Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Major League Baseball -- along with the rest of the sports world -- was forced to look for new ways to reinvent the fan experience as the abbreviated regular season took place in empty ballparks all across the country. While there were a number of fans allowed at the NLCS and World Series at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, many of the 2020 World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers fans were limited to cheering on their club from their homes. It's an incredibly unfortunate situation, any and every way you look at it.
"This victory is for our fans, thank you Dodger fans everywhere," Mark Walter, head of the Dodgers ownership group that includes Magic Johnson and Billie Jean King, said after Game 6. "Dodger fans, we miss you, we love you, thank you for sticking by us, for supporting us and allowing us to share this moment with you."
The COVID-19 pandemic forced upon sports teams all over the globe, without warning, a new era for fan engagement. But, the Dodgers, having snapped their 32-year long title drought Tuesday night, have embraced the challenge and helped to create special events and activities to engage with their fans.
For starters, when the 2020 MLB season was delayed in part to the pandemic and also lengthy owner-player negotiations, the Dodgers were already at the forefront for new ways to keep fans engaged with the Dodger community. Without any baseball to watch and the closures of non-essential businesses, like gyms, the Dodgers began offering free, online workouts for fans during the quarantine.
The workouts -- designed and taught by Brandon McDaniel, the director of strength and conditioning for the Dodgers -- were streamed live on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. That means, not only would fans be able to workout with the same guy who trains their favorite players, but all they'd need to do so is a small space in their home and WiFi. After launching in April, the club hosted the live, 30-minute workouts all the way through the end of June.
Throughout the shutdown, the Dodgers offered intimate looks inside the lives of players as a way to keep fans connected, and in this one instance, fans got to learn that Clayton Kershaw's pancake flipping and Pop-A-Shot skills are just as mesmerizing as his curveball.
In April, the Dodgers hosted their first live "Zoom Party" with 15,000 fans, featuring check-ins from Vin Scully, manager Dave Roberts, closer Kenley Jansen along with L.A. celebrities like comedian George Lopez and country singer Brad Paisley.
"I joked a week or two after things shut down in March, I hadn't heard of Zoom a week before that. Now it couldn't be more embedded in my life," Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told SportsNet LA. "There's definitely some things that as we reflect back on this year that I think have been a good thing. I think it's something that, whenever we get through this, there's going to be some things we want to adopt going forward."
In May, John Fogerty performed his 1985 baseball anthem, "Centerfield," at Dodger Stadium ... in center field:
Once the 2020 baseball season kicked off, the in-stadium experience became unlike anything ever before. It was a mixture of good, bad and weird aspects during the fan-less MLB season. Artificial crowd noise was mixed in with old, live audience to fill the silence of an empty ballpark, cardboard cutouts filled the seats at an empty Dodger Stadium and fans were featured on local broadcasts via Zoom.
"We've held a couple of Zoom watch parties with fans during a homestand and shared the footage with our broadcaster, Spectrum SportsNet LA," Dodgers executive producer Greg Taylor told Sports Video Group in August.
"We're getting them to cheer for the team and do gestures like the wave and stuff like that. The SportsNet LA has been showing that during the telecast. We also gave those fans on that watch party, which is a small group of 20 people or less, a little behind the scenes look at what's going on in the booth."
The Dodgers also began releasing their usual, in-game entertainment on social media. This 'What's in the Box?' game, while it evokes David Fincher's 1995 thriller "Seven," it's much, much more lighthearted. A video that would normally appear on the 78-foot JumboTron at Dodger Stadium could now be watched on six inch iPhone screen. It can't compare, but considering the circumstances, it's a really neat way to still elicit the same genuine reaction.
Even MLB worked to experiment with new and creative modes of fan engagement, with one example being their app designed for the sole purpose of allowing fans at home to add in cheers, claps and/or boos to the ballpark noise of the game they're watching. The ballpark's scoreboard operators received real-time reactions reflecting the fans' input and then they would be able to adjust the type of fake fan noise at the stadium. It's something that got the approval from Dodgers teammates Alex Wood and Justin Turner.
For the postseason, the Dodgers continued their virtual inclusion of fans with another Zoom Party after they won a dramatic Game 7 against the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS. Roberts and NLCS MVP Corey Seager were all featured.
And while some fans made it to Arlington to root for their Dodgers in the World Series, most weren't able to so the Dodgers came up with another solution. The club hosted drive-in viewing parties for every game of the Dodgers-Rays World Series matchup. The viewing parties were also offered during the NLCS, and attendees received a Joe Kelly bobblehead.
After purchasing tickets, fans were able to pull up and park in the stadium parking lot and take in the game(s) on two 60-foot viewing screens, with the broadcast being transmitted via car radios.
Looking ahead to 2021 and beyond, the sports world will forever be changed by the coronavirus pandemic. For the champion Dodgers, they've used the time without fans in Chavez Ravine to grow their fan experiences and engagements beyond the ballpark.
As we enter into the offseason, it's still unclear whether the cardboard cutouts in baseball stands will be replaced by actual fans for 2021.
Dodgers co-owner Todd Bohely doesn't think things will return to normal until 2022. While speaking on a panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Bohely explained how the Dodgers are working with public health officials to help lead a safe return with fans in the stands.
"We're starting to think a lot about come March, what are the proper testing protocols, and how are we going to get fans back into stadiums, Bohley said. "And how can we test at scale? How can we have testing protocols that get people safely back into the seats, even if we have a vaccine?"
MLB has a blueprint to follow (and learn from) based on the 25 percent attendance allowed during the NLCS and World Series at Globe Life, but ultimately, it's the virus itself is going to dictate the timeline for when and how fans can safely return to ballparks across the country. For baseball -- a league with teams in 28 different markets -- it'll be a strenuous, complicated process of working with each individual local health department to create a plan for the allowance of fans.
"If we're going to play next year, and if we don't have a vaccine and we aren't past the pandemic," Manfred told the Wall Street Journal in September. "I think we need to think hard about what measures we can take to get people back into the ballpark."
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How the World Series champion Dodgers incorporated fans during the 2020 season - CBS Sports
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