Sports fans in Australia have enjoyed more live action from inside stadiums than anywhere else in the world, and there are plans for even more positive news ahead of the football seasons in 2021.
Having navigated the coronavirus outbreak with closed internal borders from one state to another and moving competitions to places where crowds were allowed, some of Australia’s biggest sporting dates in 2020 were witnessed firsthand.
At the AFL Grand Final in October last year, a total of 30,000 were able to witness the season’s masterpiece of the Australian Rules. However, it had to take place in the Gabba and Brisbane instead of the spiritual home of sport in the MCG en Melbourne.
The NRL Grand Final, which also took place in October, drew a crowd of 37,303 to the ANZ Stadium in Sydney.
The Bledisloe Cup rugby match between New Zealand and Australia at Eden Park in Auckland drew 46,049 fans, while 52,500 attended the State of Origin rugby league clash between Queensland and their New South Wales rivals held in Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
The Sydney Cricket Ground hosted 48,000 people for the third and final international T20 between Australia and India, while the test series saw the return of partial capacity crowds at Adelaide Oval, MCG, SCG and Gabba.
With COVID-19 largely under control, barring a few outbreaks, Big Bash League cricket has had crowds to witness the action, particularly in Melbourne, the sports-mad city hardest hit by the closures.
The entire 2020 AFL season was held outside of Victoria, the state where the game is most popular. But organizers are already planning to hold as many games as possible within the MCG this year to make up for the lack of spectators last season.
While the capacity limits are still in effect, a maximum of 50% of the MCG would mean that more than 50,000 can attend the games. And that is likely to result in a significant number of Melbourne matches played at the venue during the 2021 AFL season.
“It is different by state and will change between now and the start of the season, probably if the last 12 months are something to go through,” AFL game chief Travis Auld told SEN.
“If it’s based on percentages, then yeah, that’s something we need to take into account. Fifty percent of the MCG is obviously larger than fifty percent of the other places.
“That is something we will have to work on as the season progresses, but there are trade agreements and agreements with each of the venues, so it is not as easy as the full flexibility we had in 2020.”
Meanwhile, NRL teams may not be forced to stay in biosecurity bubbles this season, something that was the case in 2020.
The NRL has announced which, instead, will keep teams on Apollo Standby, their protocol for being prepared to go into bubbles if something develops on the coronavirus front.
They also expect to have crowds in the stadiums, which was the case towards the end of the 2020 season, including the Grand Final.
“There is no difference in fundamental terms in what is happening now compared to the grand finale,” NRL biosecurity expert Associate Professor David Heslop told the Sydney Morning Herald. “So, no, I don’t see any barrier to having crowds.”
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