The St. Paul Saints opened CHS Field to a limited amount of spectators for its first home game on Aug. 4, meeting the Minnesota Department of Health guidelines to minimize risk of spreading COVID-19.

With maximum capacity of 1,500 total fans in the 7,210-seat ballpark, the Saints have had six home games before this week, and as of Thursday afternoon, a state health spokeswoman said one positive case of the novel coronavirus has been traced to games at the Lowertown stadium.

Those six games from Aug. 4-9 are in the timeframe when fans could develop symptoms, get tested for COVID-19 and have their activity traced. The Saints’ three games this week, including one on Thursday night, will need more time to understand any potential spread.

West of CHS Field in St. Paul, Minnesota United explored plans to bring up to 1,500 fans into Allianz Field for Friday’s first home match of 2020, but Loons CEO Chris Wright said the club decided to keep its 19,600-seat venue in Midway closed for a higher level of safety for its players, staff and supporters.

The Twins haven’t had fans at Target Field due to Major League Baseball’s league-wide decision to keep them away, and the Vikings are working with the Minnesota Department of Heath on possibilities for its season opener against the Packers on Sept. 13. The Wild, Timberwolves and Lynx never had a chance to host games in Minnesota given how their leagues restarted.

Minnesota Department of Health assistant commissioner Dan Huff said the department doesn’t approve or deny particular plans from pro teams or other businesses, but rather gives guidance with a 25-page outline on requirements and in regular meetings with teams, which have gone on for months. The Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development also consult with the pro sports franchises.

“All the teams had been very proactive in working with us and have been really focused on making sure that they do it right,” Huff told the Pioneer Press. “We appreciate that.”

For outdoor venues like Allianz Field and CHS Field, the guidelines include isolated areas of no more than 250 patrons who have access to their own entrances, exits, bathrooms and other amenities. Venues can have up to six of these areas, and people from one area can’t come in contact with someone from another area.

The Loons asked if MDH would be changing its 1,500-person limit, and Huff said there currently are no plans to do so, although the department has seen positive signs in the reduction of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths since Gov. Tim Walz’s executive order for people to wear masks in public.

“We are beginning to see what we believe are some positive impacts from that in that we are seeing the case numbers are declining, after they had been increasing quite alarmingly for a couple weeks,” Huff said Wednesday. “It seems like those have stabilized and maybe are even going down. I say ‘maybe’ because a week doesn’t make a trend. We have to see what happens.”

Huff’s caution stems from the incoming cooler fall weather, which will bring more people indoors and the resumption of classes within schools.

Wright and presidents and CEO of all Minnesota’s pro teams have started a task force that meets every Wednesday to put together a collective document on how their stadiums will reopen with fans. These parameters have to align with their respective league guidelines and the various idiosyncrasies in each of their venues.

The Loons’ plans include a model with up to 4,000 socially-distant fans in Allianz Field, but that has been tabled given the state’s guidelines.

“In the end, we decided that the players’ safety, our staff’s safety — and ultimately as we saw cases begin to rise again in the state of Minnesota (in July) — our fans’ safety, we had to put that first,” Wright said.

MLS has announced each club will play three home games through mid-September, and all three in Minnesota will be contested without fans. The remaining 12 regular-season games this season, and whether they will include fans, has yet to be released.

When the Loons travel to Kansas City and Dallas for games in the next few weeks, limited numbers of fans are expected in those stadiums. But their game in Houston also will be played without spectators.

LOONS’ ‘CHALLENGES’

The Loons’ decision to not have spectators is a bigger financial weight to the team than it would be for other pro sports in Minnesota.

“We have tremendous challenges from the fact that we don’t have major national TV revenues like the majority of the other franchises do in town,” Wright said.

But Wright credited the Loons’ dozen-plus owners, led by former UnitedHealth Group CEO Bill McGuire, for understanding this business model.

“We are completely reliant on local market revenues,” Wright said. “Therefore, when you take out your 20,000 people per game and the revenue that the club makes from those games and you no longer have that, then it’s very, very hard.”

Wright said United’s 74 corporate partners have stuck with the club during the pandemic and ensuing economic slowdown.

“We have taken different types of assets that bring value to their brand as we have gone through all of this,” Wright said. “We have been able to maintain quite a large percentage of our large corporate partner revenues, which we were very, very fortunate to be able to do.”

SAINTS’ ‘WAY’

The Saints approached the Minnesota Department of Health to see if their plan to bring fans to CHS Field would work, Huff said.

“We talked with the Saints and made sure that you have these components to it,” Huff said. “They have done a nice job with it.”

But in a Twitter promotion of their “Thirsty Thursday” beer special two weeks ago, the Saints featured a photo of three fans without masks toasting glasses.

Zach Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College of Emory University in Atlanta, took issue with that.

“Woof, bad look, Saints,” Binney tweeted. “Couldn’t even go for masks, or solo distanced drinkers?”

The Saints responded, “Woof, stock photo from last year or even the year before. We’ve played 2 games in our ballpark this year. Feel free to come out and see the strict rules we have in place. No seriously come out.”

The Saints’ other social media posts have included photos of fans undergoing temperature checks and spectators wearing masks in the stands.

In an interview last week, Binney said, “I understand that was a stock photo, but the point is you have to be careful about the messages you’re sending. We have a mask mandate, but here’s a picture of what you are going to be doing at the ballpark? Those are in conflict with one another.”

But Binney gave the Saints credit, too. Sort of.

“If you are going to bring fans back, and … I don’t endorse the plan, I think it’s more risk than necessary right now,” he said, “But if you are going to do it, that is the way to do it.”

VIKINGS PLAN TBD

The Vikings’ plan for fans at U.S. Bank Stadium this season is still being determined, Huff said. U.S. Bank Stadium has called off the St. Thomas-St. John’s college football game set for Nov. 7 as well as other concerts and events to be held there this year.

In late July, the Vikings sent a letter to season-ticket holders. Part of it read: “Games will be at a significantly reduced capacity and include a different in-stadium experience. We are planning around a number of those scenarios.”

Technically, U.S. Bank Stadium falls under the state’s indoor-seated entertainment venues calling for no more than “250 patrons for each individual areas,” and those areas must function independently of each other.

But the 66,655-person capacity venue, which has 131 suites, is an enormous exception to typical indoor spaces, and that might spur different guidelines.