Major league sports teams could get back in the game this summer and discover significant business opportunities, U of G Prof. Norm O’Reilly tells BNN Bloomberg in a video interview.

While teams continue to grapple with the challenges of trying to restart amid the COVID-19 pandemic, O’Reilly says there is a lot of potential for attracting new fans and generating new revenues. But COVID-19 continues to complicate matters.

O’Reilly is director of the International Institute for Sport Business and Leadership in the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at U of G.

“It’s gotten very complicated,” O’Reilly says of the attempts to get training camps going by July. Some players have been testing positive for COVID-19. “It’s a big setback for the leagues who want to be playing again.”

Restarting seasons in sports like hockey and baseball, he said, has as much to do with capitalizing on future business opportunities as it does with making up revenues lost due to the pandemic.