Sporting played Kansas City’s first game with fans in months. Here’s what it felt like
Here I am, mask on, fingers typing as the sanitizer dries and this is not what I expected. What did I expect? Well, see, I, um, well ... I do not know. I can’t say, because I’ve never done this.
I’m here at Children’s Mercy Park, and 60 feet or so below my seat in the press box, Sporting Kansas City is playing Houston. The game, honestly, isn’t that great.
There’s not a lot of rhythm. The players are energized, you can see that. They are not in form, and you can see that, too. Especially Sporting. Its defense will probably break down again before the end of this sentence. Later, coach Peter Vermes will say his team was “chasing shadows” for much of the 5-2 loss. That’s a generous description.
But who cares! That’s not why I’m here. That’s not why any of the 2,300 or so fans are here, either, nearly all in masks despite a kickoff temperature around 90 degrees. We’re all here for the same reason.
Because we can be.
Sporting had not played here with fans in more than five months. Kansas City’s last game with enough interest for a TV audience and enough confidence from public officials to host fans happened in the Big 12 tournament 167 days ago ... and doesn’t that seem like 167 years ago?
This is how a lot of us mark the seasons — from baseball to football to basketball, with soccer happening almost constantly, then back to baseball. That stopped in March, like everything else.
Sports have been back for more than a month now in this country. The MLS is Back tournament started on July 8. Baseball got over its stupid in-fighting in time to begin July 23. But, no fans.
The show goes on, because that’s what we’ve chosen. Leagues have TV contracts to satisfy. People have lives to live. So we move forward, sports wrapped in the same cloak of masks and distancing and guesses as everything else. But, again. No fans.
The NBA is playing in a bubble, with fans shown digitally, presumably through Zoom, because everything is through Zoom now. Baseball, bless its heart, is piping in fake noise from a video game partner. In the words of the great American philosopher Whit Merrifield, “it sucks, honestly.”
Sporting took a major step here on Tuesday night, then. MLS has shown itself to be aggressive. As of Tuesday, only five NFL teams — including the Chiefs — had announced plans to host fans. The Royals hoped to do the same and created a plan, but the commissioner’s office has not OK’d fans anywhere.
Sporting is one of MLS’ greatest success stories. Back in the Wizards days, support was so thin many inside the organization believed the team would move. Lamar Hunt, the founder and visionary, essentially cried uncle, selling the team in 2006 to two local businessmen as a sort of desperation move to keep professional soccer here.
You know what happened after that. The team changed its name, changed stadiums (twice), and changed how the city viewed a sport. A gorgeous new stadium was built, the image professionalized, the experience energized. Sporting became so popular it had a season-ticket waiting list.
This all happened because of fans, because of you, and no matter how the business of sports makes fans feel sometimes the truth has always been that fans are all that matters. With them, a league and team can do anything. Without, and, well, it can be pretty lonely.
We’ve had a lot of lonely lately. Games on TV are nice, and the cardboard cutouts behind home plate are a fun touch, but the purpose of sports is fun. Empty stadiums aren’t as fun.
We got a little bit of fun back on Tuesday. We could not have known how this would go. If I’m honest, I probably expected some combination of exhibition game energy, faint cheers echoing off empty seats, a lot of pretending.
Sporting officials did what they could. Parking spots were spaced. No tailgating, though if you and your buddy hung by the car for a quick beer nobody’s calling the cops, if you know what I mean.
Entrance times were staggered and masks required, even in this heat. Cashless concession stands. They even blocked off every other urinal. It’s hard to know where the logical safety measures end and COVID-19 theater begins.
Pre-game was weird. Fans messaged in with stories about ushers confused over which seats could be used. There was some mask shaming. But we’re outside. Is this worse than the grocery store? Who can know?
People here really wanted to be here. More messages. Dan Merker stood in the Cauldron and for the first time felt “acutely aware” of how all the singing and chanting and screaming at the referee could spread COVID. He thought about his breath, and the big exhales. That’s a strange thing to think about, right? Then, everything is so strange.
Many fans at home really wanted to be here, too. More messages. Some hadn’t missed a game in years. Benjamin Cunningham made tacos, and watched the game with family. He said missing the game “hurts,” but his job requires an emphasis on safety. We’re all making the best decisions we can.
This feels mean to say, because Benjamin might be reading, but he missed a therapeutic show. This is the part I did not anticipate. The first roar of the crowd — again, just 14 percent of what this place usually holds — made my skin tingle. My stomach moved. I’m a grown adult, with a mortgage and two kids. This shouldn’t happen.
That’s a noise I hadn’t heard in months, one that I can admit now I took for granted and did not realize how much I missed. Group cheers. Happiness, together. This communal experience. Distanced, sure, but not on Zoom and not on your couch while you text your buddies. This was here, right in front of us all, and it was spectacular.
At times, you could hear the cicadas outside the stadium. At other times, all you heard was a spontaneous and forceful roar from friends and strangers who hadn’t been able to feel this way in what felt like forever.
They needed this. We needed it. I needed it, and didn’t even realize it.
There is a potential dark side to all this. That must be understood, and recognized. Teams can create protocols that public health officials approve, but those protocols are only as good as the worst offender who doesn’t know they have the virus. Was someone infected at the game?
Maybe. Probably. Who can say?
In two weeks, the Chiefs will host about seven times as many fans for a game that will be watched by millions around the country and the world. Soccer and football crowds in this country are very different.
But on some level, they’re all the same. We are all the same. Our lives have paused, then shifted in a way we could not have imagined.
We’re trying to figure out new ways to work, and now some of us are trying to figure out how to bend that new way around kids going back to school. A lot of us are just hoping our kids can go back to school. A chance at something close to normalcy is about the best gift a team can give us right now.
We talk sometimes about sports as an escape. That’s part of the charm, but can mean different things to different people. This was nice, then. This was one night that sports meant the same thing to all of us. A chance to cheer again, to feel again. Finally.
This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 11:06 PM.