Fans were allowed at Bank of America Stadium for the first time this year on Oct. 4, and the Carolina Panthers found a way to keep them in their seats after the game. getty images
By October, the NFL had identified some common problems in stadiums that were allowing fans to attend games under strict COVID conditions. For instance: Fans would all leave at the same time, creating congestion and undermining social distancing efforts.
The Carolina Panthers had a simple solution at their Oct. 4 game against the Arizona Cardinals, the first in which fans were allowed at Bank of America Stadium: Show NFL RedZone on the video boards after the game. It seemed to work, and within two days, that idea made its way to the NFL’s club business development division, which spread the idea around to the 31 other teams.
In normal times, the NFL would send employees to every game to grade the home team’s execution on the fan experience, with oversight in mind. But with travel strictly limited, the league has transformed the “league observer” program into a hub-and-spoke model of sharing best practices by phone and video conference.
It’s particularly useful considering the patchwork of local regulations on event attendance, which has led to more teams learning the COVID ropes each week. After starting Week 1 with just two stadiums open, 19 of 30 markets now allow fans.
“A couple of teams have hosted fans a couple of times now, so each week they’re saying what they are doing differently, and that goes into a report for all 32,” said Glenn Hyams, the NFL’s manager of club business development. “If something works well, they’re making it known across the whole league.”
The postmortems happen a few days after games, and they include team officials who oversee security, COVID protocol, concessions, game presentation, parking and ticketing, among others. This discussion gets augmented by survey data created by the league’s Voice of the Fan customer satisfaction surveys, which go to all fans in attendance.
The priority is pandemic mitigation, but the NFL is still watching the game presentation. Convincing fans that pandemic-era attendance is both safe and worth the trouble is important, especially considering that there is evidence of soft demand in some markets.
“We owe them a good time,” said Bobby Gallo, the NFL’s senior vice president of club business development. They believe they’ve achieved that — game-day satisfaction rates on the surveys is at an all-time high this year, Gallo said.
Another success story shared around the league has been using signs to drive mask compliance. The Kansas City Chiefs found early on that having staffers at Arrowhead Stadium frequently flash hand-held signs helped remind people who’d taken their masks off to put them back on.
In Denver, the video board at Empower Field at Mile High lights up with reminders featuring star Broncos players and puns — for instance, a photo of masked running back Phillip Lindsay included the caption, “The only way we Phillip the stands is if you wear your mask.”
The league doesn’t get quite the same level of detail it can by sending employees to the stadiums, Gallo and Hyams acknowledged. But the pipeline that’s been developed by the league and teams to share challenges and solutions in the 7-year-old program has made getting through COVID easier.
Said Gallo: “The structure we built out through this program is absolutely being woven into the work we’re doing today.”
