Ohio State Football Considers Having Games with 20,000-50,000 Fans in Attendance
The decision to have a college football season is one of the more intriguing ones on the list of possible sports to come back. A lot of those Southern-based schools like Alabama, Georgia, and others have already stated they will do everything they can to have a season.
However, schools up north could very well have a different way of thinking. But let’s not add Ohio State to that list of teams taking the more cautious route – the Buckeyes have big plans to allow thousands of fans into their stadium.
Ohio Stadium has a seating capacity of 102,780, which is the fourth-largest on-campus stadium in the United States. The school currently has plans to hold crowds of anywhere from around 20,000-22,000 to 40,000-50,000 “if guidelines are relaxed.”
As it stands now, the Ohio State athletic department could lose upwards of $50 million if the stadium opened with no fans at all this season. This should be interesting, to say the least. Ohio State’s Athletic Director, Gene Smith, will be examining this social distancing model, in addition to a few others.
“We’ve played with that a little bit as a framework to start as we move forward and think about what we’d ultimately be allowed to do,” Smith told reporters before later clarifying the low-end estimate in a tweet.
“We’re fortunate, with 100,000 seats in the stadium,” he said. “So could we implement the current CDC guidelines, state guidelines around physical distancing, mask requirements, and all those types of things in an outdoor environment and have obviously significantly less fans than we are used to? I think it’s possible. I just feel like we have the talent and skill and space capacity to provide an opportunity for a certain number of fans to have access to our particular stadium. Of course, that wouldn’t be true across the country because of capacity. But I think we can get there.”
In order to determine who gets priority access to the limited number of seats that would be available, Smith said the athletic department would first turn to the points system already in place but also would consider faculty, staff, students, donors, media, parents, and other groups.
“We have to look at those and come up with some strategies within those groups,” Smith said. “Our point system has held the test of time, so that would probably be one. Then, of course, the parents and the guests of our student-athletes and coaches would be a high priority. We’d come up with a strategy, but we haven’t nailed that down.”
Dolphins’ Tom Garfinkel Has Similar Plans Brewing
A few weeks ago, Miami Dolphins CEO and President Tom Garfinkel was trying to find ways of working a social distancing model to accommodate a maximum of 15,000 fans into the 65,000-seat Hard Rock Stadium – the site of the last NFL game played, Super Bowl LIV between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.
It goes without saying that we’re all craving some type of football in our bloodstream. Although no games would have started at this point in time, we’re all a bit antsy to see what rulings are made – and how our fall season will be affected by it.
