Jon Taffer: ‘Sports Teams Need To Play, We Have To Get Back To Work’
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
It was a doubleheader of Facebook Live interviews today as we spoke with Jon Taffer of Bar Rescue on the Paramount TV network on how fans will re-enter the sports world during these difficult coronavirus pandemic times and Chris Hartweg, Chicago-based publisher of Team Marketing Report.
Taffer knows the Vegas Golden Knights well. He’s a big fan. But Taffer has another interesting angle on the sportsbusiness landscape because he created the NFL Sunday Ticket.
Taffer agreed that sports will likely resume without fans, but he stressed during our 20-minute LVSportsBiz.com interview that teams and venues need to re-ignite the emotional bonds between fan and team.
“The focus has to be on re-opening,” Taffer said.
Taffer floated an interesting concept. He mentioned to re-fuel fans’ interests, the NFL might want to consider giving the NFL Sunday Ticket for free initially to re-connect fans to the games.
Take a listen to Taffer’s comments with LVSportsBiz.com.
Taffer’s comments on how to re-start sports with more than 40,000 Americans dying from COVID-19 were a transition from the LVSportsBiz.com discussion with Hartweg, who relaunched the Team Marketing Report a little more than a year ago.
The TMR’s bread-and-butter is its Fan Cost Index, which looks at what it costs a family of four to attend major sports games in the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA and MLS. It’s a labor-intense exercise to compile cost data on everything from the average tickets to the prices to buy beers, hot dogs, parking, caps and a pennant.
It was a far-reaching discussion and please listen in here:
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