Fans not allowed at NCAA hoops tournaments due to coronavirus
The NCAA announced Wednesday the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be held as scheduled at all venues next week, but without fans present.
NCAA president Mark Emmert said in a statement that he made the decision after consulting with public health officials in an attempt to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected hundreds of people across the United States over the past week.
The Southeastern Conference said it would open its men’s basketball tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville as planned Wednesday night, with Ole Miss facing Georgia and Vanderbilt playing Arkansas in first-round games. The SEC planned to admit fans.
“The @SEC is aware of the statement just released by the @NCAA,” the conference wrote in a statement on Twitter. “Tonight’s SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament games will continue as regularly scheduled. We are evaluating plans for the remainder of the tournament. More to come.”
At press time, no changes had been announced for the AAC Tournament.
Attendance at the NCAA Tournament events will be limited to essential staff and family members, Emmert said.
“The NCAA continues to assess the impact of COVID-19 in consultation with public health officials and our COVID-19 advisory panel,” Emmert said in the statement. “Based on their advice and my discussions with the NCAA Board of Governors, I have made the decision to conduct our upcoming championship events, including the Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, with only essential staff and limited family attendance.
“While I understand how disappointing this is for all fans of our sports, my decision is based on the current understanding of how COVID-19 is progressing in the United States. This decision is in the best interest of public health, including that of coaches, administrators, fans and, most importantly, our student-athletes.”
Emmert told The Associated Press that the NCAA is also considering whether to move the Final Four in Atlanta out of Mercedes-benz Arena, which houses the NFL’S Atlanta Falcons, and into a smaller venue. The news agency reported that regional games could be moved to smaller venues in their same cities.
The Division I men’s basketball tournament, known as March Madness, is one of the premier events in college sports — attracting hundreds of thou
sands of fans and generating millions of dollars in revenue for the NCAA. The 2018 tournament brought in $844.3 million in television and marketing rights alone, according to The Associated Press.
Now, the 67-game men’s tournament will be played in empty arenas at 14 sites throughout the country, beginning Tuesday night with the “First Four” in Dayton, Ohio.
The bracket for the men will be announced Sunday evening. The women, who open on campus sites next weekend, will see their bracket Monday.
There appeared to be an appreciation of the unique challenges that the NCAA Tournament could pose from a public health standpoint — with fans from one part of the country traveling to another, and then convening in close quarters. Multiple public health experts had cautioned against playing NCAA Tournament games with fans in the days and hours leading up to Wednesday’s decision.
The NCAA’S move follows a series of similar measures in several U.S. cities and in sports leagues around the world.
In Japan, the country’s premier baseball league postponed the start of its season, while one of its largest sumo wrestling events opened without fans. In Italy, the government first barred spectators from games before later moving to suspend all sporting events in the country through April 3. And in France and Spain, key soccer matches were slated to be played behind closed doors.
The NCAA had, as of Tuesday morning, indicated that there would be no changes to its NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, even as the Ivy League cancelled its conference basketball tournaments before they began and Division III tournament games were played in empty arenas.
That thinking changed, however, as public officials began to change their stance and cautioned against large gatherings of people.
By Tuesday night, the NCAA had warned that it would be making “decisions in the coming days” based on conversations with experts, including a COVID-19 advisory panel it created earlier this month.
The decision to move March Madness behind closed doors represents a new frontier of sorts for American sports, which have never seen an event of this size and scope take place without fans present.
While such a step has been taken on rare occasions due to weather or security-related concerns — including, most notably, a Baltimore Orioles game in 2015 that was played without fans following the death of Freddie Gray — it had never been realistically considered by sports organizations en masse.
It’s unclear how players, teams and TV viewers will react to the change. Will the eerie quiet of an empty arena negatively affect a TV broadcast, for example? Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College, certainly thinks so.
“It’s never as much fun to watch a game on television when you’re looking at empty seats in the stands,” Zimbalist told USA TODAY Sports last week. “So it could have impacts on television ratings.”
Jim Nantz, who will help broadcast NCAA Tournament games on CBS, told reporters on a conference call Tuesday that he hopes the event can help viewers take their minds off the virus.
“This comes at a time where the country really needs more than ever a chance to have something that brings some joy/fun into their lives,” he said. “More of an escapism, if you will.”