Minnesota sports jacked up, safety-minded with approval to host thousands of fans

It was as festively instantaneous as a walk-off home run.

Starting April 1, outdoor venues such as Target Field and Allianz Field can have as many as 10,000 people in attendance at events. And indoor venues including Target Center and Xcel Energy Center were approved for up to 3,000 fans.

And all of a sudden Friday, a state that hasn't been allowed to host events with more than 250 people in any capacity for a year, owing to COVID-19 restrictions, will open the gates.

At a morning news conference, Gov. Tim Walz noted the home openers for the Twins and Minnesota United in April, and declared, "Fans are back in the stadiums."

Just as quickly, Minnesota's pro franchises released statements asserting that they will be ready to host fans at the first available opportunity — April 5 for the Wild and Timberwolves, April 8 for the Twins home opener. The coordinated effort, in the works for months, reflected that they also have safety measures, including mask-wearing for fans and other precautions, in place.

"It's fantastic," said Wild coach Dean Evason, whose team plans to have up to 3,000 fans at its game against Colorado. "We've got whatever, 150 now. It's exciting for us to have friends and family coming. Now it's going to be even more exciting to have our fans come. Yeah, we're jacked about it. I think the entire league, the entire world for that matter, is jacked about it. We're excited to see our fans and I hope our fans are excited to see us. It's wonderful to have them back."

The Vikings, owners of U.S. Bank Stadium, lauded the move as a step toward "a full stadium this fall." Minnesota United hailed the return of fans singing "Wonderwall." The Minnesota State High School League signaled that more fans could be allowed at hockey and basketball tournaments in the first 10 days of April.

The biggest test in this transition back to hosting large public gatherings will come at Target Field, when the Twins will work to bring in 10,000 paying spectators for Opening Day and approach some semblance of normalcy after a year of isolation for many fans around the state.

"For the most part, the majesty of Opening Day and all of those festivities that happen, we expect all of that to happen," Twins President Dave St. Peter said. "We may need to rethink a little bit about how we do certain things but we expect first pitches and national anthems and flyovers."

Fans will be separated in pods of two or four. Concessions will "be more of a touchless environment," St. Peter said. "All of the things you may be running into now when you were to frequent a restaurant or an airport or any other place."

Some of the ballpark atmosphere will be muted. No vendors marching up and down the aisles hawking peanuts or hot dogs. Buying food will be done through a cellphone app. Target Field concessions and merchandise sales will not use paper money.

While every team will have to determine ticket priority, most franchises have said season-ticket holders will get the first look at tickets before general public single-game tickets are made available.

Even as more people are getting vaccinated, St. Peter acknowledged that not everyone will be ready to step back into the ballpark. But the team believes there are plenty of people ready to return.

"We recognize that much like many of our staff, a lot of our fans have some level of anxiety about coming to Target Field at this time," he said. "We have high hopes, certainly based on the capacity that we're dealing with to start our season, that there will be ample demand to certainly ensure that we're playing before hopefully close to 10,000 fans with each and every game."

The St. Paul Saints, who welcomed 1,500 fans per game last summer, will increase that number to 2,100.

The high school league, after starting tournaments with attendance capped at 250 people and no public ticket sale, said hockey and basketball semifinals and championships at Xcel and Target Center "could allow more fans."

It said the priority of its still-evolving plans is "to increase access for those spectators closest to the participants and schools participating in the tournament."

The Gophers said they will not alter their attendance protocols for the end of several regular-season campaigns. For Big Ten or NCAA postseason events held on campus after April 1, they will make attendance decisions based on venue size and capacity limits. So it's possible fans could be allowed at the NCAA men's gymnastics championships April 16-17 at Maturi Pavilion.

While sports executives agreed the situation is in flux and there will be learning and growing pains along the way, a simple narrative emerged: Sports simply are not sports without fans, and bringing them back safely at this point feels right.

St. Peter referred to watching baseball games at Target Field last year as "soulless."

Minnesota United Chief Operating Officer Maureen Smith said recently that the purpose of Allianz Field, which opened in 2017, was lost in 2020.

"Fans are our experience," Smith said. "Everything centers around the atmosphere they create and I'll tell you the games at Allianz Field last year without fans felt a little lonely and a little empty."

Wild defenseman Ryan Suter, part of the hottest pro team in town, said, "When you know how good your fans are and how much they can help you, to be able to have some in a couple weeks is pretty exciting for us."

The Twins' Nelson Cruz, playing in Fort Myers, Fla., earlier this week where attendance has been allowed, said it took losing the familiarity of fans to realize how important they were.

"The first game in spring training I wasn't playing, and I was really excited anyway. At one point I thought maybe I'd go watch anyway. I always like to be around fans. It was very exciting the first game I played. Definitely the fans, they played a huge role for us," Cruz said.

"The first few games of [last] season hit you pretty good, like, 'Wow, there's no fans.' Once you play those big games, the playoffs, you need those fans behind you. The energy they bring every day is something you as a player missed."

Perhaps no team or player has been more affected by the coronavirus than the Timberwolves and star center Karl-Anthony Towns, who lost his mother and several family members to COVID-19 and had a difficult recovery himself after contracting the virus.

Nearly a year to the day since the NBA shutdown last March, the prospect of thousands of fans returning to Target Center created an emotional environment.

Said Timberwolves Chief Operating Officer Ryan Tanke, "For us to have this ray of hope enter … to enter a new chapter of this, focused again on doing what we love, which is bringing people together and providing them with entertainment, at a time where it's desperately needed in our country, that's something that all of us are really looking forward to providing people on April 5th."

Staff writers Rachel Blount, Ben Goessling, Chris Hine, Sarah McLellan, Phil Miller and Jerry Zgoda contributed to this report.