“One of the biggest drivers for sports events is gate and ticket sales, and we’re certainly starting to see those pick up in Europe and now in Canada,” he said. “When you’re looking at these types of events, it triggers all kinds of other things, not just gate fees, but merchandising, concession sales, and advertising picking up with rates starting to go up. All these areas that were hit by the pandemic are starting to come back, so we see those as a great reopening area for the market.”

While interest in these areas has been growing for several decades, some elements weren’t as impacted by the pandemic.

“Sport betting only suffered a little as things shut down,” said Kovacs, noting Florida just announced it was reopening legalized betting, which helped some states’ revenue generation during the pandemic.

“Some people may think sports is fairly narrow, but we look at merchandising, apparel, shoes, and equipment. It’s not just ticket sales, but all the advertising, e-gambling, and e-gaming,” he said, noting these had been growing for 10 to 15 years.

Harvest saw parallels between this fund and the travel fund it launched earlier this year. Both saw a COVID pullback, but now are recovering, and Kovacs said, “we’re quite excited about the short-term prospects, but also the longer-term growth prospects as things get back to normal.”