Minor league sports press Congress for COVID-19 relief

Professional minor league sports organizations on Wednesday urged congressional leaders to provide federal relief to teams that have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

The organizations, which included Minor League Baseball, the American Hockey League and the United Soccer League, said that many teams lost more than 90 percent of their revenue in the first year of the pandemic alone due to canceled games and that the omicron variant is causing additional cancellations and driving down demand.

“Teams in leagues across the spectrum of sports have lost tens of millions of dollars since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and action is desperately needed now to protect these small businesses and safeguard their vital economic contributions to communities across the nation,” minor league executives wrote in a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday.

The executives said that many teams will “struggle to stay afloat in the absence of relief from Congress” and called on lawmakers to grant relief “in the first available legislative vehicle.”

Minor league teams have lamented that they were not eligible for billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief for struggling venue operators passed by Congress in late 2020. Lawmakers provided aid to multiple other industries battered by the coronavirus, including airlines and restaurants. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) introduced a bill last year that would establish a $550 million relief fund for pandemic-hit minor league teams, but it wasn’t included in any larger packages that passed Congress.

The letter comes as Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) work on a COVID-19 relief proposal targeted at struggling small businesses. Gyms, hotels, bars and restaurants are among the industries pushing to be included in the bill. 

Minor league organizations are leaning on a team of lobbyists at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld led by Ed Pagano, a former senior Obama administration staffer and Senate Democratic aide, to push their message to Congress.