Long term effects of COVID on attendance

[mvfcfan]

To answer your analogy I would say that as someone that would be spending money at the arena and throughout the city (or general area) at restaurants, hotels, etc, that I would be hurting them far greater than they would be hurting me. Note that I am still getting my basketball and spending money in a different city (Evansville).

As far as I'm concerned I work hard for my money and when I go to spend my money on entertainment, I'm not going to spend it places that try to make my life miserable with vax mandates, negative tests, mask police, etc. I've been to St Louis 6 years in a row and that will end this year. Last year I wasn't going to go at all, but I was talked into going to the championship game. Had a very lousy time to be completely honest. I literally pulled my mask down to boo a ref and some cop was up in my face about it within 15 seconds. Until that place is 100% back to normal I won't be back. I can live without physically going to Arch Madness and the championship game is free to watch on TV anyways. I can save the 6 hours total of driving and do something more productive with my time.

I'm also pretty confident that attendance will be lousy for Arch Madness this year. A lot of folks out there just aren't going to want to deal with the hassle. Eventually the arena and/or the city of StL will have to change their policy unless they just enjoy losing money. So in my view we're the water and they're the fish, because without us they don't make a profit.

Totally fair and I still respect you a ton for standing up for what you think is right.
I just ask that you give the league and St. Louis a chance. I don't think last year (in the midst of a global pandemic) is the best way to judge Arch Madness. The NCAA didn't allow fans period until the Sweet 16 if memory serves me.
What did the OVC do last year for their final in regards to masks and fans? I'm not sure if it was any different, just asking.

Well thank you for respecting my opinion. I also respect you for that and for asking questions. I definitely don't mind answering them.

For the OVC they required masks throughout the game, but if you were holding say a popcorn bag or a drink in your hand they wouldn't bother you at all, so I just put the bag in my lap and left it there the entire time. There definitely wasn't any insane rule that you had to mask up between bites. They also were giving out neck gaiters, which were banned at St Louis, for fans to wear. The neck gaiters were extremely thin and you could legit blow air through them and feel your air with your hand lol. Evansville actually acted like they were happy people showed up. St Louis acted like they wished we weren't there at all.

The Ford Center / OVC this year just requires masks. You don't have to test or show vax proof. I've watched some Evansville Aces games this year and it appears that they do not enforce the mask at all, since most of the people at their games are not wearing them. When I go I will probably wear the neck gaiter again and then just pull it down when I get to my seat. And after my experience in Evansville last year I feel very comfortable returning even though things aren't completely normal yet.

[mvfcfan]

I need to correct myself above so I'm not spreading misinformation. The Ford Center does not require masks, vax proof, or neg tests. It's going to be 100% back to normal in Evansville this year, so I won't even need my neck gaiter at all. Can't wait!

[bleach]

I'm also pretty confident that attendance will be lousy for Arch Madness this year. A lot of folks out there just aren't going to want to deal with the hassle. Eventually the arena and/or the city of StL will have to change their policy unless they just enjoy losing money.

This is the reason I revived this thread. I would hate for someone who would be miserable or mad the whole weekend to waste that kind of dough. If masks and mandates are something you support or deem positive, no need to criticize anyone with a differing viewpoint.

[05Racer]

Ultimately the places that keep the restrictions longest will lose business to the places that open up. It's already happening with people and businesses leaving California for Texas and elsewhere. One of my favorite shows, BattleBots now films at a new arena in Vegas. Tesla is moving parts of their business also. If St. Louis continues to hang onto the COVID policies when other cities and venues aren't, businesses that depend on attendance like sports, concerts l, etc. will just move elsewhere. Then local businesses will complain they're losing money People will notice lost jobs and elect anyone who will lift the restrictions. It's a process that takes time. Arch Madness has poor attendance this year, the MVC could easily say either lift the restrictions or we take our business elsewhere.

[RacerJoeD]

Areas with large numbers of fatalities/long term morbidity will also see lower attendance numbers

[05Racer]

Areas with large numbers of fatalities/long term morbidity will also see lower attendance numbers

You're probably right. There are costs on both sides. As I said before, there's room for reasonable people to argue about the cost of the COVID policies vs. the cost of not having them. Neither of these costs is particularly easy to measure, and I'm no authority on the matter. Historians and economists will still be arguing about the costs of COVID and COVID policies fifty years from now.

For a business owner, though, it's not that complicated. If you're trying to sell tickets to an event in City A that requires masks and vaccines, and a certain percentage of your potential customers refuse to buy tickets because of the mask requirement or are unvaccinated, then the COVID policy has a measurable cost, X lost ticket sales times the cost of a ticket. If on the other hand you hold your event in City B which has no requirement for masks or vaccines, you can realize greater profits. Unless there are additional costs associated with City B and/or the location causes a greater loss of ticket sales, it makes economic sense to move the event to City B. These are calculations that executives and owners of companies small and large are making right now, regardless of their personal feelings about COVID policy. As businesses begin to make decisions like this, there will be economic pressure on leaders to change local policies. The other side of the coin, of course, is there may be a subset of people who won't attend any event unless they do have vaccination and mask requirements. Businesses have to make that call and it's as simple as which way leads to more profits. This is why most businesses steer clear of public politics. There's no upside to pissing off half your potential customers. That said, given the likely demographic makeup of MVC and college basketball fans in general, I'd hazard a guess that the first group is larger than the second. I could very well be wrong. Somebody smarter than me will have to make such decisions for the MVC.

It wasn't really my intent to argue in favor of or against mask mandates. I really don't care enough to argue about it for either side. I just meant to say that there are economic realities that will ultimately end the COVID policies and it has very little to do with either side's opinion. I just hope it's sooner because I'm tired the arguments, not that my opinion does or should make any difference.

[RacerJoeD]

I didn’t take it that way.

For businesses, the approach the US has embraced (haphazard shutdown, uneven vaccines mandates, lack of political will to fight covid) is the worst of all worlds. In countries that shutdown quickly, embraced the vaccine, and took the fight seriously, while they haven’t had zero covid cases, they have had better Economic results than what the US has.

[05Racer]

I didn’t take it that way.

For businesses, the approach the US has embraced (haphazard shutdown, uneven vaccines mandates, lack of political will to fight covid) is the worst of all worlds. In countries that shutdown quickly, embraced the vaccine, and took the fight seriously, while they haven’t had zero covid cases, they have had better Economic results than what the US has.

You're absolutely correct there. Taiwan, South Korea, and New Zealand had excellent responses. So did the Scandinavian countries. Even Sweden, a country that did basically nothing, has had a better outcome than the US. The sensible thing to do at the beginning of the pandemic was to get all the leaders and experts together in a room, talk out the issue, discuss the costs and benefits of various approaches with economists, doctors, etc. and finally arrive at some compromise approach that everyone can live with, and then come out with the President, the bureaucracy, Congress, and everybody sharing the same COVID talking points. Given who was President at the time, that was never a realistic possibility. Instead, we got, as you said, the worst of all worlds. Both sides dug in their heels and tried to use COVID to score political points, the federal government appeared weak and incompetent, and the can was effectively kicked down to state governments, which did mostly the same thing. Each side throwing up their hands, declaring their opponents to be wrong, and then using every lever of power to get their way and suppress opposing views is not leadership. It's a good way to start a fight. Good leadership in a country so large and diverse as the US means accepting that not everybody is going to agree, listening to divergent viewpoints, respecting the beliefs of others, and trying to reach a compromise that maybe nobody likes but everybody can live with. It's the lack of civility and mutual respect that bothers me more than anything else. Are we really so intolerant we can't handle it when other people don't see the world in the same way we do.

[RacerJoeD]

I’ll agree with nearly everything you said except for Sweden. They lost more money and had a higher fatality rate than their neighbors. Doing nothing was the worst possible choice, one repeated in multiple states here in the US.

But the rest is pretty valid.

[05Racer]

All I said was Sweden fared better than us while doing nothing. It's a complicated problem and some things are beyond anyone's control. I reject the notion that there is an optimal provable COVID response. As long as some people insist there is and refuse to budge nothing will change.