Seahawks hopeful that fans can attend training camp, but it will likely ‘look different’

As the state of Washington nears 50% of its population fully vaccinated against COVID-19 we are starting to get closer and closer to being done with the nightmare that has been the COVID-19 pandemic. Part of the “back to normal” is having fans in the stands at NFL summer training camp, and for the Seattle Seahawks, it's having fans on the berm at the VMAC for camp.

While there has been no official announcement on whether the Seahawks will have fans in attendance at camp, which starts July 31st, the Seahawks are “hopeful” that fans can be in attendance at camp and at Lumen Field.

The start of camp is more than two months away, so it's likely that there is no announcement soon but with the current pace that stadiums and large events are opening up, it seems probable that there will at least be some fans at the VMAC.

However, according to Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of club business and league events, camp is “likely to look different” this summer. Obviously, it is likely that there will be restrictions on fan/player contact like autographs and pictures, which has been a staple of training camp.

Judy Battista of NFL Network also reported that training camp will look different as it will be more geared toward having activities for fans like the recent NFL Drafts, or as Battista said herself, “a midnight madness kind of thing.’’

The NFL expects that training camps will have fans as well as the preseason, and they expect the start of the regular season to have 100% capacity at stadiums. For right now, they are leaving the decisions up to the teams in accordance with local guidelines. So, watch out for announcements of increased capacity from the Mariners, Storm, Rainiers, etc. to give a gauge of what to expect for the Seahawks training camp.