On Monday, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that professional sports teams can now ask for waivers to allow limited seating at their venues. Daniel Miller of WJLA-TV wrote a summary of the changes which also include extending the “last call” for alcohol to 12 a.m., opening high school sports and fitness classes. The announcements come as coronavirus cases drop in Washington and nationwide.
For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus solely on professional sports teams’ requests to bring fans to games.
Currently, sports teams cannot host fans in their stadiums. That said, two teams were already granted permission to host games this season: The MLB’s Washington Nationals can host up to 5,000 fans on April 1 for their home opener, since they apparently may not have applied for a waiver to hold fans yet.