What Louisville City FC’s home opener means for Louisville football

There are some drawbacks

Here’s the rub. Though the Louisville City FC crowd was quite compliant, there are a few things to consider when looking forward to Louisville football in two months.

Firstly, the crowd was only 4,800 people. That’s not small by any means, but when you consider that Louisville football has between 35,000 and 45,000 season ticket holders alone on a yearly basis, you begin to understand the issue at hand.

How will Louisville decide to divide up tickets in 2020? That’s an important thing to think about. The most optimistic fan should not expect more than 50 percent capacity if there is a football season this fall. In this scenario that means that, at best, Louisville will be able to accommodate 32,500 fans.

Bear in mind that 30,000 plus fans means adjusting to that many people crowding into stadium gates minutes prior to the start of the game. It also means fans being forced to adjust to new seats, new rules, and a new environment. What happens when fans want to get a drink and decide to stand on the party deck or congregate near the concession stands? What happens with bathroom lines? What happens when someone refuses to wear a mask? Or a thousand someones or five thousand someones?

There a lot more questions to be answered when you have the size of the crowd grow to such a great extent. And imagine places like Michigan, Ohio State, Florida State, and Notre Dame where there are no seats and fans are crowded in on top of each other. To expect those people to not stand close together, to wear masks, not hug, not high-five? That’s a big ask.

Lastly, in college sports, there’s the question of social distancing among players. It’s great that players in a pro soccer league with less than 30-40 total players and staff can socially distance. It’s a completely different thing to expect upwards of 150 players, coaches, staff, trainers, and tutors to wear masks at all times and keep six feet away from each other.

Louisville City FC’s opener was a great step in the right direction. However, there are still a ton of questions left to be answered in the coming weeks for Louisville football to even have a season at all.