By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Nov 23, 2020 at 3:01 PM

While there are some new faces on the Milwaukee Bucks 2020-21 roster, there unfortunately won't be faces old or new in the stands as the team announced that, until further notice, home games at Fiserv Forum this upcoming season will be played without fans in attendance due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

"The Bucks will continue to work with state and local health officials, as well as the NBA, to evaluate a potential return for fans in some capacity later this season," the team noted in an official release. 

Marquette University and UW-Milwaukee both announced earlier this month that they will also not host fans in the stands when their respective college basketball seasons start in the upccoming weeks, while the Green Bay Packers continue to have empty stands for their home games at Lambeau Field while the state battles spikes in COVID daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

While the full schedule of games has yet to be announced, fans or no fans, the NBA season will begin on Dec. 22 – albeit with a different schedule release strategy and a slightly altered playoff structure. The first half of the 72-game schedule is expected near the beginning of training camp (reportedly opening on Dec. 1) with the second half, which will feature the remaining unscheduled games plus any rescheduled games from the first half, coming later. As for the playoffs, the seventh through tenth ranked teams in each conference at the end of the season will participate in a play-in tournament to determine the final two playoff seedings.

For the full breakdown of the tournament and schedule layout, visit NBA.com. And stay tuned to OnMilwaukee for more Bucks updates.

 

 

 

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.