More and more sports teams are allowing or increasing capacity limits for fans to attend games in stadiums and arenas across the country. Despite these restrictions, there appears to be a relationship between fan attendance and COVID-19 cases.
When NFL games were played with more than 5,000 fans in attendance, surges in infection rates were found in the second and third weeks in locations near the stadium. A study submitted to scientific journal The Lancet documented the correlation.
Last year, more than a dozen NFL teams hosted games with more than 5,000 fans in attendance. The Dallas Cowboys averaged more than 28,000 fans at their home games.
The Philadelphia Eagles did not host paying fans at any of their regular season games.
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The study, which is being peer reviewed, did not prove a causal link between attendance and positive COVID-19 cases. However, it suggests there may be a relationship between the two.
“The evidence overwhelmingly supports that fan attendance at NFL games led to episodic spikes,” researchers wrote.
The new study is one of the most comprehensive attempts to address the impact of fans at NFL games, according to the New York Times.
The study gathered the number of positive cases from the counties where 32 NFL teams play, in addition to surrounding counties. It also tracked the spread among fans who may have traveled to the games. Figures were adjusted for false positives and days when counties did not report cases.
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It conceded, however, that the research only showed games with fans and increasing positive COVID-19 rates coincided.
“The strength of these studies is they are showing something, but the correlations con only point out the possibilities, not the causation,” Bruce Y. Lee, executive director of Public Health Informatics Computations and Operations Research at City University of New York School of Public Health told the New York Times. “It’s not just a football game and people go home. There are all these associated activities around the game.”
Dr. Rex Archer, the director of health for the city of Kansas City, Mo., said the region detected no spread of the virus linked to Chiefs home games, which averaged 13,531 fans per game. He added that it was much more difficult to track the spread through bars and restaurants that were open for the games.
“You could have 15,000 socially distanced fans at Arrowhead Stadium, yet some people packed in a bar,” he told The Times.
Proving a causal link is difficult, because it requires researchers to gather the contact tracing data on fans who attended games and then tested positive. The Times states that that data is scarce, in part due to lack of cooperation from fans with contact tracers.
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Even those who did cooperate struggled to determine if they had become infected before, after or during the game.
Still, the new study differs from the information the NFL has cited.
Jason Miller, an executive for the NFL, told the New York Times that public health officials in cities and states where NFL teams played found no “case clusters” following the 119 games held with fans in attendance, citing research conducted by MIT Sports Lab.
Miller also pointed to a study by the Florida Department of Health, which was not peer reviewed, that determined infection rates were “slightly higher” in the Tampa area in the weeks after the city hosted the Super Bowl. The study found that the transmission was “likely from private gatherings in homes, or unofficial events at bars and restaurants,” rather than the game itself.
In February, the NFL cited a separate study that attendance in pro and college football games did not have a “significant” impact on the spread of the virus. Unlike The Lancet study, it only tracked cases in the county where the games were held.
The league continues to say it will follow recommendations from local, county, state and public health officials as well as the CDC for any decisions for the 2021 season. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell remains optimistic it will include full capacity attendance.
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Yet researchers continue to preach caution.
“We are not saying that the NFL shouldn’t have opened up to fans,” Alex Piquero, sociologist at the University of Miami and co-author of the study told The Times. “But we have to understand the public health implications of opening up.”
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