With the NFL preparing for a full season, good news came out of the Lone Star State when it comes to doing so in front of actual people.
Texas governor Greg Abbott announced Thursday that outdoor professional sports stadiums and arenas are permitted to allow 25% of their capacity for fans to attend.
This announcement comes just 10 days after Abbott announced that professional teams were permitted to resume play. With the Texas Rangers, Houston Texans, Houston Astros and Dallas Cowboys all having retractable roofs available, this puts these teams in play for this 25% rule.
All teams will be required to submit a plan to the Texas Department of State Health Services before being allowed to open their gates to fans.
When it comes to the Cowboys, AT&T Stadium otherwise known as “Jerry World” can hold two different types of capacities. Seating wise, the stadium has 80,000 seats. If you factor in the “standing room only” areas, AT&T Stadium can hold over 100,000 people. The assumption is that these standing room only areas aren’t part of this immediate plan.
When looking at the 80,000 capacity number, this would allow the Cowboys to have 20,000 of their fans to attend their home games as it stands right now. When looking at some of the states across the country with higher positive Covid-19 confirmed cases, this seems like an astronomical number of people to group together in one setting. Texas, on the other hand has 54,509 confirmed positive cases which currently represents 3% of the entire country’s total.
The entire state of Texas has been open for just over a month now and has shown no spikes as some may have predicted with their timetable for opening their state. For professional sports teams in Texas, including the Cowboys, this is a very positive sign that things are trending in the right direction as the team prepares for a possible mini-camp and training camp in the summer months.
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