Fans are ripping the NFL for honoring healthcare workers while hosting a potential superspreader event

The crowd is limited but people still see the disconnect.

Despite what it looks like on TV, Super Bowl LV between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium isn’t filled to capacity. The stadium is hosting 25,000 fans, 7,500 of whom are vaccinated health care workers. Many of the other “fans” people are seeing on TV are the 30,000 cardboard cutouts the NFL sold before game day.

Even if Raymond James Stadium isn’t packed to the gills, the country is still in the middle of a pandemic. The full stadium looks great on TV, but it’s reminding people that the Super Bowl, even with precautions, has the potential to be a superspreader event.

We’re at the point where everything right now is about analyzing risk and reward. The NFL has done a lot of harm reduction with their crowd size. The 7,500 health care workers are all vaccinated. Most of the crowd is sitting outside, far apart and with masks. Still, there are 17,000 other people there! Also, vaccines prevent people from falling ill with COVID but there have been warnings that they can still spread it. People are all moving around, sharing bathrooms, and most importantly cheering loudly, spewing germs into the air.  Plus, the NFL had people traveling from far and wide to come to the game, teams chose to forgo their Saturday COVID tests, and the league didn’t participate in any kind of programming that advocated for people to not host Super Bowl parties.

All of this would be easier to overlook if the league weren’t constantly reminding viewers about their dedication to health care workers. The NFL had several promos honoring healthcare workers before the game, and they had poet Amanda Gorman pay tribute to frontline workers, and it’s been a constant refrain through the season.

Performative actions are nothing new with the NFL, and fans were quick to see through the fake optics.


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