La organización de eventos deportivos en España tras la irrupción de la covid-19: el caso de las federacionesde ámbito nacionaly autonómicas

Abstract

El impacto del Covid-19 a nivel mundial es algo que ya nadie duda. Una pandemia global como nunca antes vivida con consecuencias en todos los sectores de todos los países. En el caso de España, hablamos de una actividad, la deportiva en todas sus vertientesque, en 2018,generó el equivalente al3,3% del PIB españoly en 2020 acusó pérdidasde 4600 millones de euros y una caída de los ingresosde un 38%,según el Informe presentado por el Consejo Superior de Deportes españolen junio de 2020. Cómo abordaron esta situación las federaciones deportivas nacionales y autonómicas desde un punto de vista deportivo, comunicativo y mediáticoes unode los objetivos que se plantean en esta investigación. Para ello se optó poruna metodología mixta que combina la entrevista y el cuestionario para preguntara federaciones grandes (con más de 70000 federados), medianas (entre 10000 y 70000) y pequeñas (hasta 10000 federados)cómo afrontaron esa situación cambiante en la que,después del cierre totalde recintos y cancelación de eventos, el panorama legislativo y normativo cambiaba semana a semana según evolucionaba.Tanto federaciones nacionales como autonómicas confirmaronque la legislaciónfue demasiado restrictiva a la hora de poder desarrollar eventos.Eluso prioritario de Facebook, Twiter y Youtube como canales de comunicacióny la previsión de que la vuelta a la normalidad traiga la presencialidad total de nuevo a los campos y zonas de entrenamientoson algunos de los resultados que podemos encontrar eneste trabajo.

The impact of Covid-19 worldwide is no longer in doubt. A global pandemic as never before experienced with consequences in all sectors of all countries. Not only the economy, tourism, transport, health or education, but also, for example, public activities such as sports.In the case of Spain, we are talking about an industry, sports in all its aspects that, in 2018, generated the equivalent of 3.3% of the Spanish GDP and in 2020 accused losses of 4600 million euros and a fall in revenue of 38% according to the Report presented by the Spanish Superior Sports Council in June 2020. How national and regional sports federations handled this situation from a sporting, communicative and media point of view is one of the objectives of this research.For this purpose, we chose a mixed methodology combining interview and questionnaire to ask large (with more than 70,000 members), medium (between 10,000 and 70,000) andsmall (up to 10,000 members) federations how they dealt with this changing situation in which, after the total closure of venues and cancellation of events, the legislative and regulatory landscape changed week by week depending on the pandemic and the place in the peninsula where we were. In addition, the reality, means and resources were not the same for national and regional federations.The use of social networks, the online broadcasting of content or the planning and development of streaming events through social networks, the holding of virtual or mixed championships through multisport platforms that were beginning to consolidate in Spain received a definitive boost, as well as the development of e-sports, "the cybersports world came to stay and evolve and a good example of this was the Tokyo Olympic Games, followed worldwide on television, even for the locals" (Galindo Cáceres, 2022). The federations had to relocate and change the way of communicating with their members, even in some cases hiring personnel to manage the networks, facing the loss of sponsorship and aid from different entities and the pressure from the media requesting content to fill their spaces, given that the suspension of championships left many "empty hours" in the sports spaces ofthe major media.Both national and regional federations confirmed that the legislation was too restrictive when it came to developing tournaments or championships, although the classification of high or low risk sports activities, depending on the possibility of contagion between athletes depending on the physical contact between them being greater or lesser, made it possible for some federations to continue developing activities only in person, such as the Royal Galician Archery Federation. The prioritization of tournaments in certain categories, the priority use of Facebook, Twiter and Youtube as communication channels and the forecast that the return to normality will bring full presentiality back to the fields and training areas are some of the results that we can find in this work.