This year has been very strange for sports fans to say the least. With the corona virus changing so much around the world, fans cannot simply go enjoy their favorite teams in person like they used to.

 Sports are being played in empty gyms, fields, and arenas. The NBA (National Basketball Association) has their own bubble in Orlando, Florida, where only a select few can enter, and players are tested for the virus daily. So this brings up the question – how have these fans been able to cope with not being able to go see their teams play? Well many sports have turned to a new way for fans to watch; virtually.

 Many sports are using the technology we have to allow fans to be in virtual seats watching the game. Fans can pay to be on the screen, and have certain guidelines they need to follow. The NBA, who has probably been most successful with using virtual fans, has used this to their advantage. They are putting fans in the same places the crowd would be in arenas. The NBA is putting the celebrity fans in these seats, and they can be seen on television when the games are aired. This has brought more and more popularity to the virtual fan screens.

Fans like Lil Wayne have been to a few Los Angeles Lakers games. Fans have loved this new form of entertainment. In Nicolas Rivero’s “How the NBA is using virtual fans to make games feel normal” Rivero says “We wanted to create an atmosphere that was as similar to a traditional NBA game as we could”. And they did just that this season. The NBA and more organizations continue to keep fans united as possible with their favorite teams. Many organizations across the world have taken these same ideas, and applied them to their arenas.