It’s official now: Major League Baseball will permit limited capacity fan attendance at the National League Championship Series and World Series, which are taking place at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas later this month.
The plan is to sell about 11,500 tickets (28% capacity) for the games, and the fans will be subject to a number of COVID-related rules and restrictions: tickets sold in “pod” areas with social distancing, no tickets sold close to the field, masks, etc. The state of Texas is currently permitting up to 50% capacity at large venues.
It’ll be interesting to see how this goes, as other sports in various areas of the country start to permit limited capacity attendance. Many MLB teams will no doubt be watching this process closely, especially right now, as they sketch out their own plans for 2021 attendance. Those plans are going to have to be in place – and very thorough – long before Opening Day if the teams are to get approvals from state and local governments, assuming ANY attendance is permitted by next March and April.
If the Cubs can survive this Wild Card series by winning today and tomorrow, and then win their NLDS, they would play in front of some fans in Texas in mid-October. I expect there are plenty of Cubs fans down there.