The Mid-American Conference Tournament During a Pandemic
It’s quiet and empty. There aren’t any bands playing school fight songs or cheerleaders pumping up the crowd during timeouts. It’s a weird atmosphere. The only things you do hear are the PA announcer announcing who scored the last basket and music pulsing through the main scoreboard speakers during breaks in action. The only fans in attendance are the family and friends of the players and coaches. They take up a few sections in the lower seating bowl on either end of the arena and try their best to fill the empty arena with cheers. But the rest of the 19,000 seats are vacant and the rows and rows of empty chairs give an eerie and ghostly feeling that makes the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio look bigger than it is.
Cleveland has been home to the Mid-American Conference, or MAC, basketball tournament since 2000 and the past couple tournaments held here have been some of the strangest experiences because of the coronavirus pandemic. Usually, the atmosphere is very intense and you are as close to the action as anyone else inside the arena. These past couple tournaments, the energy has been very deflated and you feel removed from the action in a lot of ways.
There were a slew of changes that made this year’s tournament different than ever before. I attended the tournament in 2020 and 2021 as a member of the media covering Kent State University’s women’s basketball team. Last year’s tournament was canceled after the quarterfinal rounds due to coronavirus concerns, but the only out of the ordinary thing with last year’s tournament was the lack of fans.
This year’s tournament required doing a self check of coronavirus symptoms before going to the arena, wearing masks and remaining socially distant. Wearing a mask was something that worried me in terms of not being able to do my job correctly because most of the time when I wear a mask my glasses fog up so much to the point where I can’t see what’s in front of me. I knew that I could wear the mask for the whole length of the tournament and not have any issues breathing, but I was afraid that I would miss key points in the game because my glasses would be so fogged up.
Upon walking into the arena, I was temperature checked and given my credential which gave me access to my seat and the media workroom.
The media workroom was located at a lower level called the Founders Level inside the arena. You had to take an elevator to get to the room and usually there is an arena worker inside the elevator that presses the buttons for you. But this year, I was responsible for pressing the button and making sure you got to the correct floor. There were several rows of long, white tables each with its own hand sanitizer set and a large tv streaming the scoreboard feed in the front of the room. Each table only had one chair because of distancing requirements and long extension surge protectors for charging ability.
Usually, the media workroom is bustling and busy with reporters and photographers, but this time it was empty and lonely. Typically, there would be five or six of us from the same school who would go to the tournament together and stick with each other the whole day. This time, I had to get my bearings of where things were located and what the procedures were on my own. I had been to the Fieldhouse several times for Cavs and Monsters games as a fan, but this was only my second time in the building as a reporter and not a spectator. It was difficult to find the locations of the areas I had access to because as a fan you typically don’t venture through the inner levels of the Fieldhouse where the media work room was.
In past tournaments, media seating was courtside. This tournament, media seating was up in section M104 next to the club section. Personally, I prefer sitting up higher because it allows me to see the court better, but I felt very far away from the action. This made it difficult to tell who was being subbed in and out of the game because I couldn’t see their faces as well. Also, I couldn’t feel the excitement of energy from the court because you were so far away. Each seat had a card with an assigned media member’s name on it. The seating was staggered so that nobody was sitting directly next to each other.
Not being able to sit next to other people made it hard to make connections and talk with other reporters. This part was saddening because in a way it took the fun out of experiencing the tournament with other people. In the 2020 tournament, we were allowed to sit next to each other and that in itself was a cool experience because we were all together when the NBA announced its season suspension. It was really fun to see everyone’s reactions to the season suspension last year and getting to experience it with other sports journalists was something I won’t ever forget. This year, the reporters who did know each other went up to each other, but instead of shaking hands they bumped elbows and made sure to stay six feet apart from each other while they were talking. I kept to myself this year mainly because I was the only person who showed up in the row I was assigned to sit in and I wasn’t sure how people were about interacting with strangers yet in terms of comfort levels with the pandemic.
Looking around the seating bowl, each seating usher was holding a sign to remind people to mask up unless actively eating or drinking. In between timeouts, the ushers would hold up their signs as constant reminders and a message would play on the scoreboard with details of the arena’s mask policy. This was really different because usually in between timeouts fans are playing games on the court or the bands are playing school fight songs. The scoreboard messages were just another reminder that this tournament was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.
Another big change in this year’s tournament was there was no media dining. Last year, the media was provided a buffet-style meal of chicken tenders and curly fries. This year, we were on our own to buy food from the two concession stands open in the arena. The concession stands were operating on a limited capacity, so the only food available were hot dogs, nachos and popcorn. I had to make sure to bring money with me to be able to eat during the day. The concession stand food at any sporting event is usually quite expensive and the MAC Tournament was no exception to this. I only bought a hotdog and a small drink and it cost $20! Also, you were only allowed to eat in “designated eating areas” scattered on the concourse or at your seat.
Normally, press conferences are held in person where a microphone is passed around and each person gets to ask a question. This tournament, press conferences were held remotely via Zoom. This meant I had to rely on the free wifi at the arena and hope that it would hold up throughout the entire presser. Also, I had to hope that everyone on the press conference call was well versed enough in using Zoom that they knew how to mute and unmute themselves. The presser was a strange experience because the coaches and players were in the same building as I was, but you had to interview them through a computer. Also, it was strange having to ask questions through a mask and I had to make sure I spoke up enough so that the coaches and players could hear my question.
This year’s tournament was one of the weirdest and strangest experiences I have ever been a part of. Despite all of the new changes, the tournament was run very smoothly and I am hopeful that the 2022 MAC Tournament will be closer to pre-pandemic conditions.
