FAYETTEVILLE -- The University of Arkansas does not plan to sell single-game football tickets this year until it receives guidance on how many spectators will be allowed into the stadium.
During a teleconference with reporters Wednesday, UA Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek said around 31,000 season-ticket packages have been sold for the Razorbacks' seven games at the 76,412-seat Reynolds Razorback Stadium. Echoing similar comments he made to UA trustees last week, Yurachek said his department is preparing for a season in which full capacity is allowed at home games, but is also developing contingency plans in case capacity must be limited.
Neither the SEC nor the state of Arkansas have developed guidelines for fan attendance at large sporting events.
"We have stopped selling any single-game tickets for our home or away games until we figure out what that looks like definitively," Yurachek said. "We don't want to sell thousands of single-game tickets to our SEC games and then have to refund that money and decide which of those patrons cannot attend those games.
"That is really the only measure we have taken, to date, until we can figure out what that capacity can look like."
Student season-ticket packages are not among those that have been sold, Yurachek said.
"We generally start that student pass campaign in August once our students return to campus," Yurachek said. "I think we'll have a pretty good gauge on what the attendance looks like, what the capacity could look like once we get around to selling the student-access passes.
"Obviously if our students are on campus -- which they are expected to be this fall -- we will make accommodations to have a certain number of students in our athletic venues to support our student-athletes."
Arkansas is scheduled to play home games against SEC opponents Alabama, LSU, Tennessee and Ole Miss, and against nonconference opponents Nevada, Charleston Southern and Louisiana-Monroe this season. All seven games are scheduled to be played on campus.
The Razorbacks' scheduled road games include dates at Notre Dame, Mississippi State and Auburn. Arkansas is also scheduled to play a neutral-site game against Texas A&M in Arlington, Texas, and in a designated road game against Missouri in Kansas City, Mo.
Arkansas is allotted 7,500 tickets to sell in the visitor's section for road games, and can sell half of the tickets to AT&T Stadium for the Texas A&M game.
Any SEC capacity policies must be adhered to at all of Arkansas' games except the scheduled Sept. 12 game against Notre Dame.
In a Tuesday editorial for the New York Times, Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins wrote of home football games: "I see no way currently to allow spectators unless we restrict admissions so that physical distancing is possible."
Sports on 05/28/2020