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TRD: Yes, both Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden are suffering, and they (understandably) won't comment

That empty feeling: Pandemic crushing New York event venues, The Real Deal reported yesterday, suggesting that the two big arenas, Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center, are hurting from the coronavirus crisis, which has halted games and events.

When contacted by The Real Deal, representative of the two arenas, including Barclays Center operator  BSE Global, declined to comment. That's understandable; they're still trying to make sense of this "black swan" event, along with the rest of us.

The article notes that the Madison Square Garden Company's stock price has dropped 34 percent since 2/19/20. BSE Global is privately held, but surely it's hurting too.

Yes, both are owned/controlled by billionaires, who can afford losses as well as payment to workers who aren't seeing paychecks.

A long road back

While professional sports might resume without fans, to recoup broadcasting value, it will take a while for the arenas to come back.

“I think we’re a ways out from seeing normal resumption of basketball games or hockey games," observed Vince Gennaro, associate dean at the NYU Tisch Institute for Sports Management, Media, and Business.

That's entirely reasonable, despite the bizarre presidential posturing that major league football will return in the fall. As Dave Zirin wrote in The Nation:
The sports media could play a critical role right now holding Trump and the sports commissioners to account, making sure they don’t put out outlandish predictions about the resumption of play or offer players as a sacrifice to our entertainment appetites. They failed that test yesterday.

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