BACK when I was starting in this job and got assigned to cover a Cebu Amateur Athletic Association (CAAA) basketball match as a subsitute, I paid my way into the University of San Carlos (USC) gymnasium. When the guy from the other paper, who would be my boss a few years later, learned that, he chided me and said, "Ngano nibayad man ka, unsa gamit sa imo ID?"
Years after that, after I got the desk job, I just flashed my ID to get in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesasfi) matches, cutting in front of the hundreds who queued up for the basketball finals. They probably thought, who the hell is that smug prick who gets that privilege? They'd probably wish that they'd be that smug prick.
But, as sports leagues all over the world try to resume play sans the crowd, they will all soon learn the importance of those who spend time lining up to get in over those who flash their cards to get in.
And in sports under the new normal, they are just empty seats.
But they're not.
They have their stories.
That single dad trying to get his daughter into sports by letting her watch a live match. That soon to be wed guy, brining his fiancee in. That guy who saved up for the two prime seats on his birthday. Or that girl, who took her dad to the game as her gift.
We will all see empty seats once live sports return but they are not empty. They are people with stories and struggles and lives.
They are the non-positive casualties of Covid-19.
Watching sports events live has always been a luxury. A reward for oneself. But in the days when a P500 peso ticket can buy a meal for days for the family, the choice, even if there was one, is simple.
So seats will be empty, when the sports leagues resume.
I fear they will still be empty--or sparse--when they allow the fans in.
But eventually we’ll get there. We will be back.
The single dads, the newly-weds, the loving daughters...everyone. We’ll be back in the stands, empty seats no more.
And we will have our own stories of how we got back there.