What Sports Can Tell Us About Stocks

No fans in the stands... A psychological toll... The road to 'normalcy'... What sports can tell us about stocks... The NFL is America's 'mission critical' sport... This is not how an efficient economy operates... Doc on bitcoin...

Play ball! – without any fans...

Two weeks ago, I (Corey McLaughlin) witnessed in person the strangest sporting event I've been to in my life.

Here in Baltimore, it was Opening Day of the pandemic-shortened Major League Baseball season. The hometown Orioles were hosting the New York Yankees.

Normally, Opening Day is a festive occasion, with thousands of fans watching the game in beautiful Camden Yards and hanging out in the surrounding downtown bars and streets.

But in 2020... it's all just a dream.

On this midsummer evening, no fans were around anywhere. There was no one mingling outside the stadium trying to buy hot dogs... no excitement in the green seats of the stadium... and no energy from the players and coaches in the dugout or on the field. In all, only about 200 people were at the stadium, including the players, workers, and media members.

Once the game started, it was sad to watch. And not just because a Yankees player hit a home run on the game's second pitch into the empty right-field stands... eliciting just a few echoes of cheers from the visiting bench.

At times, the Orioles' stadium staff pumped in fake, ambient crowd noise to bring some atmosphere to the place. Otherwise, you could hear the ambulances driving by outside...

When a foul ball went into the seats occasionally, you didn't hear any "oohs" or "aahs" from fans watching others trying to catch the ball and go home with a souvenir...

Instead, we heard nothing more than the depressed crack of the rubber and leather baseball landing in the empty concrete aisles.

This can't be good for anyone's psyche...

Here's what it looked like from the press box during the national anthem. You can see that the players gave each other some extra distance while lining up on the field...

As a lover, observer, and player of sports since I was a kid, I felt fortunate to be attending this game as a credentialed "Tier 3" person (players are Tier 1 and team staff are Tier 2). I was writing about the game for a local media outlet, as I have done for years.

The press box at Camden Yards is also open-air, so I felt safe, too... even though I knew I'd be sitting in the same spot for a few hours amid an unknown number of people I haven't seen in a while. (It turned out to be about two dozen, generously spread out.)

I took my chances given what I've heard about transmission from experts like Stansberry Venture Technology editor Dave Lashmet over the past few months. Back in May, for instance, Dave said the treatment puzzle for COVID-19 includes "only three ways to confront it: social distance in the open air, masks indoors, or a vaccine."

I was confident that any virus-filled air droplets heading in my direction would either be diluted enough by the time they reached me or hit the mask that all in attendance were required to wear on the property under direction of the state of Maryland.

Before entry, I also literally signed my life away on a waiver saying that if I got COVID-19, I couldn't sue MLB... and I was required to have my temperature checked twice.

It was quite a lot of work just to go watch a game...

Mind you, the protocols probably were for the best. As you might've heard, COVID-19 had already infiltrated baseball's traveling "bubble" as this game approached.

That's why I bring up this story today... and how it plays into our economy and markets.

Sports very often represent a microcosm of life. The idea is true again when it comes to COVID-19's influence on our world today, and therefore our sports and a host of other connected industries... as well as, most important, investor sentiment.

On Opening Day, the Orioles were scheduled to face the Miami Marlins. But a few days before the game, roughly half of the Marlins' roster tested positive for COVID-19, forcing a schedule change that put the Yankees in town in their place on the night I headed to the ballpark.

Also on this day, Orioles first baseman Chris Davis stayed at home because he was feeling sick.

As it turned out, Davis only had a sinus infection, but he said upon his return to the team later in the week that he was tested "at least eight times" for COVID-19 in the prior several days. The results came back negative each time.

This is an important point about our path forward to 'normalcy'...

Professional athletes, coaches, and staff – in baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, and football – are being regularly tested for COVID-19 in order to prevent an outbreak.

And sports are big business, so players and teams have unfettered access to tests and doctors that most Americans don't...

Yet baseball teams – operating in a modified type of bubble, with players traveling only to cities in the same time zone – are still having problems, at least to start.

Despite the safety protocols at stadiums, dozens of games have been rescheduled as players on a handful of teams have tested positive for COVID-19.

It's all part of the territory in these uncertain times, of course. As Davis, an MLB union player representative for the Orioles, said in a videoconference about the initial outbreak with the Marlins...

It was going to be hard to get through this whole thing without something like this happening... At the end of the day, you can't control what guys are doing away from the field.

Each pro sport that has "restarted" this year has decided to try to play a season with a different approach. For example, baseball players in their home cities are going back to their houses each night to family and friends... and less-concerned players on the road are going out to clubs and restaurants.

The plan is the same for National Football League teams, which expect to begin their season in just a few weeks. So quarterback Tom Brady is just like everyone else in that respect of daily life.

And if there are any questions about the health of the players on the field, that means we're a long way from seeing fans in the stands at pro sporting events until sometime next year at the earliest.

This all raises an even broader question...

If sports can't get back to 'normal,' can the economy?

And what does that mean for stocks?

This idea has been on the mind of our Director of Research Austin Root lately, and he discussed it in a recent video interview with our colleague Jessica Stone.

The discussion is timely, too, as the debate about sports, specifically college football, has reached the mainstream this week...

Just this afternoon, the Big Ten Conference – which includes several large schools across the Midwest, like Ohio State, Michigan, and Iowa – announced that it would postpone this fall's college football season because of COVID-19 concerns. And just before we went to press, the West Coast-based Pac-12 Conference did the same thing.

We might soon get news of all the major conferences following suit. But at the same time, notable college players are pushing to unionize and are voicing their opinions about wanting to play, too...

Back in March, estimates suggested 1.3 million jobs and $12.3 billion of economic activity in the sports industry in the U.S. could be in jeopardy over the next several months.

We've seen some semblance of pro sports recently. But in short, Austin said professional football is America's "mission critical" sport... And if plans don't go off as expected, setbacks could negatively impact the broader stock market in the months ahead. As Austin explained...

I think that people don't fully appreciate how important, psychologically, having sports is for this market.

If we can't get these daily-tested, almost-fully-bubbled sports back to normal, then how we can get the rest of the economy back to normal?

The point is worth exploring in the context of the broader "recovery" story. Take what's going on right now in pro football...

As the start of NFL training camps in dozens of cities around the country and the scheduled start of a regular season in September approaches, players, coaches, and other employees of NFL teams are being tested literally every day for COVID-19... and they get the results back that same day.

The total number of tests taken by NFL employees could be as high as 73,000 per week once practices start. The NFL is planning to spend at least $75 million on these protocols.

In the meantime, though, almost every story we hear about someone on "Main Street" involves still waiting a week or some other unreliable amount of time to get a test result back... and our nation's physical health is, well, not great.

Also keep in mind, pro athletes are generally healthy, in-shape people. Everyone who has become infected with COVID-19 in the various pro leagues so far has recovered without issue, from what we can tell.

Not every 'average' American is so lucky...

And of course, we're talking about millions of people in that context.

Similarly, few organizations and companies have the ability or desire to spend multimillion dollars – or even a few thousand extra dollars – on producing their product or service as close to "normal" as possible in today's circumstances.

Football is also a contact sport, with sweat and breath shared on and off the field. It might be the sport of tiny air droplets.

And considering that almost every other sport that restarted over the past few months has had issues with "spread" in one form or another, we're not optimistic that things will go smoothly for the NFL.

Golf – a great sport for social distancing – ran into trouble at first, with a handful of players and caddies testing positive at the PGA tour's first few stops. Thankfully, those issues have subsided (because watching Stansberry Research-sponsored golfer Kevin Kisner compete over the weekend in the PGA Championship in San Francisco was a nice sight).

Pro basketball is operating in a hard "bubble" on Disney's Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando. The league has been largely spared of positive cases, with no new cases in weeks, but players quarantined for two weeks before traveling there and haven't been permitted to leave since arriving.

This is not how an efficient economy operates...

And like what has happened in baseball, once practices and games begin, the NFL will likely have a notable setback because pro football is not operating in a bubble.

The same can likely be said for any other industry where people share space.

In his interview with Jessica, Austin said he'll be watching what happens with professional football in particular as an indicator of investor sentiment, given all the parts of the economy that America's most-watched sport touches. And he's skeptical that the season will go on as planned...

If pro football doesn't occur as contemplated, that could be hugely detrimental to the market. The current expectation is we start as expected in September...

As things get better or "less bad," markets tend to go up. This will show a reversal... It will also have to force folks to lower their expectation for the market. Pro football is not a huge industry by itself, but there is a huge cascading industry around that: advertising, concessions, real estate, etc.

Already, local economies are feeling the impacts of fanless games. No concessions open at stadiums means no jobs for thousands of people nationwide. And hotel rooms and area restaurants aren't filled like normal, which further hurts the local economies in these cities.

When it comes to investments that are actively recommended by our editors, a setback in the NFL could negatively impact sports-betting companies and related software firms that have become fashionable over the past few years.

Don't get us wrong... We still like the long-term prospects of sports betting. After all, the industry is one of the few growing ones that broke governments can use to actually generate income today, and the market continues to grow as more states legalize it.

But investors might want to consider trimming individual winners in this space, if you have them in your portfolio today, according to Austin.

In fact, Austin and Stansberry Venture Value editor Bryan Beach recommended doing just that in separate publications over the past couple of months. (You can see their updates if you're a subscriber to their respective services here and here.)

And bigger picture, if you're like me, you might watch sports for the entertainment... but also keep the games in mind as a "getting back to normal" market indicator, too.

We'll wrap things up today with a note from 'Doc' about bitcoin...

You've heard from Crypto Capital editor Eric Wade and a good number of our other editors about the compelling case for bitcoin over the past few weeks here in the Digest.

But we hadn't yet shared much here from Retirement Millionaire and Income Intelligence editor Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig about his view on cryptocurrencies... and we've heard from some subscribers who were curious about his take on the industry.

So here it goes... On Saturday, in his free daily Health & Wealth Bulletin e-letter, Doc explained how investors can stick it to the government by investing in cryptos...

Dollars are only worth anything because the U.S. government has told us so and we trust the government. Specifically, we trust that the government will accept dollars to pay taxes, and that gives dollars intrinsic value.

It's the same with any currency. A currency can only be trusted as much as the businesses that will accept it and the institutions that back it.

Bitcoin is different. It's open and free software. It exists on a worldwide network of computers and can never be shut down, revoked, or removed from the Internet. There's no central authority, recordkeeper, or server.

And the Federal Reserve or other government agencies can't inflate away the value of bitcoin.

Doc admits that he's no crypto expert, but he knows that a lot of people have made a lot of money in the space. He suggested subscribers check out the recent "Capitalism in Crisis" presentation from our founder Porter Stansberry to learn more.

In the presentation, our crypto expert Eric joins Porter about halfway through. And overall, the video is a fascinating discussion about the future of our country and financial system.

Click here to join the tens of thousands who have watched this special presentation already... before it goes offline in just a few days.

Why China Is Buying Up Iconic Sports Brands

True Wealth Opportunities: China senior analyst Brian Tycangco digs deeper into why China has set its sights on buying up iconic sporting-goods brands, and what it means for investors.

Click here to watch this video right now. For more free video content, subscribe to our Stansberry Research YouTube channel... and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

New 52-week highs (as of 8/10/20): Curaleaf (CURLF), GrowGeneration (GRWG), Green Thumb Industries (GTBIF), Home Depot (HD), Innovative Industrial Properties (IIPR), iShares U.S. Home Construction Fund (ITB), Lennar (LEN), Procter & Gamble (PG), Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV), iShares Silver Trust (SLV), Silvercorp Metals (SVM), Trulieve Cannabis (TCNNF), and TFI International (TFII).

In today's mailbag, a question about Porter's "forever stocks" that we mentioned in yesterday's Digest. What's on your mind? As always, you can e-mail your thoughts, comments, and observations to us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.

"Please tell me how I may gain access to these 'Forever Stocks' that Porter has compiled." – Paid-up subscriber Erik A.

Corey McLaughlin comment: Eric, Porter's "forever stocks" are part of Stansberry's Forever Portfolio product, which we debuted back in March. Click here for more information on how to get access to the portfolio. (And Stansberry Alliance partners can access the current portfolio right here.)

All the best,

Corey McLaughlin
Baltimore, Maryland
August 11, 2020