is that you have this this I twenty visa program is basically an honor system in schools are able to sponsor these kids, and there's very little checks and balances, and the school that somebody sets up in a church that probably only has room for a couple of dozen kids, that's somehow issuing dozens and dozens and

dozens of these these I twenty visas. And it really is a loophole that it's how these these kids get here. These kids are recruited. Sometimes they're not even basketball players. If somebody says, hey, this, this guy's seven feet tall, let's let's get him here and we can deal with the rest later. And there are there are a lot of sad stories, and there are a lot of happy stories, but there is a sort of week so that the trail is littered with with with sad tail a lot

of this loophole. And that was John Wortheim, executive editor for Sports illustrated, such a thoughtful guy and really left us with a lot to think about. Well, I think it's summed up our week too, about how could be a wash when it comes to sports. And then he just took a step back even further about where we are in history, and he said this could be pivot point in history, and so well said, you've been listening

to Bloomberg Business Week Extra. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday at two pm Wall Street Time. I'm Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser, and I'm Jason Kelly. This is Bloomberg