The Miami Dolphins plan to allow 13,000 fans to attend their home opener against the Buffalo Bills on Sept. 20, and Sean McDermott is not happy about it.
The Bills coach believes that allowing fans in some stadiums but not others could give teams – like the Dolphins – a competitive advantage.
Why would the NFL even open up this can of worms and have fans in attendance when it’s, as D.A. pointed out, somewhat unnecessary financially?
“I’m sure a lot of coaches don’t like it,” NBC Sports NFL analyst Peter King said on The DA Show. “I disagree with Sean McDermott, and I disagree with you a little bit about this aspect of you don’t need to have fans at games. NFL teams . . . by not having fans, by not having in-stadium revenue, by not having the parking, all that other stuff, all that ancillary money, will probably lose somewhere between $60-90 million a team on average. You say, ‘Well, these guys are all rich, they can afford it.’ Well, of course they can. But have you ever met a rich person who has the opportunity to make money and he turns it down?”
Owners aren’t the only ones who want fans in the stands. Players do, too.
“It affects what the salary cap is going to be,” King said. “It’s less revenue being brought in. And so, I think for coaches, they don’t care about that stuff, but if you’re a player, you want to see fans in the stands because it means money. Now, I do understand what McDermott is saying because it probably is a slight – slight – competitive advantage for the teams that are going to have people in there. But honestly . . . this is a year that’s going to be wholly unfair, and there are going to be things that happen during the course of the year that you would never tolerate in any other year. People, in my opinion, should just say, ‘Hey, listen, just suck it up and go do it.’”
Indeed, this season will be different for everyone, especially players and fans. But football can take a lesson from baseball. As Royals utility player Whit Merrifield recently told King, the mindset for this season is simple: “Embrace the suck.”
“It’s really not fun the way it usually is when there’s no fans and you can’t go out to dinner on the road and things like this,” King said. “It’s just a totally different experience. So I guess my whole thing with this would be pick your battles, but being angry about having fans at some games and not others seems to be a very – not unimportant, but in this year, in my opinion, it’s unimportant.”
The NFL, it is worth noting, will have to police mask-wearing at games. The league will require that fans wear masks, but requiring it and enforcing it are two different things.
“Yeah, that’s another issue. That’s not tolerable,” King said of not wearing a mask. “If you’re not going to wear a mask, you should not go to the game. That’s all there is to it. I don’t even know if they’re going to have food or what the deal is, but obviously you’re going to have to take your mask off at some point. If you’re just sitting there watching the game, you have to be told, ‘You wear a mask, or you’re not allowed in here.’ In my opinion, that’s the way the NFL has to go.”