UNC football will be played with no fans in stands through at least September

North Carolina announced Friday it will play all six of its fall sports without fans in attendance for at least the month of September. The plan is to re-evaluate with the intent of hopefully allowing fans in some capacity come October, according to a letter addressed to fans from athletic director Bubba Cunningham released on GoHeels.com.

UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, who spoke during a faculty Zoom meeting Friday, called it a “necessary step” to “keep our community safe” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These are difficult decisions because our student athletes have worked very hard to stay conditioned and healthy and the opportunity to practice and compete in addition to receiving an outstanding education at Carolina is a major part of their being here,” he said. “And we’ve been taking a lot of time to weigh all of the competing interests associated with playing versus postponing and I know every university across the country is also working hard at coming to the right decision on this.”

In addition to no attendance, fans will also not be allowed to tailgate on campus according to Cunningham’s post. Carolina’s football season is slated to begin on Sept. 12 at home against Syracuse. Guskiewicz said at the meeting, if there is a change to the football schedule, it will likely come within the next week. The no-attendance policy also includes men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey, cross country and volleyball.

The university already had to suspend its athletics this month when several COVID-19 clusters popped up around campus. Cunningham, who also spoke during the faculty meeting, said he believed the motivation to play has been the best motivation for students adhering to the community standards to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. And that members of fall sports teams that risk losing the chance to compete, have been diligent in following protocols.

“The problem is, we’re all living in uncertainty,” he said. “We could stop everything today, that’s the only definite thing we can do. Trying to play is something that we are continuing to do. We hope the numbers are continuing to go in a positive direction. We do think it’s important to give these students an opportunity to try to play.”

As football coach Mack Brown alluded to this week, Cunningham mentioned the increase in testing to three times a week.

“It is our hope and belief that with that much testing you can identify trends very early,” he said. “You’ll theoretically have healthy students playing against healthy students, even if it’s from a different campus, and if there’s an outbreak, we can address it immediately.”

Cunningham concluded his portion of the meeting with a warning about the athletic budget that will be impacted greatly from the decision not to allow fans. Because revenue generated from football and men’s basketball television contracts and ticket sales essentially fund the entire department, the university is “going to take a beating this year.”

“We’re going to have a really bad year for fiscal (year) ‘21,” Cunningham said. “We really need to focus on fiscal ‘22 and beyond. What does our sports offering look like in ‘22 and beyond? What are our commitments and how are we going to repay the dept we incur this year?”

Cunningham said a budget working group was assembled to look forward to the 2021-22 fiscal calendar to begin planning how to address those issues.

This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 10:37 AM.