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On any given Sunday, the Inglewood streets might be jammed with cars. The parking lots might be crowded. The lines at the concession stands might be long and winding. The seats and luxury suites might be filled to capacity with excited football fans hours before the opening kickoff.
On any given Sunday but this one, of course.
SoFi Stadium, the new $5 billion home of the Rams and Chargers, opens its doors Sunday evening.
Sort of.
Fans are not invited.
The Rams and Dallas Cowboys will play a nationally televised, season-opening game in an empty stadium because of an ongoing coronavirus pandemic that’s forced professional and college teams in all sports around the globe to adjust to how they do business.
“It’s a bummer,” Rams coach Sean McVay said.
The Rams, Chargers and 25 other NFL teams will begin their seasons without fans. Five teams, including the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, planned for limited attendance to start the 2020 season. The Chargers’ home opener is Sept. 20 against Kansas City.
Kansas City’s season-opening game Thursday against the Houston Texans provided a glimpse of what SoFi Stadium might look like if and when fans are allowed to attend games. Seating was limited to about 17,000, or roughly 20% of capacity. Fans wore masks and were socially distanced.
“There is certainly a bittersweet element to opening up this building without fans, but I think that’s such a short-term perspective,” said Kevin Demoff, the Rams’ chief operating officer. “This building will create memories for Angelenos for a long time, for decades. It’s been decades in the making and if it takes a little bit longer for Angelenos to get here, I think it’s well worth the wait.”
No question, SoFi Stadium is a palace, a 70,000-seat marvel on the former site of Hollywood Park that is scheduled to host the Super Bowl in 2022, the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2028 Olympics, and countless other events great and small in addition to Rams’ and Chargers’ games.
However, the impact of playing without fans in the stands “until further notice” because of the pandemic, as the teams phrased it recently, could be wide-ranging. For instance, lost revenue from potential ticket sales could be as much as $189 million for the Rams and $164 million for the Chargers, according to the secondary ticket sales website TicketIQ.
The Rams and Chargers won’t go broke because the NFL’s lucrative network TV deals will keep them in the black, according to David Carter, a sports business consultant and a professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business. The teams could lose in other ways apart from dollars and cents, though.
“The challenges for the Rams and the Chargers are the same, but it’s harder for the Chargers,” Carter said. “They didn’t get here (to Los Angeles) first, the Rams did. It’s going to be harder for them to pull together a virtual fan base. It’s going to be hard enough for stronger brands like the Rams.
“Sports, to me, are out of sight and out of mind right now.”
Carter offered …read more
Source:: Los Angeles Daily News
