PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — One year ago — Wednesday, March 11, 2020 — the first domino fell in what would become a four-month period of little to no live sporting events. On that night, the NBA suspended its season when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Sixers had just beaten the Detroit Pistons at Wells Fargo Center that night — the last time that arena has been at unrestricted capacity.
The coronavirus outbreak had been escalating, and there was a sense that life was about to change drastically. WIP Overnight producer and Sixers season ticket holder Mike Angelina says he remembers it well.
"I remember leading up to the game, I remember having the thought that this was probably the last game," Angelina said.
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His sense was correct. After the NBA, the NHL paused its season in progress. MLB spring training was canceled, and the baseball games that counted didn't start up until late July. The NFL was in its offseason, so they were the least affected, initially, though they held their draft virtually.
The risk of transmission in the stands was too great, and a combination of city and state guidance and professional league public health protocols has kept fans at home.
Other than three mostly brutal Eagles games, five Union matches (they play in Chester) and the dedicated, airhorn-blowing Phandemic Krew standing outside of Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia sports have gone without spectators for the last year.
Through their delayed and abbreviated seasons, pro sports returned as made-for-television events. The drama remained, but the one huge thing missing was fans in the stands.
A step toward normalcy
Not a single fan walked through Citizens Bank Park's turnstiles in 2020. Cardboard cutouts of fans and pre-recorded crowd noise helped staved off an eerie silence.
Phillies ace Aaron Nola is as publicly mild-mannered as professional athletes get, but even he knows that a rowdy crowd is priceless.
“You can’t replace humans in the stands,” he said.
It seems like things are finally turning in the right direction. Earlier this month, the city of Philadelphia and the commonwealth eased large venue restrictions to allow 15% capacity at indoor venues and 20% outdoors. Wells Fargo Center announced the Flyers and Sixers would be welcoming back about 3,100 fans for games, and the Phillies said Citizens Bank Park can have as many as 8,800.
“Playing with no fans in the stands last year really made us appreciate them,” Nola said last week. “You really don’t realize it until you don’t have what you have.”
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The 76ers got a new head coach last year, but no fans have seen Doc Rivers on the court in person yet.
The Flyers, for the first time since March 10, 2020, hosted paying fans on March 7, 2021. The Sixers will host fans at home for the first time this Sunday. And the Phils will have fans in the stands starting April 1, Opening Day.
Looking ahead to a home game against the San Antonio Spurs — with real fans in the seats — he said, “Hooray. Yay. I’m happy. We want to see our fans here.”
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And for fans, the feeling is mutual.
A long year, lacking memories
Going to the game means more than a trip to South Philadelphia. For many, it’s a lifelong hobby and a time to create memories.
Longtime WIP producer Eric “Turtle” Golden said he loves that he can go to a game and forget what’s happening in the world.
“I didn’t realize how long a year is until you don’t go to games -- when I’m used to going to three, four games a month, across all the sports,” said WIP caller Kenny Justice, aka “Kenny From The Dirty 30,” who has full season tickets to the Eagles and Flyers, and partial to the Phillies and Villanova hoops.
Justice says he believes it’s been about a year since he attended a game in Philadelphia.
“If you have to quit something cold turkey, it’s hard,” he said. “There’s a withdrawal period. You’re sitting on the couch with the blanket over yourself, getting the chills and shakes. And the part that was the hardest is to see cities or states that did allow fans back in months ago, and we couldn’t do it … For whatever reason, I was just jealous of that.”
Shirley A. Dash — aka “Eagles Shirley” to frequent WIP listeners — said her last Philadelphia sporting event was in 2019, and she misses being around the fans.
Ava Graham of The WIP Morning Show said memories of games past have been popping up on her social media feeds, egging her on to get back to South Philly.
As with Justice, Graham’s last game was at Phillies spring training in Clearwater before the pandemic escalated in 2020. But she can't remember the last time she was at a sporting event in the Philly area. It’s been that long.
“I’ve, like, been drooling to go to a game," she said, "... and I’ve had goosebumps talking about it."
Lifelong Philadelphia sports fan Drew DeVitis, said going to Citizens Bank Park is simply natural.
“An intrinsic part of summer is going to CBP and seeing the Phillies play,” DeVitis said. "And I think the same thing is definitely true for the Sixers and the Flyers."
More than just empty seats
In 2020, the Sixers were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the dreaded Boston Celtics. Arguably, the one silver lining is that Boston could not celebrate at Wells Fargo Center. They were with the rest of the NBA in a protected arena environment at Disney World.
The Phillies had one of the worst bullpens in Major League Baseball history. It was the main reason their playoff drought has stretched to nine seasons. At least fans could turn off their TVs rather than leaving a blown game feeling like they flushed their money down the drain.
Carson Wentz’s tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles ended unpleasantly after they finished at the bottom of a historically ugly NFC East. However, again, there was no large crowd at the Linc to boo and heckle in real time.
How different Philadelphia sports could have been in 2020 had fans been allowed in the stands, we'll never know. But many commentators think the fans would have had some impact.
Dash said there’s no way that any teams, regardless of the sport, would have gotten away with as much as they did. "With fans being in the stands, the booing would've just started ... they would've pushed them to play better."
“No way that Doug (Pederson) would've went for a tie in (the controversial game against the Bengals),” Eagles and Sixers fan Danny Gant said. “And there's no way Carson would have lasted as long as he did during the season. I mean the boos would've been raining down, it would've been insanity at The Linc.”
'I'm done sitting on the couch'
As Philadelphia joins other parts of the country in allowing fans back, some can’t wait to return, some are not in a rush to find their Flyers or Sixers masks, and others, understandably, would rather watch from home for now.
“I know how much money and time the people that run the Wells Fargo Center spent in getting that building to where it’s much safer,” Justice said. “I know how much time that all our sports teams are putting in to fan safety, and I’ve seen the numbers go down, so I think it’s time that we start to try to get some sense of normalcy back, and I’m done sitting on the couch.”
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Brian Griffin, who actually attended a huge Philadelphia sporting event in 2020 — the Eagles playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks — said he is happy to see things opening up, but he still has some concerns about indoor venues.
"I think I feel more comfortable at the outside venues, just because science has proved that it's actually safer to kind of interact outside," he said.
Lifelong Philadelphia sports fan Troy Leatherbury said he’s ready to get back to real life, but is still weary of the unknown.
“I’m like, 'That’s nice,' but I’m not going,” he said with a friendly smile and laugh. “But it’s nice to see some normalcy come around again. Me, personally, it’s still a little scary, still a little weird, with all the variants and everything to think about being in a stadium."
“I’m eager,” WIP host Tom Kelly said, “but I also at the same time want to safe. I’m not vaccinated yet. My wife's not vaccinated yet, and we're trying to be as careful as we can.”
CBS SportsRadio and WIP host Vince Quinn, who has asthma and was previously sick with the coronavirus, said he’ll return after he is vaccinated and thinks enough of the population is as well.
“I want to be a part of that crowd again, I want to be a part of that energy again. I want to get out of the house!”
Another piece of fan gear
Wells Fargo Center and the Citizens Bank Park are mandating masks (except when eating or drinking), as are the Eagles and Union, which gives fans another way to show their game day pride.
Fan compliance is a big part of returning sports to normal, and last week, Phillies Executive Vice President Dave Buck made it clear how essential this is to the return of fans.
“It’s up to us as fans to wear masks, because the city is gonna demand it,” Buck said. “And so are employees are gonna be continually asked and so forth, but I don’t want the fans to screw this up and not wear the masks. We need to wear masks. It is part of the protocol of the city and they will hold us to that.”
Wells Fargo Center General Manager Phil Laws said last week that fans who refuse to wear a mask will be asked to leave.
The way we were
For generations, when fans are shoulder to shoulder at sporting events it wasn’t uncommon for two strangers to high-five or hug at big moments in the game. It’s something you never thought twice about.
Now, you can bet that many fans will not be so free with their high-fives or hugs any time soon.
“I’m not high-fiving no one. I’m a hugger. No hugs, no high-fiving," Dash said with a smile. "I'm gonna always have that in my head, like: Are they vaccinated?"
Will high-fives ever come back? Maybe over time.
"We’ve gone through plagues. We've gone through pandemics before. All these things have happened, and it's found its way back," said James Seltzer, WIP producer and co-host of the "High Hopes" and "Go Birds" podcasts.
"We found our way back to these customs, these communal things we do as human beings and have for thousands of years. ... I feel like once the world is back to normal and people are vaccinated and we're feeling good about it, I know personally I'm ready to roll."
Leatherbury says he'll feel comfortable giving a stranger a high-five, too, but with one caveat.
“I just won’t be chewing on a hot dog after I high-five him,” he said, laughing.
We could all use a laugh these days — as well as a safe day out at the game.
COVID: Then and Now is a KYW Newsradio original monthlong series looking back at the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in Philadelphia. Reporters revisit the news from exactly one year ago and examine how protocols, restrictions and science have evolved since then. Check back weekdays in March for more.