Seahawks make it official: no fans for at least the first 3 home games because of COVID-19
The obvious has become official.
The Seahawks have announced their first three home games of the 2020 NFL season will be played inside CenturyLink Field with no fans in attendance. That’s because of ongoing restrictions in King County from the COVID-19 virus, policies that have no end in sight.
Seattle is scheduled to host the New England Patriots on Sept. 20, the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 27 and the Minnesota Vikings Oct. 11.
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult determination to play at least our first three home games (Sept. 20, Sept. 27 and Oct. 11) without fans in attendance,” the Seahawks said in a statement they released Wednesday. “While CenturyLink Field has become the best home field advantage in the league thanks to the energy and passion of the 12s, the health and safety of all of our fans, players and staff remains our top priority. While we are hopeful that conditions will improve as the season moves forward, we will continue to follow the lead of public health and government officials to make future decisions about having fans in attendance.”
So much for one of the loudest, most-impacting home-field advantages in the NFL.
“We would definitely miss our fans, no question,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said when he and the team was staring at this possibility back in June.
“No question.”
The Seahawks are having a mock game inside CenturyLink Field on Saturday and another one Aug. 26. They are to give the team a feel of what a real game in an empty home stadium will feel like this season. In recent years the team has had its annual mock-game scrimmages at local high-school stadiums, such as last summer in Bothell in front of thousands of fans.
The first time the Seahawks could possibly have paying customers inside their 69,000-seat home stadium, in a reduced capacity, would be Nov. 1 against the defending NFC-champion San Francisco 49ers.
The team added: “If conditions improve and it is determined that it is safe for fans to attend games under a limited capacity, the Seahawks will reach out to season ticket holders who have requested to continue receiving game-day details.”
But fans at any games in Seattle this calendar year remains a long shot.
In May commissioner Roger Goodell sent a memorandum to all 32 NFL teams requiring them to reimburse any ticket sales if fans are unable to attend games this year due to social distancing. Goodell’s memo stated: “All clubs will have in place a policy under which, if a game is canceled, or is played under conditions that prohibit fans from attending, anyone purchasing a ticket directly from the club (i.e., season tickets, group sales and/or partial season plans) will have the option of either receiving a full refund or applying the amount paid toward a future ticket purchase directly from the club.”
Seattle and King County remain stalled in phase two of Gov. Jay Inslee’s four-phase Safe Start program to reopen Washington from the coronavirus pandemic that shut down the state beginning in March. Inslee issued a directive in June that allows pro sports practices and games in the state, but without fans attending.
The Seahawks have been preparing for this since inevitability for months.
A league source with knowledge of their contingency planning told The News Tribune in early June the Seahawks were exploring the possibility of playing their eight regular-season home games in a half-filled or less CenturyLink Field, because of social-distancing requirements in the coronavirus pandemic. That plan could involve leaving entire sections and rows empty, and decisions on which season-ticket holders would get which games as part of amended packages.
Behind the scenes the Seahawks have been considering home games with fewer than half their seats filled, with perhaps 20,000 or fewer fans. That would leave entire swaths of CenturyLink Field empty—and quiet.
This week the Atlanta Falcons announced they will have no fans at their home games through the end of September. That includes the Seahawks’ opener inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta Sept. 13. But Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said last week his team intends to have fans at their home games. Texas currently allows half capacity at stadium for pro sports, if that meshes with league policies.
The NFL so far is leaving decisions on fans in stands this season up to each team and its local government and public-health policy.
Forbes has estimated the NFL could lose 38 percent of its revenue—$5.5 billion in sales of tickets, concessions, sponsors, parking and at team stores—if it plays games in stadiums with no fans in them this season.
Using team revenue data from 2018, Forbes said the Seahawks were 16th, right in the middle of the league, in in-stadium revenue at $156 million of its $439 million in total revenue. That would be a loss of 35.5% of its total revenue if Seattle doesn’t have fans at its games this season. (The majority of team revenues come from the NFL’s national television contracts, which are worth more than $7 billion annually).
On the field, competitively, this is potentially a bigger deal in Seattle than in other NFL cities.
I’ve been to every stadium in the league during my career, plus many no longer in existence. CenturyLink Field with its cantilevered roofs bounding the sound back of 69,000 screaming Seahawks fans back onto the field, Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, home to the Super Bowl-champion Chiefs, and the New Orleans Saints’ Superdome are the NFL’s loudest places. Those venues have a tangible impact on each game played there.
Seattle uncharacteristically dipped last season going 4-4 in CenturyLink Field. That cost the Seahawks the NFC West title, home playoff games after a 10-2 start and their best chance to get back to the Super Bowl.
Since they moved to the NFC and into their new SoDo stadium in 2002 the Seahawks are second in the NFC in home wins to Green Bay at Lambeau Field (101). Seattle is 99-45 at home, a .688 winning percentage, in that span. Virtually all of those games have been played before a packed house. Only one Seahawks home game since 2003 has not been sold out.
Seattle is 48-16 with a point differential of plus-538 in their last 64 home games. That’s the league’s second-best home record and home point differential since 2012 (New England, 54-10, plus-790).
The noise has made Seattle the home stadium with the most false-starts by opponents over the last decade. All-Pro middle linebacker Bobby Wagner often talks of how difficult it is for him to relay defensive signals and adjustments to his Seahawks teammates over the noise inside CenturyLink Field before each opposing offense’s plays. Wagner has said it’s in some ways easier for the Seahawks to play defense on the road because of Seattle’s home noise.
“Well, maybe everybody can just watch the game (on television) and yell out the window,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said, maybe only half-jokingly. “And we’ll still be relatively really good.”
The Seahawks have had official sell-out crowds in 146 consecutive home games. The CenturyLink Field attendance record is 69,190 for Seattle’s game against Philadelphia on Nov. 20, 2016. For the seventh-consecutive year, Seattle posted at least a 97% rate of season-ticket renewals while selling all 61,000 of its available season tickets. Season tickets remain sold out, and the team’s “Blue Pride” waiting list for them is currently at capacity with 12,000 membership deposits.
So, yes, playing home games with half, fewer than half or none of the usual sellout crowds would negate a huge Seahawks advantage this season.
“You know, whatever has to happen,” coach Pete Carroll said. “Everybody needs to be wide open and ready to adapt and all of that and all aspects of our lives right now, and certainly as we approach the season. We are going to have to be prepared.
“There’s still a great opportunity to show the game to our fans through the media resources. But if that’s the way it is, it will be a different experience—but it can happen.
“There’s scrimmages and stuff like that you have and you’ve played, we pipe in sound and all that. If we are playing and there’s no fans, I promise you, I’m going to do everything I can to pipe in the sound to make it as loud as possible, and we’ll do everything we can to make that happen.”
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 3:38 PM.
