Instead of thousands of football fans converging on the Pro Football Hall of Fame this week, there might be dozens. The coronavirus pandemic ensured that when the hall's enshrinement ceremonies were postponed until next year, and the NFL canceled preseason games.
So while the museum is open to limited capacity, the scene in Canton, Ohio, during the first week in August has been muted.
No parades and dinners honoring the inductees. No gathering of Gold Jackets, the members of the sport's most prestigious club. No football.
Yet, Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company has convinced investors to join in its multi-dimensional business plan seeking to create what the company's President/CEO Michael Crawford has referred to as a sports Disneyland: a sports, entertainment and media enterprise with football as its centerpiece.
That plan includes investing more than $300 million as part of Phase II of creating the Hall of Fame Village on approximately 600 acres surrounding the museum.
The village will include everything from dozens of high-quality youth fields for such sports as football, soccer, lacrosse and others, to a multipurpose performance center to office space to facilities for research and treatment for getting athletes back on the field quickly. A water park is on the drawing board, plus a retail district.
The hope is to launch construction by the end of 2020, though in downtown Canton, a hotel in need of renovation is being converted into a premium hotel. A centennial plaza is due to be completed in September, including an area dedicated to everyone who has played pro football.
With COVID-19 forcing cancellation of so many events around the Hall of Fame - not just the usual August inductions but a special centennial class enshrinement next month, plus the Black College Hall of Fame Football Classic and the Division III national title game, all at the recently upgraded Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium - the prospect for getting the village going could have been bleak. An estimated 200,000 young athletes travel to Canton for youth sports activities, bringing along family and friends, too. Much of that was lost, though the village still plans to host events or tournaments in 2020, respecting COVID-19 guidelines.
And the optimism about the village remains strong.
Ed Roth, president/CEO of Aultman Health Foundation, and a Pro Football Hall of Fame board member, points to the uplifting atmosphere at the core of the project.
"It is that opportunity to take what is really the crown jewel of our community, and the importance of it to the NFL, and really the importance of football to our country - it is a big deal," Roth said.