Michigan Stadium unlikely to sell full capacity this season
Main quote from Warde:
“I can tell you, it won't be normal,” Manuel said during a webinar with local media reporters. “We won't have 110,000 people in Michigan stadium this year, that's a definitive. Will it be 50-percent (capacity), or 30 percent or 20 percent or 10, or zero? I'm not sure. That'll be a combination of listening to our public health officials, knowing what our stadium capacity can handle given the direction that is put out by the governor's office and the University.”
Well no shit Sherlock...
+1 Informative
There isn’t going to be a season so...
What are the odds of having a CFB season; 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%? No guarantee so I don't totally disagree. That means IMO, a CFB season is less than 100% certain but it's in the 70-80% range.
(I like numbers plus it reveals confidence levels)
I don't get why people are talking about it like a binary. I suspect we will have "some" CFB season, i.e. with at least some games cancelled and enough weird shit happening that you or I can't predict that this year becomes a giant "what-if" for a lot of teams + there's a huge asterisk on whoever wins the title this year. But I am 100% confident that there will be at least one CFB game!
All I know is that, in the 3.5 months since all hell broke loose, the NBA, NHL and MLB have played a grand total of zero games.
Remember, the NBA and NHL seasons should be over by now and their plans as to if/when they’re going to resume are nebulous at best. And, of course, MLB is going to fuck itself because it’s MLB.
Now throw in the additional fact that, after weeks of declines, cases in the last week have started to significantly rise again.
A hell of a lot is going to have to go right in a short amount of time to see college football this year and, at present, the odds are trending in the wrong direction.
Significantly increase. Yesterday was our biggest day for new cases since May 1st and today is already looking to be worse yet (and this is following several days of increase so this isn't an outlier). It's not a surprise that when many states decided it was "fine" to open back up, their new cases started to spike. We opened too early, and this is going to fuck us. Had we just stayed disciplined and patient (something our country is completely incapable of doing, I get it) we could have been in good shape by fall. At this point, I highly doubt it will happen.
Agreed. If we had banned together at the beginning and all said “These are the hard steps we’re going to have to take if we want to limit this thing.” The government had instituted stronger measures to try and help people who were going to be put of work and we’d had the discipline to see it through. Then maybe we’d have had a chance for sports this fall.
Instead........well you know the story.
The problem is that the virus doesn't hit every place at the same time. With a common national lockdown policy, you end up rewarding the places that got hit first and punishing those that get it last. The North didn't do worse than the South in April because Northerners were less disciplined, that's just where the bulk of the virus was at the time. Now it's reversed.
I originally thought there should have been a nationwide lockdown, but I've rethought that. There shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all approach. If lockdowns work, they should be used strategically in places where the virus is spreading - because they come with a big, big price tag.
So, if your contention that the rising cases in the south is just because it’s where the bulk of it is now, how does that bode for the future?
Michigan, New York, Washington and other northern states that got hit early on, only were able to get it under control by going into strong quarantine and safety protocols. Texas, Florida and the other southern states that are seeing dramatic spikes now have made it clear they won’t do anything, beyond the half assed efforts they did early on before completely opening up, to stem the current wave.
It took weeks for the numbers up north to come down after the measures were in a place. Logic dictates that the currently impacted states, with their much weaker safety measures, are likely to see these high numbers for a much longer period of time. And by that time the virus may have found a way to head back up north and start a new wave.
People keep giving the virus the finger, thinking it’s some sort of display of defiance, and the virus, completely unaffected by their displays, just continues to rip through us like a bullet through tin foil
Because people don’t stay in one place. They move between cities and states constantly. Your logic makes no sense. If everyone doesn’t pull together, it just keeps spreading. The south ends lockdown too soon and outbreaks explode. You can’t stop it situationally. That’s like waiting for fires to spread before using hoses.
Uh, it actually it makes all the sense in the world, because people move around that it’ll eventually get transmitted back up here by states down south.
The challenge with this is two-fold: first, we did not have enough testing to tell where we were likely get hit hard in late March. Second, with a more targeted approach, other places that did not spike because of stay at home orders would have. First we pissed away two months from mid January to mid March not getting ready, then we pissed away much of the shutdown time not developing a good policy for opening up. It is hard to solve big, widespread problems when your president spends most of his time denying they exist.
I don't think opening too early fucked us. We had to open and cases were going to rise once we did. The bigger issue to me is the behavior of people and the general middle finger pointed at any sort of safety measure ordered/recommended by our leaders. A large portion of the populous seems to take pride in throwing caution to the wind especially when its the government telling us to do something that limits our personal freedom. Of course if our leaders could come together in a unified front and put a single course of action in front of the people the response probably would have been better.
Double post.
All around the world, the March/April lockdowns are ending. Asking people to go months without income (and governments to go months with little tax revenue) isn't feasible. I'm in public education and we're pretty much fucked for 2020-21 if we don't get a federal bailout, because state sales tax revenue (which funds public schools) has collapsed. At least we in Michigan actually had our outbreak then. For states elsewhere in the country, it may have been a waste.
This problem isn't only in the US. India, Latin America, South Africa - all these places locked down the same time as us and are now reopening because they're going broke. And now they're blowing up with COVID. They're going to have to hope that masks are enough.
Did all of Michigan have its outbreak? Here in Ingham County we've had 700 some reported cases - I would anticipate a spike in the next month as the people around town are generally ignoring any precautionary measures. Power House Gym opened all their locations in the state this past Monday with limited safety measures inside. I think our infection curve for the state (removing Metro Detroit and Grand Rapids) is going to look very similar to Arizona, Florida, and others.
Would have been in good shape by fall? What defines "good shape" and what evidence do you have to support that conclusion?
I know there is great sport in throwing bombs, especially those that are designed to show how intelligent one is compared to others, but just once I'd like to be able to tell friends and relatives about a conclusion with supporting facts and evidence instead of saying, well this anonymous person on the internet says it is so.
*cough* baseball *cough*
^^stay away from this guy. He's got the 'Rona!
*ahem* some business decisions are easier and more flexible when you don't have to pay the labor.
They gave up the income from the NCAA tourney, and like someone responded to you already, baseball cancelled their whole season. So that's definitely a possibility if our country isn't in a position to handle it.
And considering the way most of our country has responded to this already I don't see us being in a position to handle it (although props to Michigan who, despite bitching from a lot of their residents, has done very well).
Salvatore, I wouldn’t completely rule out a CFB season as there had been some institutional momentum (albeit disorganized and inconsistent as many posters already suggested) behind getting something, anything on the field.
It will almost definitely look completely different than anything we have seen, especially the stadium atmosphere and how they manage student athlete interactions on campus.
Baseball canceling spring training seems to be the first domino to fall, but there were extenuating circumstances there with labor disputes already muddying the waters.
The true test will be if the NBA manages to get its season restarted in what is essentially a quarantined bubble and if so, how that plays out. If they can’t pull that off, (And there is already a bit of player protest against it), it will be really tough for CFB to put something together where players, coaches and administration aren’t signing off on all the risk - but even then there are overhanging liabilities that schools can’t completely account For and may not want to absorb.
Add in the recent momentum around player empowerment and how it has been heightened with the latest social movement in the US, and we add in complications of issues of race and youth exploitation to the already notorious NCAA model - albeit the NCAA has never really been one to care about optics.
It’s quite obvious nothing is returning to “normal” until we have a vaccine, but given how desperate some are for sports at this point, the TV profits will probably push schools towards getting anything on the field.
TLDR: They’ll push to get anything on the field because of $$$$, it will look totally different than anything we’ve ever seen, and hopefully it isn’t a total clusterfuck resulting in a mid-season cancellation.
As narrow as the seats are 50%capacity probably feels like 75% full. If you sold tickets based on social distancing seems like the you'd have to go to around 10-15%percent, then a lot of the crowd would bunch up towards better seats. I'm pessimistic about having any crowd. Luxury boxes seem like the only safe tickets to sell, but that seems like a bad PR move.
The boxes would be the worst place to be. Enclosed spaces with poor ventilation? No thanks.
The logistics of having to reassign season ticket holders seats to accommodate social spacing guidelines is giving me a headache just thinking about it. Imagine being the staff who has to deal with that.
Yeah and I already called dibs on the Wisconsin and PSU games!
At this point, I think college football only happens with empty stadiums.
I envision, all coaching staff families, players families, who are able to attend. Most students, if they choose. Maybe big donors who own the suites-half capacity there. Maybe other donors who sit in the club seats. That might entail a few thousand at worst. At best, 25-30K fans in the stadium.
Probably, just like the NFL stadiums will be empty.
I suspect they'll still open up the corporate luxury boxes.
Hopefully there is consistency in the big ten. Having a quarter full big house and going to a full horseshoe wouldnt be fair to the team.
But would be completely expected.
Come on now, I am sure Warde will not rest until he is certain that Michigan will be treated justly.
Very good point. That's up the B1G Commish to make a ruling. Stay tuned.
I would bet large amounts of money that the shoe will be full in November. You’ll start seeing hints about it as the season progresses.
OSU home schedule (assume conference games only. More games only makes things easier):
Rutger: empty
Iowa: 25%
Nebraska: 50%
indiana: either 50 or 75%
They will say that they have seen great results with the Nebraska and Indiana games and with the message of being able to keep people safe and enforce face masks and other good habits, they’ll bring college football all the way back the way it’s supposed to be and fill it.
there are a couple ways that doesn’t happen.
1) a statewide/nationwide outbreak with huge infection rates at any given time during the season (a 2nd wave would be one instance unrelated to football, but could also be induced by game attendance, doesn’t matter)
2) the Big Ten or NCAA says they can’t (doubtful. Too much money given up)
3) the government steps in and says no. (Unlikely to happen federally, so that leaves the governor. If the governor ever wants to be re-elected then he won’t dare shut down the Beloved Buckeyes. They’d burn his house down)
Bullseye.
And we will dutifully host our home games with two thousand people.
Man, it's like we've all seen this movie somewhere before...
I hope Michigan doesn't engage in any excessive stretching this year, as well...
/smh
I think this is a very real possibility.
But let's be honest, we aren't winning that game either way.
They signed waivers. So, problem solved. Go Bucks!
Forward-slash "S"
To be fair OSU was the first school I can remember throwing out the 25% crowd size number. MSU has indicated that 25% is their best case scenario - with the ability to expand that number if that can figure out the logistics of maintaining space between groups of spectators (even then they indicated 20k people max in the stadium). When you start hearing multiple teams throwing out similar numbers I have to believe that this is going to be coordinated by the conference.
I think the piece you're missing is that by late November, we'll start hitting regular flu season and things are going to start shutting down again. Most schools that are planning to come back with students have already made plans to move to online-only at that point.
Ohio was also among the more aggressive states during the initial lockdowns too.
It would also be very Darwinian.
Explain yourself Einstein.
If the horseshoe is 100% capacity this year then you'll probably see a smaller crowd in future years
So, it'll go from 100,000 to 95,000?
Truck drivers breed rapidly. Probably not much of a dropoff.