Ray Tanner on ticket questions: ‘If we made a decision today, we’re likely to be wrong’
South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner said he keeps getting the question from school president Robert Caslen, albeit with a grin.
How many folks will be able to fill Williams-Brice Stadium for football games this fall?
He has a particular response.
“My answer is, I’m gonna call you for the answer,” Tanner said in a radio interview with 107.5 The Game. “We’ve got a little back and forth going.”
Days after Iowa State announced it expected to get to around 50% capacity, Tanner said there’s no hard and fast timeline for when the department might even settle on a concrete plan. He mentioned August as a time for how late it could potentially go — if that’s feasible.
“If we made a decision today, we’re likely to be wrong,” Tanner said. “So we’re gonna wait for as long as we can.”
The school has been modeling various social distancing plans for weeks, aiming to have some kind of plan firmed up for whenever the decision is fully made.
In previous interviews, he made an estimate of around 15,000 as a potential number, with a warning that 30,000 would be extremely high.
But he also said nothing is settled.
South Carolina has already sold more than 47,000 season tickets, and the athletic director noted there’s also been a fair amount of discussion about how tickets might be divided up between that group, students, the band and others.
“You say, will we be able to get our season ticket holders in?” Tanner said. “Where will it be? What will the cutoff be? Will there be a lottery? Would there be a lottery in different sections or do you do you go to your student body and back first? How do you do it? There’s a lot of questions and the only thing I can assure you is this.
“I said to the President, whenever the time comes, we’ll have a play to run. We’ll have something drawn up that will fit that particular time.”
Tanner said the school is trying to gauge how many fans might choose not to attend games this fall. He added USC’s lots would park tailgaters with less density to ensure social distancing.
He also noted there was some level of confidence from certain scientists that the COVID situation might be in better shape by August, with that continuing through early October. But the return of normal flu season could mean a different set of problems down the road.
So for now, it remains wait and see.
“We don’t know,” Tanner said. “We’re just going to have to wait as long as we can and make a prudent decision.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 3:42 PM with the headline "Ray Tanner on ticket questions: ‘If we made a decision today, we’re likely to be wrong’."
