The term "behind closed doors" is used in several sports to describe matches played where spectators are not allowed in the stadium or venue to watch. A match played in this manner is also referred to as a crowdless game. Because ticket sales generally constitute a substantial proportion of total revenues in most professional sports as well as in certain elite competitions of many amateur sports, it is rare for such games to be off limits to paying members of the general public. When such instances do occur, it is usually for reasons outside the participating teams' control. These may include as a punishment or remedy for a participating team, stadium safety problems, preventing potentially dangerous clashes between rival supporters, wider safety concerns like a riot or other civil disturbances, or public health concerns like the COVID-19 pandemic.Baseball ready to step up to the plate, deliver shortened season. NBC Sports, 23 June 2020

Examples

Brazil In Brazil, the practice of games without public access is known as "closed gates" (in Portuguese, portões fechados), even referred as such in the Brazilian Football Confederation's rulebook. Once it was applied to a whole tournament: two rounds of the Campeonato Catarinense second division in 2014 were behind closed doors because the competing clubs did not deliver the security checks for their stadiums. Sanitary reasons dictated the restriction in 2009, when two games of the Série D were played behind closed doors due to the H1N1 flu pandemic.

North America

The most prevalent example of North American teams playing without fans in attendance was as a consequence of public health measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, these were determined by local health authorities which had the power to limit public gatherings. While the terms and duration of these measures varied by jurisdiction, as a general rule Canadian provincial measures were far more strict and kept in place considerably longer compared to those in U.S. states. Canadian authorities were also much less willing to grant exemptions for professional sports teams, with the exemptions granted being very limited in scope; in some cases, public health authorities threatened not to grant sufficient dispensation to allow a sufficient gathering to permit a game to be played at all. Notably, the Canadian Football League, which is more dependent on gate receipts compared to the "big four" major professional sports leagues, refused to play under these restrictions, and instead, canceled its 2020 season.

A related issue affecting the leagues was travel restrictions, imposed at the federal, provincial and state levels, barring non-essential border crossings and/or mandating strict quarantines for border crossers, which would have restricted the availability of players if they frequently crossed the international border. The NHL, as the primarily U.S. based league with the most teams in Canada, responded to all this by finishing the 2019-20 NHL season behind closed doors in restricted access "bubbles" in Canada, and creating temporary divisions including the all-Canadian North Division for the 2020-21 NHL season.

The National Football League, which was in its offseason at the start of the pandemic, was the only league able to complete its season in 2020 with minimal disruption to the schedule. Over time, public health authorities began to allow crowds again, first in limited numbers. One of the consequences of this was that Super Bowl LV, the first to be held in the stadium of a participating team, was also the least-attended NFL championship game since 1941, which was played in wartime two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By the autumn of 2021, capacity crowds were generally allowed throughout the United States although some Canadian jurisdictions continued to limit attendance. By the spring of 2022, capacity limits were lifted in Canada as well.

Several leagues have collective bargaining agreements which mandate that the players as a group receive a defined percentage of league revenues. This meant the owners had the legal right to recoup a portion of any lost ticket revenues, as in these leagues a portion of salaries is paid into escrow pending a final determination of revenue. In some cases, such as the NHL, the owners and players agreed to modify their CBA to defer this "debt" over several years. In Major League Baseball, which does not have such defined revenue sharing, players agreed to receive pro-rated salaries over a reduced 60 game schedule for the 2020 Major League Baseball season.

Minor League Baseball and the Canadian Football League both cancelled their summer 2020 seasons rather than attempt to go crowdless (the CFL has substantial television revenue, but not enough to cover salaries and other gameday expenses, with no prospect of convincing provincial governments to allow crowds to attend games at this time this meant the league lost less money by not playing).

Hooliganism has been less of a factor in North American sports than the rest of the world. Local law enforcement in the United States and Canada are traditionally armed, unlike in some other countries. In addition, private security contractors working for either the team or a league, and national agencies such as the United States Department of Homeland Security take large roles in preventing situations of fan violence before they can occur by restricting access to known troublesome fans either at the gate or at the stage of selling tickets (such as "do not sell" lists), along with heavy restrictions on bringing in items and screening with metal detectors and pat-down searches where bringing in a weapon or explosive device can result in immediate arrest and permanent banishment from a venue, and other examples such as the "clear bag" policy, which only allows spectators to bring in bags that can be easily seen through.

Teams also have incentive to prevent fan violence due to forfeit rules which come with penalties to their records and playoff positioning, and league sanctions such as fines and the stripping of draft picks due to neglecting to create a safe environment for players, which in turn can affect teams for years beyond a violent event. Also sporting events in North America are considered to be more of a family-friendly and uniting affair, as sports fans tend to respect each other as fans of a common sport. In other countries around the world, sports matches are sometimes proxies for bitter and long-standing ethnic, political, and religious divisions; this is less so in the United States, where the broad variety of sports options manifests as different ethnic groups preferring different sports, reducing the chance at intercultural rivalry within a single sport. Also, having political, religious, or ethnic overtones in a sports match is considered taboo in the United States. While racial segregation in the United States once extended to organized sports, the primary intent was to exclude blacks from playing on white teams and leagues altogether, so the result was often the organization of separate teams and leagues for black players, whom the white teams simply refused to play. When the "color lines" of each sport were finally broken, it was by formerly all-white teams signing black athletes instead of by admitting entire black teams, although numerous incidents of racist abuse by players and spectators did occur in the decades following integration.

Furthermore, the much larger geographical footprint of the North American sports leagues mean that even fierce rivals are often based hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. For example, while the Dallas Cowboys are considered to be the bitter rivals of every other team in the NFC East, their nearest division rival is based almost from the Dallas metropolitan area by air, and over from Dallas by road. The only other NFL team in Texas by contrast is in the opposite conference, so, meaning under normal circumstances they will only play each other every four years. Fans elsewhere in the world can easily travel to most if not all of their league's stadiums by road or train, and bus and rail carriers have evolved there to cater to the expected demand. In contrast, fans of the North American sports leagues would need to travel by air if they wanted to attend most of their team's road games, though certain teams' fan bases are known for having large presences in opposing stadiums. In contrast to the local derbies of European soccer, some North American teams in the same metropolitan areas, especially in baseball and (gridiron) football, are separated into opposite conferences or leagues so that they are among the least frequent opponents on their schedules, inhibiting the development of a crosstown rivalry and allowing fans in a metropolitan area to support both teams with minimal conflict. Furthermore, unlike in most geographically smaller and more densely populated countries, teams are typically not required to (and typically do not) set aside whole sections of their stadiums for opposing fans, and instead, sell almost all tickets to the first takers, further disincentivizing them from traveling to away games.

All of these reduce the chances of hooliganism, eliminate the need to segregate fans from opposing teams, and ultimately negate the threat of a closed-door game due as a consequence of fan violence. In rare circumstances where a serious incident has occurred (such the 2004 Pacers–Pistons brawl in the NBA), sports authorities have leaned toward identifying and excluding the specific people involved as opposed to indiscriminately punishing the wider, law-abiding fan base. In contrast to the rest of the world where "behind closed doors" games are given out as penalties for previous violations, or to prevent potential violence (stadium safety issues, checkered history of rival supporters), such occurrences in North America have happened for entirely different reasons.

History

World Chess Championship 1972 Perhaps one of the first and most famous incidents of a sport being carried out behind closed doors was Game 3 of the World Chess Championship 1972 in Reykjavík, Iceland, often referred to as the Match of the Century. Eventual winner Bobby Fischer, who was upset by the noise of film cameras, insisted he would not play unless it was behind closed doors. Sportingly, his opponent, Boris Spassky, obliged Fischer's request rather than claim a win by forfeit.

1980–81 European Cup Winners' Cup After rioting by fans in the first leg against Castilla in Spain, West Ham United were forced to play the second leg at Upton Park in October 1980 to an empty stadium.

1982–83 European Cup After rioting by fans in a semifinal at Anderlecht in Belgium the previous April, Aston Villa were forced to begin their defence of the European Cup at an empty Villa Park in a September 1982 first round match, with the match kicking off at 2:30 pm on a Wednesday afternoon."Ipswich assignment no Roman holiday" by Peter Ball, The Times page 22, 15 September 1982

1987–88 European Cup After UEFA ban resulting from the incidents in the match between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich in a semifinal in Spain the previous April, Real Madrid were forced to play the match at home against Napoli in the European Cup at an empty Santiago Bernabeu Stadium on 16 September 1987.

2002 Charleston RiverDogs In 2002, the Charleston RiverDogs of Minor League Baseball voluntarily played part of a game with no fans in attendance. As a promotion, the team held "Nobody Night" in order to set the all-time record for lowest attendance at a baseball game. Fans were kept out of the stadium but were invited to a party outside and could see the game by looking over the fence or through openings in the fence. Once the attendance became official in the fifth inning, fans were allowed inside to see the rest of the game.

2007 Italian football