Hard Rock Stadium officials are trying their best to assure Miami Dolphins and Miami Hurricanes football fans they will be taking every possible precaution to keep everyone safe in announcing on Monday that a limited number of fans would be permitted at home games this season.
Well, they are not taking every possible precaution. Not the safest one of all, in fact. The safest by far.
That precaution would be not allowing fans at all _ like most every other major sports league is doing.
NBA teams are hermetically sealed in a bubble with no fans.
The NHL is doing the same.
MLB is playing in empty stadiums.
Half of college football is skipping the 2020 season entirely out of abundant caution.
The vast majority of NFL teams have said they will have no fans this season or at least to start.
But not us!
Not Miami-Dade Mayor Carlo Giminez, who has decided, along with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, that allowing 13,000 fans to be at Dolphins and Canes games starting next month will be safe ... enough.
Wow. Just wow.
Breaking down the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic's U.S. death toll of around 177,000 lives as of Monday, 15 counties nationwide have dubiously topped 2,000 deaths _ with Miami-Dade ninth overall with 2,238 deaths. So it is in the heart of one of America's hardest-hit counties that the Dolphins and UM are ready to welcome back fans?
It isn't smart, or safe.
Finally, South Florida is starting to see a decrease in new cases reported. This won't help.
No one of scientific repute believes we are anywhere near past this threat as a nation, or that there might not be another spike as fall edges toward winter. This won't help.
The Dolphins and UM are green-lighted to allow 13,000 fans per home game, starting with UM's September opener vs UAB and the Fins' September 17 opener vs. Buffalo. That's about 20% of capacity, but still a lot of people.
Yes, precautions will be built-in, such as a ban on tailgating, socially distanced seating clusters and mandatory masks when fans are not eating or drinking.
That's still 13,000 fans at one event? And, a show of hands, please: Who believes all of those folks will (except when taking a bite or a sip) be wearing a mask for three or four hours in our heat and humidity?
I have zero doubt Hard Rock Stadium,, the Dolphins and UM will do all they can to make attending games as safe as they can; it's simply irrefutable that having 13,000 fans gather comes with inherent health risk.
The Dolphins' letter to season-ticket holders advises that fans considered to be "high-risk" under CDC guideines not attend. That's how corporations cover their (bleep). Many thousands of people who were not at "high risk" have been among a death toll that figures to surpass 200,000 sometimes during football season. We're all at high risk if we aren't as careful as possible.
Miami Congresswoman Donna Shalala, the former cabinet secretary of Health and Human Services and former UM president, told the Herald, "It is very difficult to open anything when you have community spread. We still have community spread." She calls reopening large venues like Hard Rock Stadium "risky."
Hers is a neutral voice speaking, not the voice of a stadium or team official who absolutely must factor the financial benefits of having 13,000 fans per game against the health risks.
I haven't even gotten to what should concern the NFL even beyond the health risk of having any fans at games:
The competitive balance issue. Home field advantage is a quantifiable thing. Cheering fans are a huge part of that.
Is it fair that teams playing in empty stadiums and losing much of that home advantage will come to Miami and play before cheering Dolfans or Canes fans. Well ... no, not really.
I'd be uneasy about that, were I NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
Coach Shane McDermott of the Buffalo Bills, Miami's first home opponent upon learning the Dolphins would allow fans in: "I think it's honestly ridiculous that there will be, on the surface, what appears to be a playing field like that _ inconsistently across the league with the different away stadiums."
An unlevel playing field is what he meant. And he's right.
The health concern, of course, is exponentially greater than the matter of competitive fairness.
So remember, everyone, to protect yourself at all times even if Miami-Dade County, the state of Florida and Hard Rock Stadium aren't helping.
