The Silence of the Fans
Near-empty venues are the reality for the foreseeable future
Sports Biblio Reader 11.22.20
The Imagination of Sports in Books, History, the Arts and Culture
As I open up the snarkmachine—also known as my Twitter feed—the estimable college football writer John U. Bacon couldn’t help himself as the Michigan-Rutgers football game kicked off Saturday along the banks of the Old Raritan.
Aka Piscataway, New Jersey, the easternmost point of the Bigger Ten.
Tweeteth Bacon, author of several Michigan and college football books:
That set off an amusing thread that continued as matters transpired between the sputtering Wolverines and the spunky Scarlet Knights, who drew first blood with a 17-0 lead.
In such a game, the jokes and snarky Tweets figured to write themselves, and they’re fun and refreshing as our surreal times reach another inflection point.
As winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, more restrictions and fear are rising anew, following another wave of infections.
Street protests were taking place in a number of European cities, including Berlin, where water cannons were sprayed on crowds gathering near the Brandenburg Gate as the German Bundestag extended lockdown measures.
The Bundesliga season began with small crowds, but the new measures mean games are being played behind closed doors in November.
In England, most sporting events have been that way since the interrupted 2019-20 seasons resumed in the late spring. The deprivation isn’t just for those constituting the crowds, but competitors accustomed to a lively atmosphere.
The crowd is not an optional extra. It gives meaning to what might otherwise be an exercise in futile masochism.
To be fair to Rutgers—I know a former coach and business professor there who teaches leadership skills to varsity athletes—they’re working under the same limitations as other Big Ten schools.
That includes no bands or cheerleaders, and only a limited number of family members permitted to attend.
In the SEC, the capacities are generally around 25 percent, and the crowds actually look a lot more sizable than they are. It helps that there are bands and cheerleaders, so there’s something of a familiar atmosphere.
NFL teams are all over the map when it comes to fans, and state and local restrictions have a lot to do with that. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis ordered new measures this week that preclude fans from attending the last three home games of the Denver Broncos.
In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf tightened an existing mask mandate that would have applied across the board, even to athletes during competition.
But as the Steelers and Eagles were aghast at the prospect of having to wear masks while playing, the guidance was clarified to exempt football players.
Thank goodness for that, and not just because of the sheer absurdity of it all. Amid the flurry of new restrictions—and as those issuing the mandates appear impervious to actually following them—is the continuing uncertainty.
How long will this last? What is the end game here? The zero-tolerance that’s been imposed in many places in the sports bubble has been hard enough to maintain. But what about those living in supposedly free nations who’ve endured months of suspending significant elements of their daily lives?
Those answers aren’t forthcoming, and while for many fans it’s been soothing to have some games to turn to, the disconnection feels even greater than it did in the spring. Basketball seasons and other indoor winter sports also are being closed off to general spectators, at least to start.
The Ivy League is doing away with winter sports altogether and delaying the start of spring sports.
The dead of winter, and the promise of vaccines, are also prompting the current holding pattern. As NBA and NHL seasons approach, questions abound about what kinds of bubbles, and fan limitations, there may be.
We want sports to do more than entertain us, especially with such anxiety. The familiarities of decades-old rituals of sports fandom have been stripped away, and a growing concern is whether they will ever return as we once knew them.
When all this began, I was fine with a suspension of frivolities for a while. But I didn’t think nine months along we’d be where we are now, even more unsure about how to proceed. Or what to expect.
Extremely harsh lockdowns in New Zealand and Australia have opened up sporting venues more fully, after governments there took an “elimination” approach to the virus.
Tennis pros are expected to arrive in Melbourne mid-December to prepare for the Australian Open, but uncertainty reigns there too, with tournament dates still up in the air. The brutal lockdowns in Victoria sounded like house arrest, at least to me, but for now citizens at least can breathe a little easier.
New Zealand is scheduled to host the America’s Cup in March, which looks safe for now. The nation also will be staging the Women’s Rugby World Cup next September. But after cutting itself from the rest of the world and repressing its citizens for months, can such zero-tolerance really last? And what happens if it doesn’t?
When COVID-19 closures began in March, I figured sports would be among the last realms of society to restart, given the enormous logistics involved.
At times I’m still surprised we’ve gotten as far with staging athletics at any level as has taken place. Sports leagues and associations have their own zero-tolerance mandates, with games called off even on game-day for a single positive test.
There are plenty of screamers in the sports media who wonder whether there should be games at all during a pandemic. They’re not being forced to watch, and they don’t understand the compulsion of athletes who really want to play, regardless of circumstances.
I don’t begrudge any athlete, coach, broadcaster or anyone involved in sports for “opting out” for as long as they wish until this virus dissipates.
There have been many times over these months that my interest hasn’t been keen, for the reasons Cohen cited when it comes to spectator sports: “Eventually, some fans, maybe many fans, will ask themselves why they are still watching at all.”
Back to Bacon’s thread:
Yet for those wanting to play on, being able to do so may mean more than ever. The Michigan-Rutgers game turned into a surprising epic, with the Wolverines pulling out a 48-42 victory in three overtimes.
With more than 70 cancelled games already in the college football season, I never thought watching two 1-3 teams could be so enjoyable, as sloppy as the play often was.
And even after the public address system blared something like jock jams instead of a live marching band ringing up another rendition of “Hail to the Victors.”
Passings
Jake Scott, 75, was one of the defensive linchpins of the Miami Dolphins teams of the early 1970s, and the MVP of the Super Bowl in a perfect 17-0 season that has never been matched since.
A safety and former All-American at the University of Georgia, Scott embodied a “No-Name” defense that included Nick Buoniconti, Manny Fernandez, Bill Stanfill and Dick Anderson.
But as disciplined as he was on the field, Scott—whom former Dolphins QB Dan Marino acknowledged was the franchise’s “Original No. 13”—was rebellious away from it.
He had plenty of differences with his coaches, Don Shula and Vince Dooley, cutting himself off from both for years.
Anderson was inducted in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2011, and for Georgia fans of another era, he’ll always be known as “The Wild Dawg.” The year before, he was inducted in the Miami Dolphins Honor Roll, but enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame has eluded him.
He died this week after falling at home and hitting his head, falling into a coma. the fourth member of those Dolphins teams to pass away since last year, including Shula, Buoniconti, Jim Kiick, Bob Kuechenberg and Jim Langer.
The Sports Biblio Reader e-mail newsletter is delivered on Sunday. You can subscribe here and search recent archives. The full archives for Sports Biblio Digest can be found here. This is issue No. 224, published Nov. 22, 2020.
PLEASE NOTE: The newsletter will not be published next week and will return Dec. 6.
I’d love to hear what you think about Sports Biblio. Send feedback, suggestions, book recommendations, review copies, newsletter items and interview requests to Wendy Parker at sportsbiblio@gmail.com.
Sports Biblio is an affiliate of Bookshop, an online book retailer, and receives a small commission for books sold via this newsletter. Bookshop donates some its proceeds to independent bookstores across the U.S., so when you shop here you’re supporting a small business in your community.