Oklahoma basketball is expecting a 25 percent capacity at home games

Oklahoma Sooners basketball has announced a plan to have 25 percent capacity at home games this season.

Oklahoma Sooners basketball released their 2020-21 non-conference schedule this evening, and along with that has come the attendance plans for this season at the Lloyd Noble Center.

Unsurprisingly, Oklahoma will be operating at a reduced fan capacity for the season. Using the advice of medical experts, they have elected to operate at fan capacity of 25 percent for games this year.

Lloyd Noble Center’s listed capacity comes in at 11,528 – so the approximate amount at one-quarter full would be 2,882 fans.

Sooner football games have operated at the same number, 25 percent, and that has been a fairly common number used by both professional sports teams and colleges alike when hosting fans amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Full details on gameday operations and procedures will be released soon.

Notre Dame announces fan capacity for their 2020 home games

Schools around the country–primarily in the SEC–have announced upwards of 25 percent fan capacity at home games this football season…

Schools around the country–primarily in the SEC–have announced upwards of 25 percent fan capacity at home games this football season while, as everybody knows at this point, two of the Power Five conferences will not be playing (as things stand today).

For those SEC schools the numbers stand as follows:

25 percent capacity: Texas A&M, South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Ole Miss, Mississippi State

20-25 percent: Georgia

21-23 percent: Arkansas

20 percent: Alabama, Auburn

No plan yet: Vanderbilt, LSU, Kentucky, Florida

 

So, news came out that Notre Dame–a member of the ACC this season–will plan for upwards of 20 percent capacity at home games this season.

Yes, Notre Dame is in the same state as Big Ten schools Purdue and Indiana.

Notice the disconnect in the sport yet?

Even Iowa State from the Big 12, obviously in the same state as Iowa, is planning for 25,000 fans.

25,000 vs not playing. Conferences and schools can’t be so separated on such an important issue.

I talked about it on the 3rdAndRun Podcast last week. Long story short: the conferences need to somehow get on the same page or the future of the sport will not be a bright one.

The cross-conference disconnect is expected given how the sport is structured–a problem I gave a solution two a few weeks ago. But now it’s even within states.

Leadership and unity matter during a time like this, and I can only hope for the future of the sport to trend in a good direction after a season occurs with two conferences siting at home while three play with thousands of fans in the stands.