Coronavirus has affected almost every aspect of public life around the world. Tourism, services, culture, economy, education - all fields have suffered the negative consequences caused by the virus. Sport is no exception. Given, that the global value of the sports industry is estima­ted at US $756 billion annually, it will not be difficult to estimate what kind of global financial problem it has faced since 2020. All types of sports tournaments, competitions and matches have been canceled or postponed.The Tokyo Olympics and European Championships have been postponed until 2021. For the first time since World War II, the Wimbledon tournament has been postponed. We must not forget that not only professional athletes (who are trying to stay fit at home) are behind these delayed and canceled large-scale events, but there are also millions of people employed in a variety of sports-related fields, such as: tourism, infrastructure, transport, catering, media broadcasting. The latter field, compared to all the others, turned out to be in a more profitable position due to the fact that the world has gradually started to hold sports events without fans, in empty stadiums and halls. This allowed sports channels to continue working and return live sports to television screens after a pause of several months.

Of course, Georgian sports channels also offer Georgian fans live  broadcast of sports events. However, both in the world and on Georgian sports channels, there is a lack of audience, which is somewhat related to the corona virus pandemic. This is visible on the chart: If, for example, in April 2019, sports channels had an average of 5700 viewers per minute, in 2020 this number decreased to 2700. 

In 2020 (January-May), the duration of sports genre broadcasts on Georgian channels, has decreased by 11% compared to the same period in 2019.

As for the gender distribution of sports audience in general, it comes of less surprise, that men are more active viewers of sport channels, than women. According to TMI’s data from 2019, sports genre was watched by 63%of men and 37% of female viewers. 

The age distribution looks like this: the sports genre in Georgia has the largest audience (19%) among the viewers aged 45-54.

Bibliography:

How the Coronavirus Could Affect the TV Industry. (n.d.). Retrieved June 12, 2020, from https://www.emarketer.com/content/how-the-coronavirus-could-affect-the-tv-industry

How is the Coronavirus Affecting Sports? (2020, April 17). Retrieved June 12, 2020, from https://www.masterstudies.com/article/how-is-the-coronavirus-affecting-sports/

The impact of COVID-19 on sport, physical activity and well-being and its effects on social development | DISD. (n.d.). Retrieved June 12, 2020, from https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/2020/05/covid-19-sport/