Timberwolves vice president for business intelligence Laura Meyer said she started to "obsess" over something unusual over the last year. Whether she was at a restaurant or a store, she would examine the flow of lines: how quickly they moved and whether people kept socially distanced.
"It's one of the things I never thought I would be focused on — line flow," Meyer said "Disney does it pretty well. They are great case studies, so now I find myself at amusement parks and shopping locations seeing how things are queued and watching what people are doing. It's fascinating."
Meyer knew Monday at Target Center would eventually come: the return of fans.
Under state guidelines, the arena will open to about 3,000 fans for Monday's game against the Sacramento Kings. Meyer has been spearheading the efforts to ensure all goes smoothly and safely as fans re-enter the arena by the thousands for the first time since before the pandemic began.
Among the things fans can expect when they come back are spaced-out lines, contactless concession ordering and pickup all done through the Wolves' app, and straps securing seats that aren't being used to ensure proper distancing between sets of fans.
The Wolves were already the first team in sports to switch to paperless ticketing, a transition that served them well in advance of Monday since fans are already accustomed to the experience of contactless ticket entry. Meyer has been studying how lines will flow to get into the arena and then in navigating getting to seats. The key to maintaining proper distancing, she said, was markers on the floor.
"The stickers on the floor help in areas where you think you're going to potentially have lines because if you don't put a spot on the floor people naturally just bump up," Meyer said. "[The Wolves will have] people around kind of owning a zone that you have to be on the watch, and if you see people starting to bunch, go spread them out."
Meyer has been spearheading this effort for the Wolves as part of her title in business intelligence, one that not a lot of women have across sports and one that focuses on how data and analytics intersect with the Wolves' gameday experience. Meyer, who has worked for the Wolves for 15 years, was one of the few women working in the field for a long time and said when she would go to NBA meetings, she'd be one of the only women there.