Football Without Fans: Is It The Same?
In the unreal year of 2020, the world faced one of the biggest crises in human history, COVID-19. The pandemic caused a paradigm shift that we eventually described as the ‘new normal’, leaving people stranded in their homes and making them strangers to social interaction. The sports industry got its share of the shockwave, resulting in the resumption of football without fans. But in an industry where the fans are described as the 12th man on the pitch, is it really possible to carry on without them? This blog post will explore how the pandemic affected the multi-billion dollar football industry in England and the supporter culture.
(Original publish date: December 2020)
On 31 December 2019, the city of Wuhan in China announced that a number of patients were being treated for an unknown type of pneumonia that causes high fever and breathing difficulties. At the time, it was never expected that this new disease could change the world as we know it. On 11 January 2020, the Chinese government announced the first death related to said disease and the rest came at light speed. Later in January, several governments announced first cases in their countries and on January 30th, World Health Organization declared the situation to be a ‘public health emergency of international concern’.
Countries took a number of measures to stop the spread of the virus; cities entered into lockdowns and public gatherings were banned, which meant the end of every event on the world. Following these measures, the English Premier League announced on March 13th that the League is postponed until April 4th. The league wouldn’t restart until June 17th, but there was a twist when it finally did.
Initial Reactions
After shaking off the initial shock, sports organisations looked for ways to continue to the games, because as the band Queen famously said, ‘The show must go on.’ The German professional football league, Bundesliga, became the first organization to restart the league on May 16th with a handful of precautions. Out of the announced precautions, one measure stood out: No fans were allowed in the stadiums. The Premier League (EPL) started again on June 17th with similar precautions. For many clubs, this huge twist to the sport meant that they were stripped off crucial streams of income, since matchday revenues generate most of their income and it was also indirectly affecting their sponsorship deals.
Importance of Income
Financial consequences of the pandemic are relentless for the football industry. From top to bottom, all clubs face huge losses of income. It is predicted that the total revenue of the EPL clubs will suffer from a decrease of 17%. In the EPL, matchday revenues account for 13% of the clubs’ total revenues. However, as we go down the football pyramid, dependency on the matchday revenues increases. Whilst the clubs in the English Football League generate 20% of their total income from matchday revenues, in Leagues 1 and 2 this figure reaches as high as 30%.
In addition to the loss of matchday revenues, the clubs will also suffer from the loss of sponsorship deals. No fans meant no exposure, so many clubs will have to deal with their unwilling sponsors. Management consultancy firm Deloitte predicts that many commercial partners will have to alter their spending decisions and they may retreat from the football industry in the short run. Even though the EPL clubs have global sponsors that still want to be associated with football, many small clubs have sponsorship deals with local partners whose discretionary expenditures are under scrutiny. When we look at these figures, it is certain that many clubs will suffer from financial hardship. To at least alleviate the pain to some extent, the clubs are looking for alternative ways to create income. In the end, without fans, a seat in a stadium is a perishable asset.
Solutions of the Clubs
One of the common solutions in the football industry became selling cardboard cut-outs to fans. Most EPL clubs offer this to their fans for around £20. Apart from creative solutions, there was one controversial solution. The EPL announced that some fixtures will be aired on a pay-per-view basis. The initial plan was to charge fans £14.95 to watch selected fixtures, however, after getting backlash from the fans, the clubs and the league administration abandoned the plan. Alongside creating new sources of income, some clubs choose to cut expenses. Some EPL clubs announced that their players and coaches agreed to pay cuts on their salaries and some clubs across the UK put their staff into the government’s furlough scheme.
What about the Fans?
Up until this point, we looked into clubs’ perspectives, but the pandemic also affected the most important stakeholder of football: Fans. Back in the ‘normal’ days, football was more than a 90 minutes event. It was catching a train at 8am to go to an away game, chanting at pubs. It was a major element of the social fabric, bringing communities together. Being away from this sense of community will have major effects on health, wellbeing, happiness and ultimately social capital. Furthermore, it can be said that the very nature of fandom itself has been cut out from the sport. Liew suggests that the dynamics of fandom are shifting towards a digital sphere where the fans cannot enjoy the experience of being physically present.The players also mention their frustration with playing without the fans. Ben Mee, the captain of Burnley FC, states, ‘I have struggled to get the same rush of adrenaline before a match and I am not alone in that’. Ben Foster, goalkeeper for Watford FC, says in a YouTube video that he missed the extra buzz created by the 12th man and he’d take a loss in front of the fans rather than a win without them.
The pandemic threats every aspect and stakeholder of football. It’s uncertain when we will go back to ‘normal’ but it’s undeniable that the game we love is not the same without fans in the stadium where they belong.
