Opinion | Sports games are actually better with less fans
Joe Perrino, Sports Editor
The harsh ring of a ticket scanning machine welcomed me to a world I hadn't explored in over a year. Yet, I found this world — once so comfortable to me — turned completely upside down.
On March 23, I entered a baseball stadium for the first time since September 2019. And my first steps inside Goodyear Ballpark in Goodyear, Arizona, where the Cleveland Indians were taking on the San Francisco Giants in a spring training game, were surreal.
On one hand, I felt like a kid in a candy store to be back in a baseball environment I loved so dearly. I recall smiling for 10 minutes straight once I got there, seeing screaming fans in distanced “pods” of two to five and smelling of freshly grilled hot dogs and fFrench fries permeate the air.
Yet at the same time, the pandemic-influenced state of the ballpark was jarring.
For starters, masks were required. It didn’t matter where you were in the ballpark, that thing needed to be on tight and over your nose — unless you were eating or drinking. That strategy might work in theory, but in practice, I found, it varied. Most people were pretty compliant with the rules, but some fans tried to see what they could get away with. Luckily for myself and my family, none of them came within 100 feet of us. There were only around 2,000 fans in the entire stadium.
Fans were distanced in pods of two to five people at the Goodyear Ballpark in Arizona March 23.
But unlike that of a pre-pandemic game, empty seats were zip-tied shut, so fans couldn’t wander around aimlessly and sit anywhere with the lowered capacity. If I’m at a San Francisco Giants game that goes into extra innings, normally I’ll try to move down closer to the field once most of the fans leave. But in this spring training contest, that couldn’t happen.
Yet overall, despite some slight awkwardness, much about the experience remained the same. Sure, there were far less fans, but if you were a Miami Marlins fan, it probably just seemed like a regular game.
And honestly, I found myself liking it.
You could hear the players talking on the field. My family and I had more space to ourselves. All parking spots were close to the stadium. Most importantly, concessions lines were far shorter and implemented online ordering from your phone — leaving QR codes around the ballpark for fans to scan and order food and drinks from the comfort of their seat.
After my original apprehension, this whole thing grew on me. Is it bad to say I want ballparks to stay this way?
Obviously, I want the coronavirus gone. But some of the caveats that have been implemented for safety — open space so nobody walking down the aisle gets in one another’s way, easy and sanitary access to food, less obnoxious and drunk fans — should stay once the world opens back up again.
I can’t imagine going back to games with packed crowds like before. Maybe once everything is back to normal, I’ll become a diehard Marlins fan to keep the same feeling.