The Indian Premier League was the first Indian sports league to start and finish a successful season amidst the pandemic.

Globally too, its success was seen as another feather in the hat, following the similar success of other International leagues such as the NBA also completing their seasons.

As operations have been discussed on our blogs before, we thought it would help to identify some of the unique ways in which operations staff and their responsibilities were tweaked in these unique times.

Creating the bubble

The bubble included everything from the cars and busses in which teams and personnel travelled, to the hotel they stayed at, to the practice rounds and the match venues.

Exiting the bubble was only allowed under the most severe circumstances.

This meant that all basic needs from food and water to primary health care had to be arranged within the confines of the bubble.

Health and Safety Protocols

Everyone within the bubble created in Dubai had to adhere to strict health and safety protocols.

Testing which was regular and rampant, while anyone arriving into the bubble was made to quarantine for a period of up to 14 days.

As is the case everywhere, masks and sanitisation were mandatory. Even something as trivial as a courier received, had to undergo a sanitisation protocol before it was delivered to a player or staff’s room.

Tiered levels of access

All staff were divided into groups and then split into tiers.

The tier determined access to different areas of the bubble. Two individuals belonging to different tiers did not meet during the entire course of the season.

Operations teams that needed to work together were grouped together. Groups that did not need to work together in person were isolated from other groups. Most teams had back up teams in the off chance that someone contracted COVID.

For example, groups meals were separate from other groups and food was sourced locally from trusted sources so as to avoid any chance of infection setting in.

Travel restrictions - both domestic and international

All transport vehicles were sanitised and only those were to be used for any domestic travel purposes.

Any travel to and from Dubai of any staff or team player was restricted to severe circumstances. This meant that planning had to be airtight so as to reduce, if not completely avoid the need to travel.

In addition to this, all drivers were mandatorily made to live in the bubble with the players and operations staff.

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To learn more about how a team’s operations staff runs and the responsibilities they have, visit us at sporjo.com today and sign up to take our SPORPRREP Course on operations.