72 percent of sports fans want a Covid-19 vaccine before returning to stadiums

With much of the United States still under some form of stay-at-home order, there’s increasing pressure to push for the country to re-open and for people to get back to work for the good of the economy. The right or wrong time to do that is a question for public health experts and scientists, but a new Seton Hall poll shows that the effects of coronavirus may be felt by the sports world far beyond any kind of official return to business as usual.

The Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall released a poll showing almost three out of four Americans plan to stay at home and avoid sporting events until there a vaccine is developed for Covid-19. According to the poll, 72 percent said they would not attend a game under any circumstances, 13 percent answered that they would, but only if social distancing measures are in place — with only 12 percent of those polled saying they would return to watching games like normal without a vaccine in place.

The poll of 762 Americans is the first of its kind to directly deal with the sports world, and shows the uphill battle leagues will have even after it’s declared “safe” by the CDC and government agencies to resume normal activity. Wariness of crowds generated by the coronavirus pandemic is what helped social distancing measures take hold, leading to positive trends for infections rates as a whole, but it’s also what could lead to a long tail before people are ready to resume their normal daily lives.

By all estimates a possible vaccine for Covid-19 will not be available until 2021 at the earliest, and respondents in the poll seemed to understand that. 74 percent of those polled said it was “likely or very likely” that sporting events would be cancelled for the remainder of the year, something leagues have not committed to at this point. The next major domino to fall in the sports world will be the NFL, who have yet to make a commitment on the start of the season. Only six percent of those asked about the league believe the NFL should start as planned this fall.

Our appetite for sports remains as voracious as ever. Of those polled, 76 percent said they would watch sports broadcasts with the same level of fervor as before, even if no fans were present. This seems to be the most likely path forward at this point, especially if the wider public trend with this study about being too concerned to gather in public until a definitive vaccine is available.

The most interesting element of this poll isn’t the realization that people are concerned about the future of attending mass events, it’s that things will take a long time and require a massive external force to return to “normal.” This won’t be something that can be hand-waved away with governmental orders to re-open businesses, but rather winning back an afraid public who might need months before they’re able to envision returning to seeing events as normal.

Seton Hall’s poll was conducted by landline and cell phone with 762 Americans. We would like to hear from you as well.