Adidas saw its net income in the first quarter plummet 97% as the German sportswear and sneaker giant felt an outsized impact from the coronavirus pandemic that has closed the vast majority of its stores across the globe. It also forecasted that the worst has not yet come for the company.

According to Adidas, more than 70% of its stores remain closed around the world. That has led the company to lean on its e-commerce platform, which it said saw a 35% increase in sales during the quarter. However, that alone was unable to stem the decline of in-store sales. Revenues across the Adidas brand dropped 20%, while Reebok also saw a 12% drop in revenue.

“The first two months of the quarter… everything was really normal. And then we saw dramatic basically falling off the cliff in mid-March,” Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted told CNBC. “We’re living in unprecedented times, not just for the globe but also for Adidas,” he said on a conference call following the earnings release.

The drastic decline showcases how much impact and importance China and the broader Asian market has had on Adidas’s growth. Sales in Greater China make up 23% of the company’s total sales, and sales in that region fell 58% in the first quarter.

In comparison, the Greater China market represents roughly 15% of Nike’s revenues, per its most recent earnings report released in March 2020, while the bulk of its business comes from North America. While Nike saw a 5.2% decline in its Greater China sales in its last quarter, revenue for the company still rose 5% with growth across the rest of the world.

Rorsted warned that the company expected the coronavirus pandemic would hit it even harder in the second quarter, as sales were lagging in areas even where stores began to reopen. Adidas forecasted that sales would decline by 40% year-over-year in the second quarter.

“When people have been in quarantine for six or eight weeks, it takes some time for people to return to normal,” he said on a conference call. However, Rorsted said he is optimistic that China will return to double-digit growth rates in the second half of the year.

ESPN’s Chicago Bulls-focused documentary series “The Last Dance” mirrored the 90’s Bulls on-court play, dominating television ratings on its second night. Episodes 3 and 4 averaged 5.9 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2 on Sunday night.

In total, the four episodes have averaged 6 million viewers, representing the four most-viewed original content broadcasts on ESPN networks since 2004. It also accounts for the four of the six most-viewed telecasts among adults 18 to 34 since sports were halted in mid-March.

Jason Hehir, the documentary’s director, spoke to GQ about how “The Last Dance” has connected with audiences, saying it “is a communal moment for everyone.” “I think people just wanted to sit down and enjoy this. We haven’t had that kind of monoculture moment during this shutdown. When the Game of Thrones finale aired, I feel like everyone gathered around their TVs and watched that, and we haven’t really had that moment during the shutdown,” he said.

Hehir said that he has not heard from Jordan specifically since the series started to air. However, he has heard from those around Jordan, noting that “everybody’s really thrilled with the ratings and the response that it’s gotten critically.”

While there are still six more episodes of “The Last Dance” remaining, there is already some discussion on what team or player fans want to see in the same treatment. Some of that focus is centering on Kobe Bryant, who, according to ESPN, had a camera crew following his final season with the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2015-2016 season.

The crew got full access to the team’s locker room, training room, practice facility, and even on its charter plane. According to ESPN sources, the footage had been in the editing stages for a potential documentary to be released years from now. Bryant had also seen edited material and provided feedback on it before his passing in January.

The Los Angeles Lakers said they have returned a loan of $4.6 million from the Small Business Administration under the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which is intended to help smaller firms avoid layoffs.

“The Lakers qualified for and received a loan under the Payroll Protection Program,” the Lakers said in a statement to ESPN. “Once we found out the funds from the program had been depleted, we repaid the loan so that financial support would be directed to those most in need. The Lakers remain completely committed to supporting both our employees and our community.”

The 16-time NBA champions have approximately 300 employees, which makes them eligible for the loan. Per the terms of the loan, it is forgiven if companies spend 75% of the disbursement on payroll and do not lay off any staff. To apply for the loan, a company needs to have less than 500 employees, a number that the vast majority of professional teams fall well under.

The initial $349 billion allotment for the PPP was exhausted in two weeks as millions of companies, including many publicly traded firms and national chains, applied for the funds. Some, including Shake Shack, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and the Potbelly sandwich chain, have since returned the money after news outlets reported that they have received them.

After weeks of Tiger King, season three of Ozark and The Office reruns on Netflix, the NFL Draft was a landing pad for millions of sports-hungry viewers. 

The 2020 NFL Draft drew 15.6 million viewers on Thursday night, besting the previous record of 12.4 million. And after all those hours of commercial-free streaming viewers were apparently willing to engage with the ads over the weekend as well.

TV ad measurement company EDO – whose president and CEO, Kevin Krim, chatted with FOS earlier this month – found the NFL Draft audience 37% more likely to search for brands and products advertised than last year’s draft. 

EDO data suggested that these were the top ads during Thursday’s first round:

• Nintendo Switch (Two different ads aired on ESPN)
• Apple TV+’s Beastie Boys Story on ABC
• Apple TV+’s Defending Jacob on ESPN
• Netflix’s Extraction on ESPN
• Defending Jacob on ABC
• State Farm (Two different ads aired on ESPN)
• Sleep Number on ESPN
• Showtime’s Billions on ESPN

A quick glimpse at the top 10 ads from the first round broadcasts on ABC and ESPN show there was a keen interest from viewers for new streaming content and video games – two of the most popular activities while people are quarantining at home.

On average, EDO found a single ad airing during the first round was equivalent to 2.0 ads on primetime TV, which makes sense because the 15.3 million people made it the most-watched TV program since March 13.