Great news this week, as the City of Philadelphia loosened restrictions on fan attendance at our local sporting venues.

The city will match Pennsylvania’s current guidelines, meaning that indoor arenas can be filled to 15% capacity and outdoor stadiums to 20%. That means the Wells Fargo Center will have a max occupancy hovering right around 2,900 people, which does include players, coaches, and staffers.

Flyers fans will get a head start, returning to the Center on March 7th, this Sunday. The Sixers will follow suit on March 14th, which is the team’s first home game coming out of the All-Star break.

We caught up with Sixers President Chris Heck Wednesday morning, who provided some ticket information and thoughts on the opportunity to welcome fans back.

Crossing Broad: March 14th return for fans. You’re going to get folks in the building for the second half of the season and the playoffs, so I’d assume that’s a positive outcome considering the circumstances.

Chris Heck: Yeah, I think this is a fair timing. It’s not only good for our performance on the court, which really does matter with our fans. But I think the safety protocols and measures that have been taken by us, Comcast, the NBA, by the state and city, it is a mountain of work. I think this is a responsible number (of fans). And I hope that the health outlook continues to improve and we’ll be able to add more fans each month.

CB: It’s priority access for season ticket holders, correct?

Heck: Correct, we’re going to give them first shot. We’re going to be selling these tickets month to month, because we figure that after March, what are we going to learn? Everything changes so fast. We’re not going to bite off more than we can chew and we’re going to sell on an individual game basis.

CB: What were the conversations like? Obviously the arena can’t be full, and someone has to be cut out, so you’re trying to juggle that while doing it in a fair and equitable way. I’m just curious as to how you discussed that internally and came up with this plan.

Heck: We have such a robust season ticket base, and these are people that have been really loyal. It makes the most sense to offer them the purchase, because we’re not including it in any packaging. All of our packaging that we sold has been rolled over to next season, so we’re treating this (year) on a game-by-game basis. If they feel comfortable and want to purchase tickets to come to a game, awesome. Some may wait until next year and some may jump all over this. We’ll probably find out Friday what the indication is, but I expect the demand to be quite high.

CB: How was communication with the city, and with Mayor Kenney and Dr. Farley?

Heck: Yeah listen, I think we’re all learning in this process as we go. If there’s anything we learned during the pandemic, it’s that we have to be a little more patient in all aspects of life. A lot of us have picked up that skill over the last 12 months. We’ve been patient and diligent and collaborative, and that goes for every team in Philadelphia, as well as Pennsylvania. We’ve gone through a good experience of sharing information and strategizing together, for the benefit of both the fan and the business.

CB: I’m curious about the uniqueness of the situation, in that you’re a tenant in the building. Comcast owns the Wells Fargo Center. I’m sure your goals were aligned, but I’m interested to know how that worked how between the two entities and whether or not any of it was funky.

Heck: To be honest, I’ve been on the phone with them almost on a daily basis, for the last 12 months. The relationship is strong. It’s real. We are 90% aligned on our objectives of trying to get things in order, make it safe, and provide good entertainment. They have their flavor of entertainment, we have ours, and we really have had a nice working relationship.

CB: This might be a dumb question, but obviously other states got a head start on Pennsylvania and had fans in the stands before we did. How much did that help you, and were you able to learn and pull from that to help your own situation in anticipation of fans returning?

Heck: I think trends always help, and getting details behind that. We know the NBA, of the 15 teams with fans, they’ve had zero outbreaks, and zero cases. We also know that holds true in the NHL. It has been extremely diligent and professional on taking the health precautions first. We’re very confident we’ll continue to have the utmost safe environment and experience. So we learned a lot from these teams and leagues. We’ve been studying what they’ve been doing and think we have a super strong plan that will only get better as time goes.

CB: Last one for you, a totally open-ended question, but do you foresee any permanent changes to the experience, based on what we learned over the last year? Is there anything that is going to be forever changed when it comes to taking in a live sporting event?

Heck: I think that’s a really good question. The goal is to get back to once we what knew as normal. Because what that normal was, was 20,000 people, every single game, 123 consecutive games, with few incidents and a great experience. I think the answer is that we want to get back to that. We were very proud of that experience. It was safe. It was fun. It was money well spent. It was a home court advantage for our team. What will change in another year from now? I think the cleanliness will always be a priority. Not that it wasn’t before, but I think there’s a new level of air cleanliness and sanitation throughout stadiums and arenas. That will be very important going further. We happen to have a very good experience already, so I don’t know how much change will happen a year from now.