US sports to lose $12 billion

US -- The $100 billion US sports landscape will lose $12 billion in revenue due to the coronavirus shutdown, ESPN reported Friday, with deeper cuts if NFL and college gridiron games are wiped out.

Analysis of the magnitude of business losses includes superstar salaries to pay for stadium workers but it might be a conservative estimate because it does not include outdoor recreational sport, gambling or such individual sports as golf, tennis and NASCAR, the most popular form of US auto racing.

Patrick Rishe, sports business program director at Washington University in St. Louis, estimated US pro sports would lose $5.5 billion from the shutdown while college sports would lose $3.9 billion and youth sport tourism would fall by $2.4 billion.