The New York Mets are taking a page straight out of the Korean Baseball League’s playbook. Due to COVID-19 precautions, Major League Baseball will not allow any fans into their stadiums. The Mets will offer fans the opportunity to submit cutouts of themselves to replace the actual fans.
https://twitter.com/Dee_Black_MMA_/status/1259539687255007232
The Oakland Athletics were also another team to implement this plan. Since fans cannot physically interact at Citi Field, the Mets have to improvise on ways to show fans a new gameday experience. The details for the entire plan are still in the works, but more organizations through baseball will likely do the same.
Who Gets One?
Season-ticket holders who renewed their plans for the 2021 season are already guaranteed to have their cutout. Along with their season ticket perks comes the chance to purchase more cardboard cutouts at a lower price. For the rest of Mets fans, they will wait for the organization to announce a price for the general public.
The KBO not only experimented with cardboard cutouts, but they also instilled the help of actual stuffed animals to fill their seats behind home plate. Opportunities like this quickly go south when people send in things like vulgar references, advertisements, and political statements. The Mets made it clear that anything of that nature is prohibited.
For most players, a game with no crowd is an experience they have not seen since they played in high school. None of them ever experienced Citi Field utterly empty except for the press and other staff. Stadiums can pump in crowd noise, but nothing replaces the roar, or boos, that comes from a New York Mets fanbase.