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April 15, 2025
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by Morgan Sherburne, University of Michigan
Professional sports teams focused on outreach to their local communities during the COVID-19 pandemic instead of focusing solely on protecting their business models, according to a University of Michigan study.
The research, led by Kathryn Heinze, associate professor of sport management at the U-M School of Kinesiology, examined the reaction of men’s professional sport leagues after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers found that in response to the crisis, leagues began reorienting their community outreach to focus on people and businesses immediately impacted by the pandemic.
“This has been somewhat of an unanswered question: How fast can organizations adapt during a crisis? We see in these data that in the first few months, sports leagues were making these shifts in their community engagement approach during the height of the pandemic, and not abandoning their local communities,” Heinze said. “These professional teams did adapt their community engagement approaches, even though they were going through their own business crises, including canceled and postponed seasons.”
The researchers used the pandemic as a “natural experiment” to test how sport organizations might react to a jolt to their normal operations. Heinze said the project originated with first author Goun Ji, who was navigating her doctoral degree at U-M during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Heinze and Ji both study corporate social responsibility in sport, and realized that research literature in this area occurred during stable time periods. They decided to use the COVID 19 pandemic as a way to look at how sport organizations’ practices may change during a turbulent period.
Examining press releases from teams in the NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA for six months before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers catalogued team actions into focus areas and forms of engagement. These areas include youth sport and development, education, health, equality, environmental sustainability and cultural appreciation.
They found that leagues paid more attention to local businesses and frontline workers, and invested in food security programs and mental health programs. Teams pivoted to make some outreach programs accessible virtually and engaged in virtual volunteering, Heinze said.
Some teams also used their websites as “information hubs,” pulling together local resources around health and wellness, and in some cases, education resources.
“It wasn’t that these issues were completely absent from sports leagues’ attention before the pandemic,” Heinze said. “It was just that we saw more engagement with programs and events that had to do with those areas than prior to the pandemic.”
Some of the most interesting findings were that teams developed creative solutions for community outreach. For example, Heinze said, some teams purchased food from local restaurants that were experiencing declining sales and donated it to organizations addressing food insecurity or to support front line workers.
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In a few cases, teams worked across leagues in the same city to provide support for the local community. The Los Angeles Clippers, Lakers and Kings launched a joint funding program to support youth education. The Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche worked together to support an education program. The San Francisco Giants and 49ers helped produce and distribute masks for fans, frontline workers and community organizations.
At the same time, the researchers saw a slight reduction in attention to the focus areas of environmental sustainability and cultural appreciation—perhaps because the bulk of leagues’ outreach resources were going to organizations that had immediate needs during the pandemic.
The researchers said they would like to revisit the subject to see how long these types of shifts lasted after the onset of the pandemic.
“We don’t want to overstate that there was a big shift between these two periods. It was more of a reorientation,” Heinze said. “Leagues did have to cancel or postpone some programs and events, but overall, responses were very encouraging.”
More information: Goun Ji et al, Examining professional sport teams’ community engagement in response to a crisis, Managing Sport and Leisure (2025). DOI: 10.1080/23750472.2025.2482223
Provided by University of Michigan
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, professional sports teams prioritized community support over solely protecting their business interests. They adapted their outreach to focus on local businesses, frontline workers, food security, and mental health, often using virtual platforms. Some teams collaborated across leagues to support education and health initiatives. While attention to environmental sustainability and cultural appreciation slightly decreased, the overall community engagement increased.
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