Listen, I’m not a sports fan, NGL. I only know the Super Bowl because of the performers on the halftime show. But you gotta admit, what they did to work around the pandemic restrictions was… interesting.
For people at home (and for non-sports fans like me), the Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League (NFL) in the US. It’s one of the much-awaited sports events there, kinda like our UAAP or boxing matches.
On Sunday, Feb. 7, fans filled up the Raymond James Stadium in Florida for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Kansas City Chiefs game. Well, fans sorta filled up the stadium, anyway.
You’d think it’d be a social distancing nightmare with about 25,000 fans in attendance, but here’s the kicker: The rest of the seats in the 65,618-capacity were filled by cardboard cutouts.
Cardboard cutouts of fans, former NFL players and some other Easter eggs like cartoon characters filled the other half of the stadium to create the appearance of a packed stadium. Some people who were recognized for their healthcare service and charity work during the pandemic were also featured in the cardboard crowd.
I guess that’s one way to push through a socially distanced event. Though only half of the capacity are actual people and a fraction of that in-person crowd got vaccinated, 25,000 is such a huge number, especially given our current situation.
It’s easy to believe in the illusion that things are back to normal but in case anyone forgets, we’re still in a health crisis. Which is why I will now be attending future, post-pandemic events that I don’t like in cardboard cutout form.
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Photo by Brian Snyder of Reuters