Macon Reporter

Sports-related businesses are really struggling eight months after COVID-19 shutdowns began.

The Herald-Review reported Rodney Walker, the owner of SkyWalker International Sports Complex, told the news media he had tried his best to keep the complex open and available for athletes who needed to train during the coronavirus pandemic. But he's had to finance it himself to stay afloat.

Walker told the news media that if it weren't for donations, it would have been closed for the last few months.

"Basically from March until this past month, I have personally had to come out of my pocket to keep things afloat because we aren't able to run big tournaments where we have a lot of people in the gym and we are just limited as to what we can do," Walker said. "That kills my revenue and the money that we would have made in March would have floated us for the summer during our dead time. But we didn't have the opportunity to make that money to cover us. We are still feeling the effects from way back in March."

Because of COVID-19, sports-related businesses have had many restrictions in place, including the number of spectators and other team restrictions.

Walker said the issues regarding large crowds attending events needed to have a solution found or the financial future of sports-related businesses looked grim. He said the lack of spectators is the biggest issue.

"That is where you generate the revenue from the spectators, so I hope they can find a safe way to play, but I feel sorry for the spectators that want to come out and can't," Walker said.

Many businesses had to scale back, like shortening hours, because of COVID-19 and the restrictions. Other businesses are adapting to the changes and trying to make things work as best as they can.