Panthers will have fans in stadium for game vs. Cardinals. Here’s how it will work
Thousands of fans will file into Bank of America Stadium on Sunday afternoon. They’ll enter through assigned gates listed on their mobile tickets, pick up pre-ordered food and sit in a “pod” of 1-5 people, socially distanced from everyone else in attendance.
The Carolina Panthers have been working since March on plans to get fans in the stands for games. The first implementation of those plans will be realized with the team allowing up to 5,240 fans into the building — fulfilling the 7% capacity limit North Carolina allows for venues that seat 10,000-plus.
Protocols are in place, from the ability to order concessions online to changes to the way suites are operated to hand sanitizer being available throughout the building and given to fans as they walk in. The Panthers have even used “coronavirus-killing” robots.
To reach this point, the Panthers have overcome hurdles and worked on plans that forced management to get creative with a challenge that no one had experienced before. And as Bank of America prepares to welcome its first mass gathering of the 2020 season, there are complications that wouldn’t exist in a normal year.
While most Panthers fans will watch’s Sunday’s 1 p.m. kickoff against the Arizona Cardinals from the comfort of their couches, 5,000-or-so seats in Charlotte will be filled with someone other than Sir Purr.
Panthers planned for this moment
Back in March, the Panthers were already looking ahead to August and the NFL season, trying to get an idea about how games would look with the threat of COVID-19. Preparing for an unprecedented slate of football was a daily job and required frequent conversations with local and state officials, health experts and more to figure out how to make sure people felt as safe as possible to come to games.
“It’s been a daily focus since late March, and we’ve continued to fine tune and fine tune, as well as prepare for different scenarios and that’s what gives us confidence,” Panthers president Tom Glick said Thursday. “We’ve been focused on it, and we’ve been adapting and refining it, up to today, and we’ll be continuing that over the next four days.”
Prior to the the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, the team had already come together with Charlotte-based Honeywell, a company that innovates in a variety of industries including safety solutions, to connect as local companies.
Their relationship was originally around ways to make the Bank of America Stadium facilities more energy efficient, in addition to working together as the Panthers build a new practice facility in Rock Hill and update the stadium to make those buildings efficient and provide a strong user experience for staff and players.
“When COVID hit, our conversations really pivoted to being about how can we help them with their challenges as (the Panthers), at the time, we’re working on how do they get their staff back, how did they get their players back , and then ultimately, how did they get fans back,” Jeff Kimbell, Honeywell’s Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, said. “That’s really how the discussions progressed, and we continually worked with them and met with them on ways that we thought we could help and as they were developing their protocols for getting everybody back.”
The Panthers will be taking advantage of Honeywell’s offerings in combating COVID-19 by offering fans and staff members PPE kits that include masks, hand sanitizers and cleaning wipes. They also assist the team in monitoring air conditions in the facility.
Honeywell also offered assistance to monitor crowd control and whether an unsafe amount of many people were congregating in one part of the stadium, but the Panthers elected not to use them. The team has implemented a variety of measures, including creating lanes for walking within the stadium concourse and closing off certain toilets and sinks in restrooms, to keep fans distanced.
How will it work
The goal of opening the stadium to limited fans, Panthers team owner David Tepper told local reporters in early September, isn’t about making a profit.
“I don’t love all the red ink that we’re going to see this year, but I hate more not seeing the fans in the building. I have other means, OK, of income. I do have other businesses,” Tepper, a successful hedge fund owner worth an estimated $13 billion, said. “I’m using this for the fans and for football.”
Opening the stadium to just over 5,200 fans brings plenty of overhead costs, from staffing to utilities to making sure the building is as safe as possible for fans. But it’s also an opportunity to show local and state governments and fans that this can be pulled off safely.
“Having fans in the stadium is good for our business, getting everybody back in a routine of coming to games, enjoying it,” Glick said. “Having 5,000 fans is not a game changer for us financially, but it is good to be back in that routine and there are other reasons to do it. It’s keeping that connection for our fans with the Panthers, keeping that connection for our Panthers players and coaches with the fans.
“These things are are important and, we know that we’ll all work together to pass through this pandemic and we’ll be having 70,000 fans back and Bank of America Stadium down the road, when that is we don’t know, but this is really important that we can begin this way on Sunday.”
Of the 15 NFL games in Week 4, the Panthers will be one of seven with some number of fans in attendance (it would have been eight had the Pittsburgh-Tennessee game not been postponed due to the Titans’ COVID-19 outbreak). Carolina will have the smallest number in attendance.
The 35% of Panthers PSL owners who opted in to keeping their tickets this season (accounting for around 22,750 total seats) received priority seating, and the team put remaining available seats on sale through Ticketmaster.
The Panthers have only opened the 100 and 200 level of the stadium, not the club level or 500 level, where the cheapest seats in the are located. By limiting to 7% capacity, the team was able to safely seat fans throughout the lower level in “pods,” a system that can be seen throughout the NFL.
The hope is that as the season progresses and state mass-gathering laws become less strict, the team will be able to bring more fans in and increase those numbers.
But by eliminating seats in the 500 level, fans who own PSLs there will have to pay a extra to sit closer. That premium has dissuaded some interested fans who do not want to pay that amount to go to a game during the pandemic.
Shayna Rendenna, who owned PSLs 15 years ago and sold them when she had kids, recently purchased new PSLs. The mother from Winston-Salem normally sits in section 534, but Sunday will be in section 255 in the northwest corner of the end zone. The five games she’ll be at this season sitting in the 200 level will cost her about as much as eight games normally would in the 500 level.
“This might be the only time I get the opportunity to sit down below,” Rendenna said. “So, that’s kind of exciting, and I’m just trying to be understanding of it because with such a limited amount of people that’s not the Panthers’ fault.”
PSL owner Mike Spencer, a firefighter based in Cherry Point, bought his PSLs in the 500 section last year with a special the team was doing for first responders. He’s frustrated with some of the team’s approach to pricing.
“If they just came to the PSL owners and said, we’re only opening these lower rings, we’re not gonna charge you the difference. We will still charge you what you paid for your tickets, so if I went to four games this year I would have to pay for four games next. That’s fine. I would have been fine with that,” Spencer said. “If I went to all the home games this year, OK, next season I’ll have to buy all my tickets again. I would have been good with that, but when you try to upcharge me because the seats are lower, it’s like, come on man.”
For perspective, the Kansas City Chiefs gave season-ticket holders the option of buying single-game tickets, which came at a much higher price than what a season-ticket holder would traditionally pay per game.
There are other NFL teams that have seem to have higher a demand with limited ticket supply. Multiple teams have seen some re-sale prices spike, as have the Panthers. (At one point Thursday evening, there was a pair of tickets to the Panthers-Cardinals game going for $9,270 per seat.) However, teams across the NFL have struggled to completely sell out games despite low attendance limits.
As of Friday morning, single-game tickets were still available to purchase for Sunday’s matchup against the Cardinals, though Glick said a “sellout” is expected.
The team has notified the 65% of PSL owners who opted out of tickets this season via text message that there are options available if they wish to attend some games, which there has been interest in.
First impressions
There will be no shortage of empty seats Sunday at Bank of America Stadium, no matter how many tickets are bought, and the fans who are there likely won’t be heard as loudly on TV as the fake crowd noise FOX likes to use on its broadcasts. When asked about it Wednesday, Carolina quarterback Teddy Bridgewater wasn’t even aware that the team was hosting fans.
But after the work that has been put in since March, having fans, even just 5,240 of them, at the stadium is a step forward and an important test of the new normal of in-stadium attendance in North Carolina.
The Panthers hope that over the course of the season they are able to open up more seats and increase attendance. Whether a team that’s 1-2 and already had socially distanced crowds at the end of last season due to their play, can convince droves of fans to leave their couches and come to uptown is yet to be seen.
Either way, Sunday is the first chance to make an impression.
“We want to make sure that people feel confident, anybody who’s sitting on the fence and isn’t sure, and wants to wait and see, this is one more reason why we’re going to do a great job on Sunday,” Glick said. “So (fans) say, ‘I want to make sure that I get out there next time.’”
Editor’s note: Since February, The Observer has requested more than five times through the Panthers PR staff an interview with Vice President of Ticket Sales & Services Joe LaBue. Many fans have had questions and concerns and The Observer’s goal was to help readers better understand the ticketing process and how the team can navigate its relationship with PSL owners. Each request, including this past week, was denied.
This story was originally published October 2, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
