The Miami Heat played in the fall’s NBA Finals within the Orlando bubble, but there were no fans to support them along the way, and that has continued throughout the beginning of the 2020-2021 season.
That changed on Thursday night, when the Miami Heat took on the Los Angeles Clippers in front of about 1,500 fans, according to the Miami Herald.
Prior to entry, each fan had to be screened for COVID-19 by virus-sniffing dogs. If one of the dogs sat down after sniffing a fan, that indicated the dog detected the virus. Any fan set to sit within 30 feet of the court had to undergo an on-site rapid test at the arena prior to the game. If a person tested positive, his or her entire party was banned from the game.
“If you think about it, detection dogs are not new,” said Matthew Jafarian, the Heat’s executive vice president for business strategy. “You’ve seen them in airports. They’ve been used in mission-critical situations by the police and the military. We’ve used them at the arena for years to detect explosives.”
The team also requires that fans in attendance wear masks at all times, alcohol is no longer being served, and there are isolation rooms available should anyone start to feel sick.
“The bubble was when we started to realize that, hey, there can be some sense of normalcy,” Jafarian added. “This is going to be a different world, and we have to sort of create what that world looks like.”
The last time NBA teams played in front of mostly full crowds was March 2020. The league was the first major professional sports league to shut down its operations midseason, and other leagues followed. The NBA concluded the 2019-2020 season in the summer and fall when all the players and games were held at Walt Disney World in Orlando.
The Heat lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the finals.
“It’s an incredible step,” coach Erik Spoelstra said on Wednesday. “I’ve said before we have to continue to be vigilant and do things with discipline, with a lot of thought, and always keep in mind the health and safety as a No. 1 factor, but having people in the building — that’s what our guys play for.”
