Athletes and reporters, together again — Sporting KC’s baby steps back to normal
We took rapid tests and wore masks and distanced, so it would be a lie to say we went back to normal.
But my personal and unofficial count turned out to be two handshakes (including one semi-bro hug), eight fist-bumps and the kind of easy and casual talk that lets you get to know people better — so it would be a lie to say we were fully stuck, too.
The occasion was Sporting Kansas City’s media day, which we know is the first (official) in-person media interaction with any major team in town in more than 13 months. Sporting was the first MLS team to ditch Zoom for its media day, and club officials didn’t know of any other team planning to follow suit.
The motivation is capitalism: What better way to tell people you’re open for business than to invite a bunch of reporters out to tell the story?
But the effect is welcomed — video calls have become a necessary evil, but they’re less and less necessary every day now.
“This is where we’re going, right?” Sporting KC CEO Jake Reid said. “We’re not back the other way.”
Sporting has been a consistent leader in this space. It was the first club to return to in-person training, with a plan that was generally distributed to the rest of the league and eventually led to MLS Is Back tournament. The team welcomed about 2,500 fans per game toward the end of last season, the first major sports events open to the public in Kansas City during the pandemic.
Sporting’s home opener is against Orlando City Friday night, and about 7,000 fans will be allowed in a stadium with 18,500 capacity. Sporting hopes — expects, really — to be at full capacity by the summer.
The Chiefs allowed about 16,000 fans per game throughout the 2020 season and hope to be at full capacity in the fall. The Royals are allowing about 9,000, with hopes of steadily increasing toward full capacity soon.
This is what the walk back to full life looks like and, to be honest, it feels a little arbitrary and overdue.
It’s hard to know what’s prudent caution, what’s reckless and what’s COVID theater. Sporting fans will be in pods of mostly two or four seats. Those in field-level seats will be required to take rapid tests, and the league office made Sporting install plexiglass in front of those seats as additional protection.
Then, after the plexiglass was up, the league office said it wasn’t necessary. Maybe it’ll come down after a few games.
We’re all guessing.
“I think you can do so much more, personally,” Sporting manager Peter Vermes said. “I know we’re not changing that, but I just think we’ve got to get moving.”
That’s a hard agree from me, for whatever it’s worth. More than 200 million doses of COVID vaccine have been given in America, with nearly 90 million adults fully vaccinated. Case numbers in Kansas City remain at their lowest since before last summer’s surge.
We can be cautious without being reckless. We can be mindful of not spreading a virus that’s killed some 568,000 while also allowing ourselves to live fully.
The restrictions have been in place for so long that even small steps back can feel strange. Some of you reading this never changed many of your habits. Some of you changed everything. Some of you lost nothing, and some lost a job, or worse. We’re all coming from different places. Hopefully, by now, we’re all going in the same direction.
Major sports teams have generally defaulted to — and once this is all over can we agree to shoot this phrase directly into the sun? — an Abundance Of Caution. That’s the easier way. There’s a lot of money at stake, and the fewer unknowns the better.
A team’s media day is not a major event, but Sporting KC’s work toward the reality we all want to regain is a reminder of what’s been lost. Zoom calls are fine for the basics, but it essentially turns every interaction into a bland press conference.
I learned a lot on Wednesday — about Sporting’s ongoing frustration with their TV distribution through Bally’s, about Johnny Russell’s understated but real way of bringing younger players along, about Vermes’ personal and professional challenges and successes of leading a team through a pandemic and so much else.
Casual swearing was back, baby, which any sportswriter will tell you is always a sign of honesty.
One of the most basic requirements for successful teams is to create connections with fans, and one of the easiest ways to do that is through the media. Ours is a weird, often combative and fundamentally symbiotic relationship.
Sporting’s post-game access will still be done virtually, but hopefully what Reid said at the top is true for all teams and most businesses — this is where we’re going, right?
One of America’s great big-picture failures is that COVID became politicized. Maybe that was inevitable — everything is politicized these days — but one of the consequences is that it’s driven one group of otherwise logically thinking people to be more cautious than is necessary and another group of otherwise logically thinking people to be on the other extreme.
It’s contributed to an inherently dishonest response by many of us, and at least from the extremely cautious has engendered a weird version of shame in taking their lives back.
We’re all searching for our specific and personal comfort zones, but the push for bigger attendance for outdoor games makes scientific and logical sense. Coaches and executives hold professional in-person meetings all the time, so allowing in-person interviews — limited, distanced and outdoors, at least for now — also makes sense.
Teams and leagues like to position themselves as leaders, but the truth is that more often they follow — their business interests, their sponsor’s interests, their fans’ interest.
This is one place where following those interests is making Sporting KC a leader. We need real life back, step by step and hopefully with bigger steps soon. Sporting made a small step this week. Hopefully bigger steps are coming.
This story was originally published April 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.