ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Due to the ongoing pandemic, the Green Bay Packers will play at least its first two games at Lambeau Field without fans, but less than a mile away, the Green Bay Booyah has played 20 home games this summer at 25 percent capacity.
And, Brown County says the Booyah games have stayed COVID-free.
“I think we’ve done as much as we can do responsibly in allowing people to come in here,” said John Fanta, the Booyah’s vice president.
Normally, the Booyah games hold up to 4,000 fans at Capital Credit Union Park. The team limited capacity to 1,000 this year and has been averaging 689 fans per game.
Since the Booyah’s first Northwoods League baseball game on July 1st, state numbers show Brown County has had 1,287 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Claire Paprocki, a public health strategist for Brown County, tells FOX 11 the county health department says attending a Booyah game never came up while contact tracing those cases.
“I think they’ve had success because they’ve setup some good procedures surrounding safety when people attend their games.”
County health officials worked with the Booyah on its plan and are helping the Packers now as they try to allow fans at games later in the season.
“They’ve asked us not to say anything further than they’ve been in contact with us,” said Paprocki about the communication between the Packers and the county health department.
The Booyah wouldn’t speculate on whether its plan could be a blue print for the Packers.
“I do know that we don’t have the TV contracts to allow us to continue to play without fans,” said Fanta. “They are very vital to our organization with the size that we are.”
“Even if they (the Packers) operate at limited capacity, it’s still an exponentially larger number than what you would get at a Booyah game,” said Paprocki.
“That is not to say I don’t think the Packers can’t have fans, but they should be mindful and precautionary to make sure they don’t host a game and then have a massive outbreak of folks in Brown County and then other people coming from outside the county as well.”
The Packers haven’t been willing to provide any sort of benchmark they are using for decision making on fans, but team President Mark Murphy has said 12,000 fans would likely be the max if they are eventually permitted.
The Packers would require fans to wear masks, something the Booyah only requires in the indoor parts of its stadium.
Brown County says it has seen outbreaks in youth sports leagues and tournaments. However, health officials say those are likely due to a lack of social distancing and not following other safety recommendations.
“I would say what we’re seeing more in the Brown County community are outbreaks from things like graduation parties, weddings, other maybe more smaller intimate gatherings,” said Paprocki.
Comments