The 2020 (yes, they're still called 2020) Tokyo Summer Olympic Games will officially open Friday with the Opening Ceremony, to be staged in a fanless Japan National Stadium.

The ceremony officially gets underway at 8 p.m. local time, 7 a.m. ET.

You can stream the ceremony live right here.

An acrobatic carpentry segment ends with the Olympic rings built in real time. There's a smattering of applause in the stands. Seats have been covered with a range of colors to give the appearance of a full stadium, but it's largely empty. During quiet moments, the chanting of the protestors outside is audible. (7:34 a.m.)

The Opening Ceremony's In Memoriam segment honored not only the many lost to COVID, but the Israeli athletes murdered by terrorists during the 1972 Olympic Games. After many years of criticism, this marked the first time the Olympics publicly honored those athletes during a ceremony. (7:23 a.m.)

Which U.S. athletes will march? Basketball player Sue Bird and baseball player Eddy Alvarez will lead the U.S. contingent into the stadium, but many familiar faces won't be. Gymnasts and swimmers tend to skip the Opening Ceremony because it requires so much standing, and the track and field contingent hasn't even arrived in Tokyo. But the men's and women's basketball teams, among others, are likely to be in attendance. (7:18 a.m.)

The initial video kicking off the Ceremony skillfully pivots from the euphoria of Tokyo winning the Olympic bid in 2013, through the several Games afterward, and then to the joy of 2020 beginning ... only to shut down in total darkness. But from out of that darkness, a montage of athletes training at home, then coming together, then building to a dramatic countdown and fireworks spectacular to kick off the start of the Games. "Apart but not alone" is the early theme. (7:05 a.m. ET)

The Opening Ceremony begins with subdued, measured silence, unsurprising given the sparse nature of the audience. Fewer than 1,000 dignitaries and officials are in attendance, along with a small fraction of assembled athletes, media and other officials. (7:00 a.m. ET)

Outside the stadium, protests erupted and disrupted traffic all around National Stadium:

Yahoo Sports' Henry Bushnell and Shalise Manza Young are in the arena for the Opening Ceremony. Here's what it looks like a few hours before showtime:

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