50 percent attendance limit creates issues
Attending a high school football game on a whim is now a luxury.
Texas City coach Leland Surovik imagines traveling fans walking up to Bulldog Stadium in Nederland or Bronco Stadium in Dayton expecting to buy tickets at the gate.
“If you’re going to drive that far, you better have a ticket in your hand,” Surovik said. “Either that or have a plan for a good meal and a vacation.
“People are going to have to plan and people are not used to planning anymore.”
It’s one of many consequences from the University Interscholastic League capping venue capacity at 50 percent for spectators in 2020. The limitations, which get a test run in high school football with the regular season starting Friday for most Class A through 4A teams, are part of the UIL’s COVID-19 risk mitigation plan. Week 1 opens Sept. 24 for Class 6A and 5A schools.
Some districts are jumping through hoops to make the capacity limits work. In Midland, Greenwood moved its first two home games from a 3,700-seat J. M. King Memorial Stadium to 15,000-seat Grande Communications Stadium. There isn’t much room for other spectators at Greenwood’s on-campus stadium after members of the dance teams, cheerleaders, bands and other groups are considered.
Financial hits are expected. Said Surovik, “Just because you’re cutting the number of people in the stands doesn’t mean you can cut security. You can’t cut officials. You can’t cut game workers and all that. You still have to have the same amount for that.”
The raucous atmospheres Texas high school football are famous for will suffer, too. Those involved believe it’s all worth it if it means games can be played.
Many districts’ plans for stadium capacity mirror each other. Parents are prioritized. They’ll likely have a specific window within the week to buy tickets. Some districts, such as Katy ISD, won’t sell season tickets. CypressFairbanks ISD athletics director Ray Zepeda said the district has not finalized plans for 11,000-seat Cy-Fair FCU Stadium and 12,000seat Pridgeon Stadium, both of which 12 Class 6A schools share. Zepeda says selling season tickets as the district typically does is going to be “difficult to impossible.”
Every other row will be closed off with six feet of distance between seats at many stadiums.
Fans likely won’t be seated next to an aisle. Electronic and remote ticketing will be favored over paper — the former limits person-toperson contact. Texas High School Coaches Association and other passes may not be accepted.
The seating capacity diminishes in a hurry, Surovik said. Considering social distancing measures with fine arts groups included, most stadiums may not even reach 50 percent capacity. Stingaree Stadium in Texas City, where La Marque and Texas City host games in 2020, goes from seating 8,000 to just under 4,000 with 1,800 visiting fans and 2,000 on the home side.
If general admission tickets remain at Stingaree Stadium, they’ll be sold. The number of those available tickets — which could be zero — will vary from week to week.
Allowing spectators inside any stadium regardless of event is still a concern for some, such as Peter Hotez, professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
Professional leagues, such as the NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS returned to play without spectators or at single sites in confined “bubbles.” It will vary in the NFL where the Texans are not allowing fans for its home opener against Baltimore. The Dallas Cowboys plan to play in front of fans at their home games.
In college football, the University of Houston , Texas A&M and the University of Texas are capping attendance at 25 percent.
Much of the state’s populous areas remain a hotbed for the virus. The statewide total of cases went from 592,235 to 599,738 on Monday with 99,290 in Harris County.
Considering the high infection rate in the eastern half of the state and in much of the deep South, Hotez said there is no easy way around allowing spectators inside stadiums even with safety precautions.
“When you get to Texas, forget about south Texas. You just can’t do it,” Hotez said. “It’s not going to work. Even lots of the other metropolitan areas in the Texas Triangle, they’re pretty bad also. When you get up to parts of Central Texas, obviously it looks a lot better. That’s probably doable there but trying to do it around the Houston area, in Katy with that big stadium in Katy, I don’t know. I think there’s just too much transmission right now.”
The UIL’s lifting its Friday night broadcast ban for 2020 helps balance the loss of ticketing and revenue. Under the ban, no Friday night UIL football game could be televised live. While the UIL opened the door for change with Fox Sports Southwest televising Week 1 Friday games live in recent years, the ban is thought to protect attendance on a sacred night in the sport.
Now lifting the ban helps keep fans connected. There are plans to livestream games in Texas City. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD already had a contract in place for Texan Live to broadcast games.
“It’s really not about us making money,” Zepeda said. “It’s more about the game being available for people to watch in environments that they feel safe in.”