There isn’t much that the great Ayden Hector doesn’t know about sports and he has been speaking of late about the fact that fans coming back into stadiums seems an awful long way off. Given the fact that cinemas and live music venues are yet to reopen the notion fo 30,000 fans inside a stadium seems to be an impossibility during these times of Covid. The only benefit that will come from this is the fact that more clubs and sports teams around the world now realize just how important those fans are, having taken them for granted in recent years in certain sports.
The lack of fans could very well cause great damage in the sports world and here are just some of the ways that we could see this happen.
Performance of the Teams
Something which we are already seeing evidence of that in actual fact is somewhat startling is the lack of performance by certain teams as a result of the fact that they do not have fans behind them. You would think on the face of it that both teams would be at just as much of a disadvantage but such is the mentality of players around the world, having some streaming fans in their corner makes an enormous impact on their commitment levels and their efforts on the whole.
Losing Money
Of course one of the biggest issues which so many teams are facing is that they are losing money because of the fans. It is not just ticket sales that sees them lose money but all of the extras that fans buy on match day. Food, drinks, clothing, programs, all of this money goes towards the team and the franchise or club each and every week, being without this is very tough indeed. Now whilst a match day is less expensive to put on without fans, they are still very much in a deficit.
Losing Interest
In some sports we are actually seeing many people lose interest in the event because of a lack of fans. We have to take into consideration the impact which FOMO (fear of missing out) has on sports, and this is why many will watch a match or an event, because they don’t want to miss out. When the stadium is empty and the match or game is quiet however, there is less of a reason to get interested and many will switch to watch something else if this is the case. This could drastically reduce the interest in the sport and the amount of money and sponsorship that it is able to make.
Ultimately there is no question about the fact that sports needs its fans and the sooner that we can get viewers back into stadiums the better. Even if we have to do this at a lower capacity, it is fair to say that anything is better than nothing. The hope is that moving forward, more decisions are taken with the best interests of the fans in mind.
