Right now, COVID-19 looks like the opponent’s star player and for any chance at a W, we have to stop them from scoring. The problem is, most teams have more than one scoring risk. To win, our defense against Coronavirus can’t just stop the most intimidating player. A championship team stops the whole lineup from scoring and leverages every chance possible to take the lead.
While defending COVID-19, we currently have the ball and a wide open chance to get ahead. This is the effort to #BuildBackBetter.
Of businesses, buildings, and activities yet to fully reopen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, live event venues will be close to last. This has less to do with the societal significance of these events and more to do with the physical design of facilities and layout of the gatherings that they typically host. Live sports and the performing arts are integral to our communities, providing an outlet for entertainment, fostering a sense of belonging, unleashing creative energy, and supporting local business and entrepreneurship. In sports, this energetic magic of a crowd is how we’d typically explain ‘Home Field Advantage.’
Though most in-person access to live events is rightly paused, this ‘home field magic’ future-proofs the sports industry. To move forward in the push to reopen, live sports actually have a unique advantage. We are navigating unprecedented times, but sports and entertainment venues have the opportunity to take lessons from the other industry’s reopening best practices, successes, and inevitable failures. Venues and events teams are in data-gathering mode, seeking case studies, considering nuances to sanitation standards, signage and communications, food and beverage safety, and innovative partnerships. They are also balancing how those recommended practices align to their previous operations.
In some cases, these new operational procedures may risk the environmental sustainability progress that has been made in recent years. As a critical side note, they may also put more risk on the hourly ‘essential’ employees, further impacting any strides that the front office is making in the social equity movement. There have been knee-jerk reactions to set new requirements for the continuous exchange of disposable PPE by staff, mandates for additional plastic wrap around food and beverages, and substitution harsh chemicals for safer cleaning products in public restrooms, and many more examples that may seem small, but add up quickly. Common responses to these concerns include, ‘This is only temporary, we’ll go back to how we were doing it before when this is over;’ ‘It’s the only way to reopen quickly;’ ‘We have to make people feel safe and this is how other industries have done it.’
But that’s not the only way.
Right now, we have time to find solutions for the excuses above. We know the recommendations, we know the guidelines, and we’re still not open. That means that we have time. Returning to the sports analogy, we can study tape and we still have a few practices left before the whistle blows.
The #BuildBackBetter movement that has swept all industries on a global scale has pushed organizations to rethink, reconfigure, reprioritize, and simply reinvent.
As a live sports venue, this is your moment to ask, ‘Have we found the best effort to secure long-term success?’ ‘Can we future-proof the relationships with our brand partners?’ and most importantly, ‘What is our home field advantage and how do we use that to do better?’
This is the moment to choose a long-term reopening strategy. A winning strategy. This is the chance to move up in the rankings.
This is your chance to redefine the magic of home field advantage.