How NHL Responded to COVID 19

The National Hockey League and their COVID-19 Response

The COVID-19 global pandemic has significantly impacted lives and livelihoods across the globe as the virus continues to spread worldwide and new variants emerge. COVID-19 has essentially affected every sector of the economy and society as governments are forced to adopt measures to contain its spread. One of the areas that have been affected by the spread of the virus is sports. National sports leagues such as the National Hockey League (NHL) have been affected. In the initial stages of the pandemic, NHL suspended all sporting activities just like other national sports leagues in effort to curb the spread of the virus. However, the pandemic still rages on, which implies that NHL has to find better ways of COVID-19 response amidst the emergence of new variants like the Delta variant. This segment provides suggestions for improving NHL’s response to the pandemic based on insights obtained from other organizations’ responses to the pandemic.

Suggestions for Improving Response

As previously indicated, the National Hockey League’s initial response to the COVID-19 virus in March 2020 was to suspend all sporting activities. However, the organization resumed these activities in August 2020 and established measures that would help curb the spread of the virus among players and in the overall organization. The organization adopted these response measures on grounds that it has a responsibility to ensure the safety of all its stakeholders (Gregory, 2020). NHL’s COVID-19 response was spread in four major phases, namely self-isolation, testing in training facilities, testing in training camps, and regular testing. These initiatives together with compliance with all the appropriate protocols played a crucial role in preventing the spread of the virus within NHL and its associated activities.

Despite playing a crucial role in curbing the spread of the virus, the response measures adopted by NHL were not entirely effective even as they contributed to an unprecedented hockey season. This implies that NHL could have adopted alternative or more measures to improve response to the COVID-19 crisis. Mont, Curtis & Palgan (2021) state that organizational responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were affected by the lack of extensive literature on response to epidemics. Existing literature mostly focuses on organizational traditional threats like human-error incidents and natural disasters. Therefore, the response strategies like those adopted by the NHL were primarily limited to existing response strategies to conventional threats and incidents. However, NHL’s response strategies could have been improved by adopting slightly different approaches to the initial suspension of all sporting activities across the league. Some of the suggestions for improved response to the crisis/pandemic include:

Management of Daily Operations

As noted by Gregory (2020), NHL’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic was to halt all operations and sporting activities. This included postponing the season and holding emergency meetings to determine the next course of action. In so doing, the organization adopted measures or strategies implemented by other sporting associations like the NBA. The prompt suspension of games had a significant impact on the league and the many livelihoods depending on it. Additionally, this move has significant financial implications because NHL is a billion-dollar industry or business. At the time of suspension, no one in the league’s circle had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Even though the league’s suspension was critical in helping curb the spread of the virus, NHL could have better responded by managing daily operations rather than halting the league. As part of the management of daily operations, NHL could have reduced parts of its operations and implementing local response for local contexts. Mont, Curtis & Palgan (2021) identify the management of daily operations as part of organization-oriented response strategies for the global pandemic. The reduction of parts of operations and implementation of local response for local contexts would have enabled the NHL to continue operating and minimize the financial and additional implications associated with temporal closure/suspension of all operations.

The management of daily operations would have entailed conducting a needs assessment to determine the critical/essential areas of operations. A needs assessment would help provide insights regarding employees’ needs in relation to their specific work responsibilities (Global CAD, 2020). Moreover, the assessment would also have enabled NHL to identify and understand the private challenges employees may be facing. Through the assessment, the organization would have identified suitable approaches to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. NHL would have worked with employees to jointly develop comprehensive practicable solutions with regards to reduction of parts of operations and how to best respond to any incidents in the local contexts.

The case for reduced operations during the COVID-19 crisis is supported by the case of the English Premier League (EPL). Football leagues across Europe such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and France responded to the crisis by abandoning the 2019/2020 season. However, other leagues like the EPL adopted a new model that involved reducing parts of their daily operations and sporting activities (Quansah et al., 2021). Unlike the NHL, the EPL did not suspend all operations but continued with lesser activities. While the reduced operations still had significant impacts on revenues, the league remained operational amidst the COVID-19 crisis. The decision by the Football Association to continue the league without spectators served as a good foundation for the seamless transition to the new season as clubs were already used to operating partly.

The model adopted by the EPL to continue operations without spectators while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols is a suitable example that the NHL could have followed to improve its response to the pandemic in the initial stages of the outbreak. By adopting such a model, NHL would have continued operations and sporting activities in a manner that reduces the severe financial implications associated with the pandemic’s impact on businesses. Airbnb is also an example of an organization that adopted reduced operations as part of its response to COVID-19. For Airbnb, COVID-19 response involved suspending in-person stays in many countries and lessening the size of its workforce (Mont, Curtis & Palgan, 2021). The organization also renegotiated or eliminated some of its contracts as part of its reduced operations. Similar to the case of EPL, Airbnb’s case demonstrates that NHL could have balanced all interests by reducing operations rather than suspending them.

Based on insights obtained from the course, crisis management and response has two major sides i.e. the communications and operations side. When facing a crisis, business organizations adopt strategies that fall within either of these categories or both. From a communications point, organizations respond to crises by providing information to their various stakeholders. The communications side seeks to safeguard the organization’s reputation amidst continued operations. As noted by Guffey & Loewy (2019), the organization utilizes different communication methods for workplace correspondence, especially when dealing with a crisis. On the other hand, the operations side focuses on how the organization can keep its doors open amidst the crisis. In this case, a business organization can identify and adopt measures to promote continuity of operations when dealing with a crisis. Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, NHL would have improved its response by adopting measures to promote continuity of its operations while preventing the spread of the virus within the league and across its activities. Therefore, reduced operations and implementing local response for local contexts would have enabled NHL to continue operations and help prevent or mitigate the spread of the virus respectively.

Adoption of a New Business Model

The second recommendation through which NHL would have improved its COVID-19 response is by adopting a new business model. The adaptation of a new business model is a crisis response strategy adopted by businesses that seek to modify or adapt their value proposition. COVID-19 global pandemic necessitated business organizations to adopt new business models that would promote continued operations and value proposition. Some of the new business model adaptations brought by the pandemic include modifying or updating primary/additional offerings, improving existing services, transferring operations online, and adopting flexible contracts, return policies, or cancellations (Mont, Curtis & Palgan, 2021).

Similar to EPL, clubs in the NHL were affected with loss of match revenues because of the disruptions brought by COVID-19. However, the decision by EPL to continue without spectators protected clubs from refunding £762 million of advance payments to broadcasters (Quansah et al., 2021). Since the COVID-19 pandemic affected match revenues, the NFL should have looked for alternative ways to cushion clubs while continuing with reduced operations instead of suspending the league.

In this case, the adoption of a new business would have involved advancing broadcast monies to clubs to cushion the clubs from the financial implications of the pandemic. For example, in England, EPL and the English Football League (EFL) agreed to advance broadcast monies that would have been spread over the following season (Maguire, 2021). EPL agreed to do this through solidarity payments as well as extra funding in the form of grants. These efforts were geared toward assisting League One and Two clubs meet their obligations. For EFL clubs, this initiative enabled them to meet their operational costs up to date, particularly wages. Furthermore, EPL offered Championship clubs a £200 million loan to help cater for outstanding employment taxes owed to HMRC (Maguire, 2021). While there were concerns on whether the financial support would be adequate for EFL, League One, and League Two clubs, they served as a new business model that would help deal with the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the respective leagues.