Announcements

Sports Where I Am and COVID-19 updates

Update: 11th August, 2021

From March of last year, as the massive scope of the COVID-19 situation gradually unfolded, we made it a priority to ensure that all of our customers were looked after and kept in the loop. For transparency, we also published the email updates sent to our customers from that time on this page. It’s not exactly a fun read to scroll through and re-live the updates of 2020, but we think it does tell you a lot about our business and what we care about. Hopefully it gives you some peace of mind if you’re thinking about making a booking on Sports Where I Am.

We’ve also added our current COVID-19 booking protocols (2021 onwards) to this page:

SWIAM COVID-19 Booking protocols (2021)

Except as otherwise set out in the SWIAM Terms and Conditions, Sports Where I Am will provide customers with a refund for events listed on our platform as outlined below in a circumstance where a SWIAM customer’s booking is affected by COVID-19 in any of the following ways:

▪️ Where the event you have booked is cancelled due to COVID-19;

▪️ Where the event you have booked is postponed, and you are unable to attend the match on the revised dates;

▪️ Where the stadium capacity at the match you have booked is adjusted by, State, Territory and/or Australian Federal Government social distancing restrictions, and as a result of this adjustment to stadium capacity, you are not permitted to attend;

▪️ Where State, Territory and/or Australian Federal border closures render it not possible for you to attend the match which you have booked, without quarantining;

In the instance where a booking includes a third party element such as merchandise, stadium tours, functions, and Sports Where I Am is unable to receive a refund from that 3rd party supplier, we will provide a credit note for the value of said item. For the avoidance of doubt, border closures and/or travel restrictions in non-Australian jurisdictions do not qualify you for a refund. Should clients be affected by overseas border closures and/or travel restrictions, these will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Here are our email updates from 2020. The latest updates appear at the top.

August 17th, 2020 email (sent to SWIAM customers)

COVID-19 and your SWIAM booking: August 17th update

Hi all,

I hope you are keeping well. 

I’m happy to report that we are in the final stages of providing our customers refunds and credits for bookings affected by COVID-19. Within 4 weeks, we’ll have everyone sorted.

Once more I want to thank you all for your patience, understanding and goodwill throughout this process. It meant a lot that you trusted us with your booking and we did not take this for granted. It’s taken us longer than we had ideally wanted to action everyone’s booking, but we’re so grateful for the positivity and understanding everyone has shown in these difficult circumstances.  

Here’s the latest update on refunds and credits:

NBA: Staged refunds over the next 4 weeks

The remaining NBA refunds are scheduled to be processed within the next 4 weeks. As we noted in the last update, this was a staged process based on the original date of your game. If you’d like an estimated refund date for your specific booking, feel free to contact me directly and I can provide that for you. Regardless, you’ll hear from our team within the next 4 weeks.

MLB: Remaining credits to be sent this week

As we noted in our May 29th email, MLB teams offered ticket holders credits to be used the following season. This would only apply to Baseball games. However we have provided our customers with a SWIAM credit that can be used on any future SWIAM offer. This credit has no expiry date. Since our last MLB update, we contacted and provided credits for all of our customers with games originally scheduled up until June 1. This week, we’ll send out the rest, from June onwards.

As always, if anyone has any further questions please contact me directly. 

Once we have addressed everyone who has had a booking affected by COVID19, we will be excited to share some other major developments with you soon.

Thanks and stay safe,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am

June 16th, 2020 email (sent to SWIAM customers)

COVID-19 and your SWIAM booking: June 16th update

Hi All,

Hope you are well and enjoying sport back on our screens! 

A brief, but welcome update for a lot of our customers:

NBA bookings to be refunded

Since our last update the NBA have confirmed that all games affected by COVID19 will be officially cancelled. This means that all of our customers holding NBA tickets from March 12th onwards will be receiving full refunds. 

Much like when other leagues confirmed mass cancellations of games, we ask that you please allow some time for us to process the large volume of affected orders that we will be refunding. It will be a staged process whereby we will issue refunds according to the dates played. For example if your booked event was scheduled for March, you will receive your refund before those games that were originally scheduled for May.

We anticipate to start this process from July and will keep you updated throughout. There is no action required from you. Our team will be in touch with each of you individually to confirm your details for refunds. 

For all remaining leagues/tournaments we will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated accordingly. 

I hope this helps provide the clarity you have been looking for.

If you have any further questions please let me know. 

Thanks and stay safe,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am

May 29th, 2020 email (sent to SWIAM customers)

COVID-19 and your SWIAM booking: May 29th update

Hi all,

Hope you are holding up well.

Thanks again to everyone for your patience as we continue to work through the situation. We are now getting closer to having full clarity on all affected games across the various leagues. 

Since our last communication, we have the following updates to report:

National Hockey League (NHL)

This week, the NHL announced that all regular season games have been cancelled. This means that our customers who are holding regular season NHL tickets will receive a full refund. Given the large volume of orders we are working through, we anticipate these refunds to be paid in July. 

Major League Baseball (MLB) 

For MLB games originally scheduled up until May 31st

At the time of writing, the MLB have not confirmed a restart date for their season. However, each of the individual teams have created slightly different policies for games that have been indefinitely postponed (known as ‘Impacted Games’). Most are offering credits for future use, however this credit is limited to use for MLB games. We would however like to offer our customers a credit that can be utilised on any future Sports Where I Am offering, not just an MLB ticket. Starting from next week we will contact each of you directly to organise this for you. 

For MLB games originally scheduled June 1 onwards

No further updates at this time. We will continue to monitor this for you and provide updates accordingly.

Premier League (EPL)

The EPL announced a planned season restart date overnight. Based on the statement it appears that all postponed games will still go ahead, but without fans. Given the news has just been confirmed, we will now work with our partners in the UK to determine the timings for refunds for these games.

With a bit of luck, we will have clarity on the remaining leagues soon too. 

As always, if anyone would like to discuss anything further please contact me directly here. In the meantime, it will be nice to see some sports on our screens again in the coming weeks ahead. 

Thanks and stay safe,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am

May 1st, 2020 email (sent to SWIAM customers)

COVID-19 and your SWIAM booking: Important update

Hi there,

I hope you and your family are keeping well.

It’s now been 6 weeks since sporting events started getting postponed all around the world. It’s an overused term at the moment, but the scale of the situation is unprecedented and certainly not one that our business has had to handle before. To put it frankly, it’s hit us like a tonne of bricks. 

We are trying our best to deal with it as respectfully and considerately as possible.

I understand if the perception might be that we are sitting on money from orders, but it’s not the case. We pay our ticket partners for orders we receive right away, so the amount we actually have on hand is only a small percentage of the total value – even less if you used a promo code.

Therefore we too won’t know when (or how, or if) we will be getting these funds back from our partners until the leagues confirm whether or not the games are ‘cancelled’ or ‘postponed’. Considering we haven’t earned any revenue since the coronavirus crisis escalated (and may not for a good majority of this year) I hope you can understand that it’s not a straightforward one for us to navigate. 

However, I can also understand that you are rightfully eager to know what is happening with your order. It means a lot to me and our team that you have chosen our business and we don’t take that for granted. We certainly don’t want to let you down. In the time since this started our primary focus has been on working through scenarios for how we can provide assurance and clarity to our customers, while we still wait for this clarity ourselves. We’ve worked on what we think is a good solution, all things considered. 

I’ll summarise this below:

For cancelled events

Starting next week, we will begin processing refunds for all events that have already officially been cancelled.

They include: Miami Open Tennis, some Serie A matches, Euro 2020 (option to cancel or hold for next year), as well as some WWE, NASCAR, and Indoor Football events.

For all of those customers who have been waiting on these refunds, I really appreciate your patience. You will be receiving back the total order value of your booking.

For all other events (currently ‘postponed’)

For every other event, we are still waiting to see whether the game will be classified as officially ‘cancelled’ or ‘postponed to a later date’. 

If the game does get cancelled: 

You should expect that there will be a delay in acquiring and processing the refunds. No one in the events industry has ever had to deal with such a large number of refunds all at the one time. I therefore anticipate that if games are classified as cancelled, the refund process will be delayed.

If the game is rescheduled to a new date:

In a usual circumstance, this is not a refundable situation. The ticket would still be valid for the new date. However I know this is now an unrealistic option for you, as travel restrictions and the uncertainty of when leagues will return mean it is very unlikely you will be able to attend the new date this year. 

With all of this in mind, we’d like to offer:

For those of you with tickets to ‘postponed’ events who would prefer to wait to see whether your game will be classified as cancelled, please let us know below. We will continue to keep you informed of any updates as they come to light.

For those of you who would really like a confirmed resolution now rather than the longer-term uncertainty, we’re offering an option to take a credit voucher with us for the full value of your booking – with no expiry date. We’re launching Australian events and extras when sports return, so hopefully you’ll have the opportunity to use this credit much sooner than you might think.

This is obviously not something we offer in usual circumstances, and is above what our normal terms are. Hopefully it goes some way to showing you that we are trying to provide as much over-and-above help as we can in a tricky situation.

If you would like to take up this offer please let us know below and we will issue your credit note over the next week.

I hope this helps provide clarity and some options to consider. As always, if you don’t think this is fair or would like to discuss something with me please continue to contact me directly. I’m happy to speak with anyone who would like to discuss this further.

Like me, I assume you would like nothing more than to be at a game right now. It’s amazing what you take for granted until it’s taken away. I can only imagine how incredible the atmosphere will be at any sporting event around the world when we are able to return. It’s our burning desire that when this time comes, you again decide to trust our business to make this happen. Our team will continue to do everything in our power to help make this so.

Thanks and stay safe,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am

April 6th, 2020 email (sent to SWIAM customers)

COVID-19 and your SWIAM booking: April 6 update

Hi there,

I hope you and your family are continuing to hold up OK in the current conditions.

There have not been any major confirmed updates from leagues since our previous communication. 

However, we do anticipate being able to provide further clarity in the upcoming two weeks as some of the major leagues are now approaching the time when their initial suspension was due to finish. 

As soon as we have official word with regards to your booking, we will update you accordingly.

In terms of the games that have been officially cancelled: ATP Miami Open, WWE & Euro 2020 (option to cancel or hold onto ticket), we will be in touch with you directly to update you on the status & expected timing of your refund. 

If anyone has any extra questions, as always, please feel free to contact me here.

I appreciate your continued patience and understanding as we work through this. 

Stay safe,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am

March 23rd, 2020 email (sent to SWIAM customers)

COVID-19 and your SWIAM booking: March 23 update

Hi again,

I hope you and your family are holding up OK in the current environment. 

I’m just touching base to provide another update since our last communication (16th March). I have provided a summary below of the latest from major leagues around the world:

· NBA: No further update since last week. Suspended games until April 11. 
· NHL: No further update since last week. Suspended indefinitely. 
· MLB: Update (March 16) – Season launch on hold for at least 8 weeks.
· EPL: Matches postponed until at least April 30.
· La Liga: No further update since last week. Games suspended for 2 weeks. 
· NASCAR: All race events through to May 3rd postponed.
· ATP Miami Open: Cancelled – full refund will be provided.
· UEFA Euro 2020: Rescheduled to 2021.

About UEFA Euro 2020 bookings

In regards to the Euro 2020, any bookings made are still valid for the new re-scheduled date for the event in 2021. However, we recognise that a lot of people will no longer be able to attend next year.

If this affects you, can you please email our bookings team here with your name and booking reference and confirm whether you would like to keep your ticket for 2021 or if you will no longer be able to attend in 2021.

When will refunds for cancelled events be processed?

Once we have confirmation that a game has been cancelled, the next step for us is to work with our suppliers to understand the timing of the flow of refunds. Given the huge number of orders that are being processed, it will take us longer than it would normally. I hope you can understand this given the current environment. When we have clarity on when this will happen for your order, we will contact you directly to let you know. 

For all other games, we are still awaiting the next steps from the major leagues before we are able to put any specific plans in place for our customers. For more information on the difference between postponed and cancelled games, scroll down to our email from March 16th.

If you have further questions

I hope this is clear, but if anyone has any extra questions please feel free to contact me here.

I appreciate your continued patience and understanding as we work through this.

Stay safe,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am

March 16th, 2020 email (sent to SWIAM customers)

COVID-19 and your SWIAM booking: Another update

Hi again,

I hope everyone is coping well and navigating the onslaught of information from over the weekend. We wanted to provide a brief update on your SWIAM booking based on the latest communication from the world’s biggest leagues. 

Firstly, below is a link to some official statements from major leagues:

What does this mean for my game?

If your game has already occurred or is due to be affected by the league’s directive, we need to wait for clarification as to whether your game will be cancelled or if your game is re-scheduled to a new date. Until the various leagues are able to provide more clarity on their next steps and process, it’s not possible for us to create and begin implementing a plan of our own.

If your game is scheduled to occur after the affected periods mentioned above, we assume that your game is still planned to go ahead until we hear otherwise. 

If the game gets postponed, I will no longer be able to attend. Will I get a refund?

Until we have clarification from the league we will not know whether your game will be classified as a cancelled or re-scheduled game. 

In the instance the league confirms it will be a cancelled game, you will receive a full refund. 

In the instance the league confirms it will be re-scheduled to another date, this is not a situation in which we’d usually offer a refund, as your tickets are still valid for the new date. In most scenarios, it’s not possible for us to know whether our customers will be able to attend the re-scheduled game, so it’s not something we provide refunds for. 

However, this is a unique and unprecedented situation. Most of our customers are travellers, and we anticipate a lot will no longer be able to attend new dates if the leagues decide to re-schedule these games to a new date rather than cancel them. So once we have clarity from the leagues, we will advise the steps our business will specifically take for our customers to see if we can provide over and above services in addition to the official positions of the leagues. 

I want to discuss this further.

I hope you can understand that this is the first time we’ve ever had to handle anything like this, so we are trying our best to do it in the most considered way possible. If you are unclear on any of the above, or you would like to chat to me directly, please book in a time that suits you for this week and I will call you to discuss your specific circumstances. 

(Note: A link was provided for customers to book a consultation time)

I hope this is clear, but please let me know otherwise. I want to re-iterate that we are aware and understanding of the impact this is having on your bookings and we will continue to be here to answer any questions you have.

Thanks,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am

March 12th, 2020 email (sent to SWIAM customers)

COVID-19 and your SWIAM booking

Thanks for booking your upcoming game with Sports Where I Am. We appreciate you trusting us with a big part of your travel plans. 

I wanted to touch base again as I understand you may have questions regarding the potential impact the Coronavirus might have on your upcoming game, including developing stories such as suspended, postponed or cancelled games across different leagues.

As you can hopefully appreciate, we are dealing with a constantly moving, unique situation at the moment, and we are doing our best to seek clarity for our customers as soon as we possibly can. 

We are working with our partners to understand what the process and timeline will be for any game that has been affected. 

It may take some time to get all the answers, but I wanted to let you know that we are chasing this for you and we will provide answers as soon as possible. It means a lot to us that you have chosen our company – we won’t take this for granted.  

In the meantime if you would like to ask me further questions please feel free to email me here. 

We really appreciate your understanding and patience during this time. 

Hopefully we can get back to experiencing sport again soon enough. 

Thanks,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am

March 10th, 2020 email (sent to all SWIAM email subscribers)

Travel plans impacted by COVID-19

Hey Sports Where I Am team,

We’re keeping a close eye on the impacts COVID-19 (Coronavirus) may have on our customers’ travel plans. With a number of sporting events affected to date, we have provided an update on the situation below.

A summary of affected Sports Where I Am events

  • Italy: All sport in Italy will be suspended until April 3. 
  • China: The Chinese F1 GP, scheduled for April 19 has been postponed. 
  • Qatar & Thailand: The Moto GP have moved their first 2 races of the season in Qatar and Thailand to later in the year.
  • Singapore: The Rugby 7’s event in Singapore has been postponed from April to October.
  • USA: The combined ATP and WTA events in Indian Wells, California, have been cancelled.
  • France: Paris St Germain’s Champions League last 16 match against Borussia Dortmund on March 11 will now be played in front of no spectators. 

We will continue to keep you updated if other events are impacted going forward. 

Common questions from Sports Where I Am users

What happens if I have purchased a ticket to an event that is cancelled or played in front of no fans?

If you purchased a ticket to a game that is no longer going ahead or is now being held in front of no spectators, you will receive a full refund. 

What happens if I have purchased a ticket to an event that has been postponed to a time I am not travelling? 

Normally this situation does not warrant a refund as it’s hard for us to predict if a game will be re-scheduled. However, given the current unique circumstances, we will work with you to see if we can come up with a solution for your trip. I must stress that this will not always be possible, but we will do our best to work on a solution relevant to your situation. 

What if I have cancelled my trip, but the event is still going ahead?

In this situation, we unfortunately cannot refund the ticket. We do however acknowledge the unprecedented situation and we would like to help you wherever possible. If you are therefore in this situation, we will attempt to recoup as much of the cost as possible with our supply partners. There is no guarantee we will be able to achieve this, but we will make this attempt on your behalf. Please let us know if you are in this situation. We also advise to check the travel insurance policy you have taken out for your trip to see what cancellation costs are covered. 

Planning for upcoming travel

We advise to check the appropriate local authority (such as smartraveller.gov.au updates) for any upcoming travel plans. If you book an event that is cancelled or played in front of no fans, you will receive your money back in full. If you book an event that is postponed, we will work with you to make the most of this situation.

We understand there may be further questions so if you would like to chat to me or one of our team, please send us an email here and we will contact you ASAP. One of the many things I love about sporting events is their power to unite us – in times like this we can be assured sport will continue to bring us all together.

Kind regards,

Matt Scully
CEO of Sports Where I Am