The sports world has had a brutal year.
The Wuhan virus has disrupted the sports calendar and negatively affected viewership.
And one Super Bowl survey has the NFL deeply concerned.
The 2020 season isn’t quite going as the NFL had hoped.
Though the league isn’t experiencing the devastating ratings drop of the NBA, the NFL’s ratings are still down across the board.
One of the reasons for the decline in viewership is the television experience isn’t the same with an empty stadium and fake crowd noise.
And a new Marist poll shows that nearly half of the public doesn’t want fans in attendance for the Super Bowl.
From Yahoo:
“The poll, surveying 1,065 adults in early December, revealed that 49 percent of respondents think the Super Bowl should be played without fans, even though it is nearly two months away and plenty of NFL games this season have been held in stadiums with fans present. In fact, 83 percent said that fans either shouldn’t be allowed at all or only with restrictions. A mere 16 percent think fans should be allowed in without restrictions.”
That is bad news for the NFL.
The Super Bowl is an event that lasts an entire week and brings enthusiasm and commerce to the host city.
This year, Tampa, Florida gets to host Super Bowl LV, but there very likely will not be nearly as many people from around the world making the trip.
And an empty stadium for the Super Bowl will make for an underwhelming viewing experience.
Unsurprisingly, views on Super Bowl fans in the stadium broke down along political lines.
Yahoo continued:
“In all responses, a heavily partisan through-line divided the respondents on their view of the pandemic and sports. For instance, 71 percent of Republicans believed fans should be allowed into the Super Bowl, whether with restrictions or without them, while 68 percent of Democrats thought they should not under any circumstance.”
The Marist poll also showed that 83% of Democrats were perfectly fine with the government mandating restrictions on fan attendance while only 28% of Republicans answered the same.
The Democrats and the media are giving the pro-lockdown politicians the cover they need to impose draconian lockdowns that seemingly will never end.
It’s time to open up the economy and let people get back to their lives.
People who are at higher risk of COVID should self-quarantine for as long as they feel comfortable because the lockdowns are doing more harm than good.
Even the World Health Organization came out against lockdowns.
Many professional sporting events have had to carry on with minimal fans in the stands.
It would be a shame if one of the largest sporting events in the world took place with a half-empty stadium and fake crowd noise.
