Eddie George Frets Over Football Without Fans

Running back has not forgotten his early seasons in the NFL when the Houston/Tennessee Oilers had little fan support for home games.

Eddie George had high standards in terms of crowd sizes when he entered the NFL. He had valid reasons.

At Ohio State, George played his home games at Ohio Stadium, one of college football’s meccas, in front of 100,000-plus fans.

As a rookie in 1996, which was the Houston Oilers’ last season in their original home, George experienced something NFL teams may want to prepare themselves for as the coronavirus pandemic continues: playing in front of small crowds (or none at all).

“We didn’t have any fans,” George said during an interview on BetOnline. “There were only 16,000 fans on average at our games. Sometimes, it was just the people working concessions. I know what it feels like. It’s not fun.”

As the franchise transitioned to Tennessee with home games in Memphis (1997) and at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville (1998), attendance was not much better. The Oilers (Houston and Tennessee) finished last in the NFL in average home attendance every year from 1995 through 1998. The bottom came in 1997 when an average of 28,028 turned out for home games at the Liberty Bowl and as few as 17,071 were on hand for one game. The final Memphis contest drew 50,677, the majority of which were there to cheer the visitors, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

It didn’t take long for things to change. George, along with quarterback Steve McNair and the rest moved into Nissan Stadium in 1999, played before a full house every week and finished that season in Super Bowl XXXIV.

The franchise's all-time leading rusher, George played eight seasons with the Oilers/Titans (1996-2003). In his final five seasons with them he was a part of four playoff teams. The Titans lost just one home game from 1999-2000.

“We had a huge home field advantage,” George said. “Our fans were so loud, and teams hated to come in there. They knew what they were going to come up against. It was a hornet’s nest.

“You need the fans' energy to feed off of when you’re down, or when you’re trying to force through adversity as a team. You need the support. Same thing when you’re on the road. Opposing teams feed off that energy. The fans are very much a part of sports. They play a role in it. That’s why you have home-field advantage or home-court advantage.”

The Titans recently communicated with their season ticket holders and gave them the option to opt out of the 2020 season. Other teams around the league have recently given their season ticket holders similar options.

COVID-19 has not waned, though, and those contingencies might not matter soon. It appears increasingly likely that football fans will be left out of the picture all together this season. MLB and NBA players have already gotten a taste of the eeriness of an empty stadium. Football players are on schedule to be next.

“It’s going to feel like a spring practice or a glorified scrimmage,” George said. “It won’t have much meaning without the fans. It will be a different feel.

“The beauty of playing sports is that the fans are very much a part of the whole story. Without that, there’s an element that’s missed. You have to lock in more in terms of focus. For the most part, fans make sports go.”