When the NFL’s stereotypical bad-boy team with its legendary rowdy fans found a new home in Las Vegas, it was the safe bet to predict dire outcomes from bringing “the Black Hole” to Sin City. But who would have thought that the Las Vegas Raiders and their fans would become the sports-world leaders in fan decorum and vaccination sanity?
That’s the early take from the Raiders’ first home game conducted with the team’s new rules in effect, which require all fans to show proof of a Covid-19 vaccination before they are let in the doors. Instead of waves of people in gorilla suits or spiked armor protesting the requirement, the Sept. 13 Monday Night Football game against the Baltimore Ravens at Allegiant Stadium instead saw the stadium filled with 61,756 fans (out of a 65,000 capacity) who were able to comply with the Raiders’ vaccination rules, in a process that was remarkable for its lack of controversy and snafus on both the fan and team sides of the equation.
Requiring all fans to be vaccinated to attend events is a move we think all venues should replicate immediately, both to help keep fans safe and to help ensure that the pandemic doesn’t shut down stadiums all over again.
While the movement by more venues to require fans to show either proof of vaccination — or in some cases, a recent negative Covid-19 test — to attend live events is growing, our thinking is that more stadiums and arenas need to jump on the bandwagon. In the NFL, the Raiders have already been joined by the Seattle Seahawks, the New Orleans Saints and the Buffalo Bills, who have announced similar policies. Both NFL teams that use SoFi Stadium, the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers, are also requiring vaccines or negative Covid-19 tests for entry. And a growing list of NHL and NBA teams and arenas have also reported similar requirements, as have many college teams, and the list is growing daily.
But it’s not growing fast enough. Too many leagues, teams and venues are passing the buck to local health officials, or politicians, and either doing nothing or falling back on the weakest protection there is, the much-abused “mask mandate.” That’s where a venue makes a big deal about requiring fans to “wear masks at all times, except when actively eating or drinking.” But here’s the truth: Mask mandates don’t work in big stadiums.
Yes, masks can and do make a difference in virus transmission, but unless you’re in a highly controlled environment like a restaurant or an airplane cabin (where non-compliance can result in a big fine and federal criminal charges), they’re hard to enforce. In a big stadium, mask mandates are impossible to implement, especially given the low ratio of potential enforcers (ushers, etc.) to potential abusers (thousands of fans).
Throw in alcohol consumption and you are pretty much guaranteed to have widespread non-compliance, which some confused fans see as a badge of courage or honor. I agree it might be within the letter of the law but to claim “I couldn’t wear a mask because I never stopped drinking” seems to miss the point.
The majority is in favor of preventative measures
Editor’s note: This column is part of our Stadium Tech Report Fall 2021 issue, which you can read through online or download for free right now! Coverage includes an in-depth profile of new entry technology at the Columbus Crew’s new Lower.com Field, and an in-person visit to Allegiant Stadium, the new home of the Las Vegas Raiders. Start reading today!
Lest you think that angering the mask-adverse is a bad business decision, you should consider what happened at the first full game this season at Buffalo’s Highmark Stadium. In Buffalo, fans who were complying with the mask mandate got loudly upset about their neighbors who weren’t, and whether the team will admit it or not, that response — in social media and in direct complaints to the team — most likely carried a big weight in the decision to make vaccination proof part of attendance, going forward.
And while some fans might not make the best decisions and come to games even if they’re not protected by a vaccination requirement, venues are already feeling pressure from two other important groups to make events safer — the unsung venue employees as well as the top-name talent.
This year we have seen NFL teams warn fans that lines may be long because of “staffing issues,” a problem that has also caused snafus at several big college venues this football season. Never among the highest-paying jobs, the part-time gigs at stadiums on game day suddenly seem a lot less attractive when the bonus is potentially catching Covid from an unmasked, unvaccinated fan.
Big entertainment acts like Garth Brooks and others are canceling stadium shows because they don’t want to play in places with thousands of unvaccinated attendees. Keep your venue free of restrictions and you might end up with a stadium full of fans but with nobody to feed them or pour them a beer, or with an empty stage. None of those options sounds like a smart way to go.
So why not support and attract the majority, by making your venue a safer place? The Raiders showed not just great leadership but great service to their fans with their decision and their process. It was a last-minute thing, but the team really did all it could to make it easy for fans to comply. They partnered with Clear to make an easy app available for proof of vaccination. They had tents open three days before the game at the stadium so fans could figure things out well before game time. They gave away free vaccination shots in the parking lot. What happened?
On the no-vax side, a protest attracted about 40 people outside the gates. Inside, more than 61,000 fans voted with their arms, saying a vaccine was worth it. Even more impressive was the Raiders’ claim that 6,000 of those fans got their first shot in between the announcement of the rule and game time. (Update: That number is now more than 12,000 fans with new first shots.) If all stadiums joined the Raiders, maybe we could get enough unvaccinated folks to join the rest of us and head this thing off before it can hatch any new variants.
Looking not too far back, teams and venues helped lead the way to safety in the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, opening their doors and parking lots first for mass testing sites, and then again for vaccination sites, donating a lot of space, time and energy to help get the world on the right side of the equation. It’s time now for venues to take another big leadership step, and require vaccinations for fans to attend events, to favor the wide majority of people who want this pandemic to end.
