Iowa announces home games will have 10k-15k capacities
Link: https://mobile.twitter.com/brett_mcmurphy/status/1291487561089789958?s=21
Relatively low capacity, but not effectively zero as with other teams in stricter states.
Interesting. At least somebody in the Big Ten finally decided something. That may not create the standard 6 foot distancing, but it's a lot safer than a full stadium obviously. I'll feel lucky if I see even one game in the Big House this year.
As long as the games are played, empty stadiums beats empty TV screens on Saturday afternoons
There was an IndyCar race at Iowa Speedway a few weeks ago (the track you can see on the south side of I-80 if one ever has to do that boring-ass Des Moines to Iowa City drive, like I did this past Saturday) where they allowed 20% capacity.
This would be roughly in line with that.
Also, I was flipping around last night and ESPN2 had a live Cornhole tournament. Indoors and WITH fans there, fairly packed in (wearing masks).
Personally I think they should open it up to students only. With all that space, easy for them to social distance. And if they don't social distance, well they probably aren't doing it outside of football games anyways so nothing changes.
Plus, students and student athletes are together the rest of the week. Moving the group a mile away to a stadium won’t have much impact.
The waving at the children's hospital will be particularly poignant this year.
Comment of the day!
dumb
Yeah I'm gonna bet the under on this one
This feels very Iowa.
Attending games should be limited to students and parents of players. When my local H.S. team is not allowing fans and limiting attendance to parents only by football player purchased tickets only, then perhaps that mindset should extend to levels above.
I read this as "students and parents of lawyers" initially. And, for some reason, agreed.
Have they announced what their acceptable casualty rate is?
I’m sure the calculations involve corn
...and the wearing of masks.
That is a good question. I wonder what the accepted casualty rate is under nonplague circumstances. How many deaths and how many lost life years do we accept for football normally? Stats seem to say about 1 in 50,000 for the athletes in the game itself. Then there are the deaths from traffic/alcohol/communicable diseases/chaos team heart attacks etc. Just eyeballing it, I would say we are OK with a casualty rate of 1 in 10^4 or 10^5.
Don't test and there won't be any numbers!
Was Ferentz overruled on the colored and white sections, or did he get his way on that, too?
I hope we paste Iowa in perpetuity myself.
Black and "gold," you say?
He allowed hoodies. So he's cool.
August 6th, 2020 at 10:11 PM ^
If jt's a-ok by Whitmer to allow 15% capacity indoors at casinos, I dont see why we can't have 16,140 fan's at an outdoor stadium.
August 6th, 2020 at 11:38 PM ^
Agreed. Staee is all set....
August 7th, 2020 at 12:09 AM ^
Good. At least they will have a real crowd noise.
August 7th, 2020 at 10:02 AM ^
If you can't fix it, feature it. How do you turn [15%] capacity into an advantage? Having crowd noise is good. Do you give everyone those annoying boom sticks because there is room for them? Extra large boom sticks? Extra large spinning "bullroars" with LEDs on them? Bring your own Didgeridoo?
August 7th, 2020 at 10:27 AM ^
Completely doable at Michigan Stadium. 44 sections with approx 100 rows. Only allow 4 persons per row (about 25 seats per row in a section) and there would be enough room to space them out. That’s about 17,000 people. Allow 4 people per partitioned box and you’re around 20,000. Any ushers seeing people trying to congregate will remove that person and that can be clearly outlined in both the sale of the ticket and via PA announcement. NASCAR has had five events with fans (30,000 at Bristol with no issues). It can be done.
August 7th, 2020 at 11:01 AM ^
You need to think beyond the game/stadium itself. Those 10,000-20,000 don't just magically appear. They get into cars and drive into town, go to bars and restaurants, tailgate, go to restrooms, etc. Even if you can guarantee 100% socially distancing within the stadium (which you can't) you are still creating a large increase contact among people which increases the risk of further spread. I would think we need to be in better situation as a country before taking this risk.