US Open marches ahead during pandemic. Photo by US Tennis Twitter.

Sports and COVID-19: US Open’s Daniel Zausner On Staging World-Class Sports Event During Pandemic

September 2, 2020 Alan Snel Daniel Zausner

By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com

Novak Djokovic, a 17-time Grand Slam winner, won a spectacular point through his world-class defensive skills against Kyle Edmund Wednesday and screamed to an imaginary crowd at the National Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens.

That’s life in sports these days. No fans during a COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed the lives of 183,000 Americans.

But big-time sports events like the 2020 U.S. Open march on thanks to sports-business executives like Daniel Zausner, chief operating officer of the National Tennis Center, where the Open was in the second round Tuesday.

LVSportsBiz.com had a live stream chat with Zausner Wednesday afternoon about staging the U.S. Open during a pandemic and also during a time when racial justice issues have entered the sports world. Zausner discussed the logistics of making this event happen.

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Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.

July 5, 2021

LVSPORTSBIZ.COM, launched June 2017: We are a digital magazine providing market-leading news, intelligence, enterprise and breaking info on Las Vegas’ sports/stadium industry. Our stories are quoted nationally and we set the sportsbiz news agenda in Las Vegas. Publisher Alan Snel has reported on the business of sports and stadiums in Denver, South Florida, Seattle and Tampa besides Las Vegas and is considered a national authority on the topic.

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To contact LVSportsBiz.com Publisher Alan Snel or buy his book, Bicycle Man: Life of Journeys, email him at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com

LVSportsBiz number for 2024: $1,178,161,041. That’s the amount of debt Las Vegas (actually, Clark County) owes for its public share of building the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium.