MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Officials at WVU will allow a limited number of fans in the Coliseum for men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling and gymnastics.
Associate Athletics Director for Facilities and Operations at WVU, April Messerly, the policy will be to allow 1,000 fans for events beginning with the Saturday afternoon WVU-Florida men’s basketball game in the Big 12/SEC Challenge. Coliseum.
“We would always love to safely have more fans and we will continue to work with our medical group to hopefully get that approval at some point,” Messerly said,” But, we are also sensitive to what’s going on in this community, in this state and around us.”
Under non-pandemic conditions, the Coliseum would hold 14,000 screaming fans, so social distancing is not an issue. Distributing the 1,000 tickets however is a process.
“Working with our Mountaineer Athletic Club to reach out to donors to sell those tickets,” Messerly said,” We will also offer limited student attendance as well, so we’re excited even for 1,000 fans.”
Officials have created a manifest to ensure fans are seated in a socially distanced fashion. Markings in stands will make it very clear where seating is allowed.
In addition to the local team of health experts from the university and local health department the Big 12 has guidelines for athletes, officials and coaches.
“One thing you see now on TV, fans or no fans, is we have to have six feet between our bench chairs,” Messerly said,” For our player bench areas.”
Officials from the athletic staff, local health department university health team will watch the data and meet weekly with the possibility of expanding the number of fans.
“Football, we started off this way as well- we had just player guests and then we got approval to have more fans,” Messerly said,” We meet weekly and that’s when we revaluate all the variables.
The Mountaineers tip off at 2 p.m. Saturday.