Recently Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that stadiums in Texas could increase capacity up to 50 percent. A move that came off the heels of the announcement that stadiums could operate under 25 percent capacity. The trend made many believe, present company included, that 75 percent or full capacity could be in the near future. However, Governor Abbott recently met with FBS directors and that looks to not be the case.
According to Dan Wolken of USA TODAY Sports, Abbott participated in a Zoom meeting with 12 FBS athletic directors where they apparently discussed stadium capacity.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott spent an hour on a Zoom call Friday with the 12 athletics directors of the state’s Football Bowl Subdivision schools and told them not to expect capacity at their stadiums to be above 50% this fall, a person with knowledge of the call told USA TODAY Sports
It would take either a vaccine or a drastic drop in cases for capacity to increase beyond 50% and that schools should not count on either development by the time the football season starts.
While Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte has remained optimistic about the Longhorns playing in front of 100,000 fans at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, it looks like that might be a pipe dream at this point in time.
Over the last week, the state of Texas has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases. The Texas Tribune reported that the state saw the single biggest increase in confirmed cases. Operating at half capacity might be a best case scenario for schools in Texas. However, not to long ago many questioned if we would see fans in the stadium at all.