This past year, every sports team had a season like they never experienced before. Every fan felt their pain as well. We actually have an employee here at Good Guys Signs who was part of the brethren of season ticket holders who took a major hit, too. Our employee missed 10 regular season hockey games, as well as missing out on being able to root the Tampa Bay Lightning on their way to the Stanley Cup Championship. It was all due to COVID-19. However, something pretty remarkable began to unfold like the sports world have never seen. Two words—cardboard and cutouts.
Virtual Fan:
There were many who love sports who wanted so badly to be on hand and cheer their favorite sports teams on. But, for a long stretch of time, those fans were not allowed to enter stadiums and arenas due to the pandemic. How could they be a part of things? How could they at least feel like they were in attendance? Fans began sending in their photos to teams across the country. Those teams hired print shops like ours to create cardboard cutout fans from all these photos that they were getting flooded with. Staff members began placing these cardboard fans into seats. Fans could often see their likeness when they watched on TV. It gave them a sense of belonging in a time when reality dictated different.
What Teams Began Doing:
Sports teams’ organizations received their cue with each fan cutout they received. Fan cardboard cutouts, their pets, team mascots, and retired players of teams in the stands became customary to see. Sports organizations were trying to bring a semblance of normalcy where there was none.
They started pumping crowd noise through stadium speakers. How about the way the Oakland A’s baseball staff stepped their game up to another level? Not only did they make it to the American League Divisional Series, but they had a prominent star come on board for the season. Two-time Oscar winner, and avid baseball fan, Tom Hanks, was asked if he would record his voice as if he was a hot dog vendor at the games. He did, and his voice echoed throughout the stadium. The kicker of it all…Hanks’ first-ever job was as a hot dog vendor for those very same Oakland A’s!
Cutouts and Competition:
Athletes, and sports in general, are competitive by nature. Everyone wants to win. The competitive spirit even found its way into the world of cardboard cutouts during the covid-riddled 2020 sports seasons. Take Los Angeles for example. In what’s commonly referred to as Tinsel town, many a celebrity will be seen at sporting events. Many hold season tickets. And they generally have seats front and center, so they will be seen on the broadcast of games. Teams in LA got those Hollywood stars’ cutouts and placed them in their usual assigned seats.
Across the country in Tampa, where our print shop resides…the Tampa Bay Rays made it to the World Series in 2020. They played the Dodgers in a “bubble” in San Diego. The bubble refers to a centralized location of play where fans can’t be in attendance. Cutouts of seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, along with a pair of Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning players were shipped out to southern California for the World Series. It was unique, and it was cool. Three sports icons “travelled” across country over 2,400 miles to be at the World Series.
The past 12 months or so have been unlike any in history for the world of sports. The scene was a microcosm of life as a whole. Somehow, someway, teams, players, and fans have found a way keep moving forward.