Telehealth 2021: Where Do We Go From Here?

Because of COVID-19 and the inability to get to physicians' offices, the door opened up to telehealth, but we've got to do a lot more. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) took what they were doing in the rural areas and applied it to a nationwide program. Because of all the health care that they're receiving, they are living longer. [...]if you can build controls that enable even Medicare to look in and make sure that it's a true telehealth session-even with using HIPAA [the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] [privacy rules] as a baseline-you'll see that the economics will be a lot better with telehealth built into the system.

Team performance and the perception of being observed: Experimental evidence from top-level professional football

We exploit the natural experimental setting provided by the Covid-19 lockdown to analyse how performance is affected by a friendly audience. Specifically, we use data on all football matches in the top-level competitions across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom over the 2019/2020 season. We compare the difference between the number of points gained by teams playing at home and teams competing away before the Covid-19 outbreak, when supporters could attend any match, with the same difference after the lockdown, when all matches took place behind closed doors. We find that the performance of the home team is halved when stadiums are empty. Further analyses indicate that offensive (defensive) actions taken by the home team are drastically reduced (increased) once games are played behind closed doors. Referees are affected too, as they change their behaviour in games without spectators. Finally, the home advantage is entirely driven by teams that do not have international experience. Taken together, our findings corroborate the hypothesis that social pressure influences individual behaviour.

How Las Vegas Upped Its Transportation Game with the Arrival of Pro Sports

It's no secret that Las Vegas NV is well equipped to handle large-scale events, hosting an average of 300 major events each year--including National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL) games, NASCAR races, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) events, World Boxing Council-sanctioned matches, and high-profile college football games like the PAC-12 championship and ESPN-owned Las Vegas Bowl. Added to the mix are all-star celebrity residencies that helped to fuel the city's steady drumbeat of more than 42 million annual visitors in 2019. Powerhouse headliners like Katy Perry, Carrie Underwood, Adele, and Usher, in addition to major music festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival and Life is Beautiful, ensure that Las Vegas keeps its moniker as the "Entertainment Capital of the World." Added to that are more than 20,000 conventions of all sizes, including 60 of the world's largest, that easily make Las Vegas one of the country's top convention destinations.

INFLUENCE OF FANS ON RESULT EFFICIENCY IN FOOTBALL

Some previous studies suggest that fans have a positive influence on the home teams and the result of competition. The primary goal of this paper is to test the hypothesis of the positive influence of fans on players and referees on the football field. We used the term "home field advantage", meaning that the fans bring the home team an advantage at the game. The study sample consists of seasons 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 in the 1st Croatian league. The variables in the study are points won, shots on target, yellow cards, red cards, fouls and fans attendance. Due to the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2019/2020 season, almost all matches were played without spectators, which allowed us to test the hypothesis of the connection between the "home field advantage" and the presence of fans on the stands. Statistically significant differences were detected in the variable's points won by the host, free kicks by hosts and guests and shots on target by hosts. Statistical analysis indicated that with the presence of spectators, the home team won 1.76 points, while in the period without the fans it was 1.44 per game. The results of this study confirm that audience contributes to the performance of the home team and inferior performance of visiting team, also on performance and decision-making of referees.

From Strategic Goal to Reality: The Development of the Myrtle Beach Invitational Basketball Tournament

The Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, area was selected to serve as one-time hosts for two tournaments in 2017: the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament and the Puerto Rico Tip-Off Men's College Basketball Tournament, when circumstances required those events to relocate on very short notice. Following the success of these two one-time events, the region sought to become a permanent host of an annual men's college basketball tournament to be played in November or December. This manuscript examines the development process of this tournament and illustrates how tournament organizers addressed the most common elements found in such events.

There's No Sport Without Spectators - Viewing Football Games Without Spectators During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The presence of sports fans in the stands is considered a natural and essential element of sporting events. Beyond the atmosphere fans create and the color they add to the game, their presence reflects the idea that the game is more than a competition between two teams -it is a grand battle between communities and identities, which is also the reason that fans are willing to sacrifice so much on behalf of their team. As is other areas of life, the COVID-19 pandemic created an unusual situation, in which sporting events were held without spectators in the stadium stands. In many places around the world, professional sporting activities were permitted but spectators were not allowed into the stadiums due to social distancing restrictions. The current study examines this unique situation and through it, gains an understanding of fans' beliefs concerning the significance of spectators and their presence in the stadium. Through in-depth interviews with football fans who regularly attend games (in the pre-pandemic period), the current study explores football fans' experiences as they viewed "ghost games" (where teams played to empty stadiums). Findings show that this unique situation, caused by the global pandemic, heightened fans' deep-rooted connection to sports and to their favorite team, and also exacerbated the social, emotional, and professional implications of viewing football games with no spectators.

Public health implications of opening National Football League stadiums during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SignificanceUsing data from 2020, we measure the public health impact of allowing fans into sports stadiums during the COVID-19 pandemic; these results may inform future policy decisions regarding large outdoor gatherings during public health crises. Second, we demonstrate the utility of robust synthetic control in this context. Synthetic control and other statistical approaches may be used to exploit the underlying low-dimensional structure of the COVID-19 data and serve as useful instruments in analyzing the impact of mitigation strategies adopted by different communities. As with all statistical methods, reliable outcomes depend on proper implementation strategies and well-established robustness tests; in the absence of these safeguards, these statistical methods are likely to produce specious or misleading conclusions.

No games to watch: empirical analysis of sport fans’ stress and coping strategies during COVID-19 lockdown

PurposeThe global outbreak of the COVID-19 forced most sport leagues to cancel games in March–April 2020, leaving no sport games to watch for sport fans. The present study examined how sport consumers appraise stress and engage in coping behaviors resulted from sport lockout due to the global pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis study examined the relationship between sport fans’ psychological dispositions, threat appraisal and coping strategies among professional sport fans in the USA. A panel of sport fans (N = 446) representative of the US adult population participated in an online survey in the fourth week of April, 2020 when no major sport leagues made a return from the lockout due to the COVID-19 outbreak.FindingsResults of this present study showed that anger, aggressiveness and need for affiliation increased threat perceptions toward the COVID-19 lockout, which subsequently had significant effect on emotion-focused and disengagement coping behaviors.Research limitations/implicationsThis is the first empirical study that examined stress and coping behavior among sport fans in the global public health crisis context. Our findings show what triggers stress appraisals and how fans cope with them.Practical implicationsFindings suggest that segmenting sport fans based on psychological dispositions could be useful in predicting fans that will engage in coping behaviors.Social implicationsWhile the hope is to return to normal postpandemic, COVID-19 might not be the last. We are uncertain whether there might be another potential pandemic-related sport lockdown. Understanding how lack of sport events can create distress in sport fans and have important public health implications.Originality/valueThe findings provide empirical evidence on how sport consumers respond to the pandemic-related sport lockdown and cope with the unprecedented situation. The findings of this study contribute to the sport management literature as we are unsure whether the sport industry might face this challenging situation in the future again.

Effectiveness of public health measures to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 at mass gatherings: A rapid review.

Mass gatherings play an important role in society, but since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, they have generally been restricted in order to mitigate transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The aim of this study was to summarise the evidence regarding the effectiveness of public health measures at preventing the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 at mass gatherings, and hence inform guidance on the organisation of these events. A rapid review was undertaken in Cochrane, Embase (OVID), Medline (OVID), Google, Web of Science and Europe PMC from 1 January 2020 to 3 June 2021. Of the identified 1,624 citations, 14 articles referring to 11 unique studies were included. This rapid review found evidence from 11 studies (involving approximately 30,482 participants) that implementing a range of measures may reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission at mass gatherings; however, it is unlikely that this risk can be eliminated entirely. All studies adopted a layered mitigation approach involving multiple measures, which may be more effective than relying on any single measure. The number and intensity of measures implemented varied across studies, with most implementing resource intense measures. Importantly, all included studies were only of 'fair' to 'poor' quality. In conclusion, there is currently limited evidence on the effectiveness of measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission at mass gatherings. As mass gatherings recommence, continued adoption of known mitigation measures is required to limit the risk of transmission, as well as ongoing research and surveillance to monitor the potential impact of these events on the wider population and healthcare system.

Recommencement of Sport Leagues With Spectators at the Adelaide Oval During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Planning, Experience, and Impact of a Globally Unprecedented Approach.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions including physical distancing and restriction on public gatherings were the cornerstone in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, in the absence of effective vaccines and available treatment options. Many sport mega-events and sport leagues were canceled or indefinitely postponed, leaving stadiums globally empty or converted to be used as part of the COVID-19 response. There were calls for exit strategies to be developed. With the early containment of COVID-19 in South Australia, various restrictions were lifted in a staged and controlled manner, including the reopening of the Adelaide Oval for recommencement of sport leagues with spectator attendance. This involved the collaboration between public health authorities, other governmental agencies, Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority, various sporting leagues etc. Recommencement of sport leagues with staged increase in number of attending spectators allowed various measures to be introduced, revisited, and implemented accordingly, demonstrating that a case-by-case risk assessment can be conducted for mega-events during COVID-19, accounting for the epidemiological context at the time. Economic impacts and non-economic benefits of this recommencement were documented. This globally unprecedented, staged and controlled approach in returning spectators to sporting events during the COVID-19 pandemic could inform the reopening strategy of stadiums, recommencement of sport leagues and mega-events all over the world before herd immunity is achieved or in the event of future outbreaks.

Advancing toward normal operations for arenas and stadiums.

The reopening of arenas and stadiums following closures due to the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic presents unique challenges related to large crowds and close contact between players, vendors, and spectators. While each venue should be assessed individually for development and implementation of reopening plans, the general guidance presented in this document can serve as a minimum baseline for considerations to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission in these venues. The intention of these guidelines is to provide a layered approach to risk mitigation for various aspects of particular concern in arenas and stadiums, including crowd management, tailgating and parking, restrooms, high-contact surfaces, face masks, food and merchandising, communications, athletes and support staff, press and third parties, intermissions/breaks, and downtime. The implementation of these multifaceted approaches in each area of concern, along with the integration of regulations and requirements from local, state, and federal government bodies and agencies, will reduce the risk of a single point of failure and offer some protection to those at arenas and stadiums from COVID-19 transmission. The approaches outlined are dynamic and should be regularly reviewed and revised as new information becomes available regarding the transmission of COVID-19.