On Sunday, May 17, soccer fans who tuned in to the match between Bayern Munich and F.C. Union Berlin were greeted by a surprising sound: the thump of a ball being kicked. Most of the time, that noise is inaudible to television viewers, swallowed up by the ambient roar of cheers and chants raining down from the stands or the commentators bellowing over the din. But the Bayern-Union game was among the first played in Germany’s top division, the Bundesliga, after a two-month layoff because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the season had resumed with a drastic set of new restrictions in place, including a ban on paying spectators.
So the 22,000-capacity stadium was nearly empty, apart from players, staff, security and a smattering of others. “Under normal circumstances,” one of Fox Sports’ play-by-play announcers said, “this stadium would be rocking, packed to the rafters with some of the most passionate fans.” Instead, the place was enveloped in a silence that amplified the ubiquitous thwap-thwap-thwap of feet striking a ball. You could hear birds chirping, the peal of the referee’s whistle, the occasional shouts of players — a pastoral soundscape reminiscent of a youth-soccer match on a village green.
The level of play was of course world-class, but the atmospherics made the game feel absurd. On the bench, players were spaced several seats apart to preserve social distance; coaches yelled instructions through surgical masks. It was a kind of zombie game, a grim parody of a typical Sunday in the Bundesliga, when the action on the pitch is egged on by a seething carnival in the stands.
The game’s key plays accentuated the weirdness. When Bayern took a 1-0 lead on a penalty kick, the ball rolled into a net that framed an expanse of desolate bleachers. The shot that sealed Bayern’s victory, a header by Benjamin Pavard late in the second half, made a sound that echoed eerily around the building: a resonant thud, like a judge slamming down a gavel, case closed. Both goals were followed by oddly muted celebrations — a couple of halfhearted fist pumps and scattered applause from the Bayern sideline. No handshakes, of course, and no big hugs.
Professional sports is among the industries hit hardest by the coronavirus crisis. Some other forms of mass entertainment managed to stagger along: Musicians record songs and livestream concerts from home, and talk shows have set up shop in their hosts’ living rooms. But sports ceased almost entirely, a loss that has rippled through the global economy and altered the lives of countless fans. There’s no doubt that soccer lovers worldwide are suffering withdrawal and are ravenous for new action. On the weekend the Bundesliga returned, broadcasts of the games reportedly set ratings records in Germany, and Fox Sports’ American telecast of one match on FS1 drew the largest market share for a Bundesliga game in the channel’s history.
Critics have questioned the decision to resume Bundesliga play, arguing that the move puts the health of players and others at risk and was compelled mostly by financial pressures. But more leagues may soon follow suit. Europe’s other elite soccer divisions — in England, Spain and Italy — seem poised to return within weeks. The N.B.A. is reportedly planning to restart, possibly heading straight into a 16-team playoff tournament. The fate of the Major League Baseball season has become entangled in disputes between team owners and the players’ union, but the sides are negotiating in hopes that a shortened schedule can begin in July. At the moment, it seems unlikely that fans will be present at any of these games, in any of these sports.
You would think that the sports world would be well positioned to adapt to this reality. Millions of ardent sports fans never attend games in person; for most people, a soccer or football or basketball game is a thing you watch on TV. For decades, television has been at the heart of sports culture, with leagues rejiggering game rules to create more gripping TV spectacles. At the stadiums themselves, there are jumbo scoreboards, hi-def screens on which fans follow the action and instant-replay reviews of referees’ calls. In soccer, there is already a history of matches played with no fans: For years, the sport’s governing bodies have occasionally imposed them as a penalty for team rule violations or supporters’ acts of hooliganism or racism.
All this would seem to bode well for what may become a protracted empty-stadium era. It might at first be a shock to watch a blood-and-thunder sporting event — a UEFA Champions League final or a World Series seventh game — unfolding amid the genteel hush we associate with tournament golf. But fans will adjust, as they have adjusted to the many overhauls, aesthetic and otherwise, that our pastimes have undergone across the decades. What matters, most would say, is that the show goes on, that the games are played.
But is that really what matters? Fans like to imagine that they are purists whose fever for sports derives from a devout Love of the Game. But fans don’t just love the games. They love all the corny stuff that comes with them. They love the pomp and circumstance. They love the communal vibe, the combination of party and riot and religious revival, that thrives in packed bars and teeming stadium stands. This is especially pronounced in club soccer, with its culture of “ultras,” superfans who attend every game, home and away, wearing team colors and waving flags and singing songs. These tribal rites won’t stand in 2020, when we measure our safety in distances of six feet and in the dispersal patterns of respiratory droplets. Even the humble, beery gathering to watch the game at home is deemed ill advised.
Sports lore holds that the relationship between fan and team is symbiotic and reciprocal. The heroism of the players brings cheers from the faithful; the cheers inspire the heroism. That ecosystem has been disrupted by the coronavirus. One of the most-discussed moments of the Bundesliga’s first weekend back came at the conclusion of the Borussia Dortmund-F.C. Schalke match, when Dortmund’s players saluted their fans in absentia, standing and applauding in front of the so-called Yellow Wall, the 25,000-seat stand where the club’s famously zealous ultras gather.
It was a nice gesture, but did Dortmund really miss those fans? The team thumped Schalke 4-0, an electric performance that kept them within four points of Bayern in a tight Bundesliga title race. To watch both teams play in these unnervingly silent stadiums is to confirm the obvious: Elite athletes will do great things on a field regardless of whether supporters are there to cheer them on. Those spectators are superfluous to soccer as a sport — what they’re essential to is soccer as show business. Fans watching at home need the fans in the stands; without them, a crucial life force drains from the games. The roar of the crowd is not mere background noise. It’s the music of sports — the soundtrack that transforms a ballgame into a melodrama, must-see TV, the greatest show on earth.
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June 04, 2020 at 04:29PM
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The Eerie Sound of Sports Without Fans - The New York Times
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