Sports without fans stink, and everybody knows it.

OK, games with no fans are better than nothing, but they still stink. Pitt and Louisville played an exciting football game at Heinz Field on Saturday on a beautiful, sunny day and every seat was empty.

The Steelers and the Houston Texans did the same Sunday.

Depressing.

There’s talk the Steelers might allow some fans into their next home game against the Eagles on Oct. 11.

Is there any science to support the notion fans and the rest of the local population will be safer with fans at Heinz Field two weeks from now than they would have been this week?

There will be fans at the Steelers’ game in Nashville next week. The mayor was nice enough to say he’ll allow 7,000 fans into Nissan Stadium. That’s 10% capacity. No fans were allowed in for their game last week.

Apparently, the danger that was lurking there last week will be gone next week.

The Titans will increase capacity to 12.5% on Oct. 11, and it will go all the way to 15% on Oct. 18.

That’s better than an empty stadium, but it will still stink.

Will the fans Oct. 11 be in more danger than the fans on the 18th? They’re going to go really crazy and fill it to 21% in November. That’s 14,500. It’s also 55,500 empty seats and that will still stink, too.

Will fans who show up for those games be risking their lives?

If it were up to Gov. Tom Wolf and his health secretary, Dr. Rachel Levine, no high school kid in Pennsylvania would have played a fall sport.

They’re just trying to keep us “safe.” And Levine wasn’t ready to say when fans would be allowed to show up at Heinz Field for Pitt or the Steelers.

“The governor strongly feels and I strongly recommend that we do not put people at risk in terms of putting them together in congregant settings,” Levine said. “So we have a 250 person outdoor limit, so there will be no fans. At this time, given the current circumstances, we feel it’s in the public’s best interest not to have fans at those football games.“

What risk is Levine talking about? Death? Or is it getting sick?

Would going to a high school stadium or Heinz Field for football games increase your chances of dying?

What if you were to catch covid-19?

According to the CDC’s latest figures, you have no worse than a 94.5% chance of surviving.

But that’s if you’re over 70.

If you’re under 70, your chances are even better at 99.5%. Under 50 it’s 99.98% and under 20 you can enjoy the games knowing that, even if you do become infected with the dreaded covid, you have a 99.997% chance of living to tell about it.

Which means the average high school or college kid is about as likely to be trampled to death by an elephant as he or she is to die from covid-19.

So why so many empty seats at high school and college football games? How about letting people enter at their own “risk?”

Maybe the CDC numbers quoted here could be put on a sign in really big letters in front of every gate.

They’re not messing around in Florida anymore. Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted all restrictions last week. That means no restrictions on crowd sizes at sporting events, and DeSantis said he expects a full stadium for the Super Bowl in Tampa in February.

Sports fans love stats. Here’s a good one: Since August, 48,300 students tested positive for covid-19 according to a study of 37 college campuses.

That’s enough to fill a small college football stadium.

Care to guess how many were hospitalized?

Two.

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