Will the governor’s office change its mind on limiting fans? Penn State has a plan if it does
Penn State football is preparing to play this fall largely without fans due to state-issued guidelines, but the university’s athletic department has a plan in place if that changes.
Several athletic department members, led by Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour and Senior Associate AD of Capital Events and Facilities Carl Heck, were in attendance on a Zoom call Thursday afternoon that included a presentation detailing a potential plan for up to 23,275 fans to attend games this fall inside the 106,572-seat Beaver Stadium.
“Our three pillars have been employee and staff safety, fan safety and experiences, and focusing on our student-athletes’ safety,” Heck said on the call. “We developed and modified ticketing and seating strategies. ... We plan to go with all mobile tickets for Beaver Stadium. ... We’ve implemented COVID-19 initiatives for all of our operational areas for fans and staff. We have re-imagined the fan experience with an extra focus on environmental hygiene and increased communication.”
The plan was presented to Gov. Tom Wolf’s office but was denied given the situation of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the guidance to limit outdoor events to 250 people.
“It’s their concerns about where we are as a state, and a commonwealth, with the virus,” Barbour said on the call with the media. “They’re not willing to extend it to that point.”
The plan would include a mix of season ticket-holders and students with a zoned entry plan for entrance into the stadium to improve the ability to conduct contact tracing. Ticket-holders would be the only people permitted to have parking access, under the proposed plan.
While the plan was nixed by Wolf’s office for the time being, Barbour said the university and its athletic department maintain contact with the governor’s office and have been working with it to maintain flexibility and find avenues to have fans in attendance at games.
“They’re open, and we continue to work with them,” she said. “We’ll continue to work, throughout this, with them to see what flexibility might exist, either through innovation or through improved conditions.”
That flexibility has left the door open for other plans to be enacted by the athletic department if they’re carried out more easily. Some of those plans, according to Barbour, include only one group of fans.
“There are a number of possibilities with students only,” she said. “Should we be able to pull it off, (they’ll) be at the top of our list.”
Here’s what else stood out from Thursday’s teleconference with the media.
Quick Hitters
- Barbour confirmed she took a 15% pay cut to help mitigate some of the financial losses the athletic department has dealt with. The athletic director estimated department losses in the eight- or nine-figure range in her open letter to season ticket-holders.
- She declined to comment on Penn State head football coach James Franklin’s pay cut, and whether or not he took one.
- The 250-person limit for outdoor events would include both teams, both staffs, and all present members of the media and other game day personnel. Most Big Ten teams carry 85 scholarship players, along with a maximum of 125 total players.
- There is a possibility that suites could be counted as a separate building, allowing for flexibility with attendance numbers.
- Barbour didn’t express total confidence that a season would happen and said the athletic department would be willing to move the season to the spring, although that conversation is still not at the forefront of discussion.
This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 5:20 PM.
