After four months of closure due to the pandemic, the American professional sports leagues are playing again. But the pandemic is not over.
NASCAR and UFC returned in May, while Top Rank boxing and PGA Tour golf returned in June, those are individual sports that were well positioned to return with social distancing. Now team sports are coming back. Earlier this month, NWSL and MLS soccer returned in bubble formats. This week Major League Baseball kicks off its 60 game season with teams playing at their local baseball stadiums. The WNBA, NBA, and Premier Lacrosse League also return this month in bubble formats.
If the biggest question about the return of sports is whether leagues can keep their COVID-19 cases low, the second biggest question is when they might have fans in the stands.
The NBA, WNBA, and PLL are wrapping up their seasons in a bubble and will have no fans, period. But MLS (which aims to continue its regular season at local stadiums after its Disney World tournament), MLB, college football, and the NFL hope to eventually have fans in their games.
Will fans be ready to attend a game in person later this summer or fall?
The answer, based on a survey by Yahoo Finance and Harris Poll, is no.
David Foster / Yahoo Finance Chart
The majority of respondents, 70%, feel “not at all comfortable” or “not very comfortable” attending a sporting event in person this summer. Only 10% of people say they would feel “very comfortable”.
Additionally, 72% of respondents say they won’t be comfortable attending a sporting event in person until at least next summer.
The survey surveyed 1,005 American adults between July 17 and 20.
Even if everyone at the sporting event wore masks and followed the rules of social distancing, half of the respondents said they would not feel more comfortable attending. Only 10% of respondents said the masks would make them feel “much more comfortable.” That question is of particular interest to the NFL, which just announced Wednesday that it will require fans of NFL games this season to wear masks.
Older respondents showed even less comfort when attending a sports event: 25% of respondents over 65 said they would never feel comfortable attending a live sports event again due to the pandemic.
These are sentiments that the big leagues will have to keep a close eye on in the coming months, especially those that rely heavily on ticket sales for league revenue, such as MLS, MLB, and college football programs.
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