Sports fans must be nurtured
The global coronavirus pandemic has sent the sports world into a constantly changing state of uncertainty with matches in many codes being either cancelled, postponed or played to empty stadiums.
Although far bigger issues are at play now throughout the world than just sport, it has sparked plenty of debate about the impact and importance of spectators in all sports.
Is a top-level game of rugby, netball, cricket, league or whatever code, just as absorbing a contest without the reactions of the crowd? Or does it reduce as a spectacle minus the involvement of fans?
Some may argue that fans don’t really matter. The players are still performing at the top level, displaying all their skills and the overriding will to win among professional athletes will always be present.
However, from a TV viewer’s point of view, contests without fans seem to be strangely unfulfilling, leaving the armchair watcher feeling almost as empty as those stadiums.
Professional sport really does need fans to survive and flourish.
The one-day cricket international between Australia and New Zealand at the Sydney Cricket Ground (before the rest of the ODI and twenty20 series was abandoned) was a bizarre spectacle, more akin to a lower-grade club fixture and both teams almost played like it was at that level as well. Fans are more than just ball retrievers when a six is hit into the stands.
This should be a huge wake-up call to all sports bosses when the world eventually returns to normal in a post-coronavirus environment.
All sports need to look after their fans and do whatever they can to nurture them and entice them to games. The future of each sport may well depend on it.
– Chris Bush