Kentucky kicks off home football campaign in front of sparse Kroger Field crowd
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Game day: Kentucky vs. Ole Miss
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Mississippi football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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The big tailgate parties in the Kroger Field parking lots and throngs of fans lined up to get into the stadium as soon as the gates opened were missing from Kentucky’s first home football game Saturday afternoon.
Empty space replaced the Cat Walk and eerie quiet filled the air instead of pregame concerts and blaring sound systems.
As the 4 p.m. start time neared, there were still plenty of seats available on UK’s ticket website to watch the Wildcats face Mississippi. And few people in the Kroger Field stands.
About 30 minutes before kickoff, the UK marching band slowly filed into one corner section of the Kroger Field stands, remaining socially distant once they settled into their assigned spots in the bleachers. On the other side of the field, a few dozen fans in bright red shirts — representing the visiting Ole Miss Rebels — stood out among the empty blue seats nearby. No more than 100 fans occupied UK’s regular student section, and others trickled in around the mostly-empty stadium.
It was an unusual sight as Kentucky prepared to start its 2020 home campaign.
The official attendance was announced at exactly 12,000. A UK spokesman told the Herald-Leader after the game that the number was an estimate and included game workers, media members, and anyone else inside the stadium for Saturday’s game.
Last month, UK announced that it would allow fans for home football games in much smaller numbers than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The guidelines for reduced capacity included a limit on attendance to about 12,000 fans in Kroger Field with up to 10 people in each private suite. Those guidelines also banned RVs and tailgating in the stadium parking lots and required that all fans who did make it into Kroger Field on game days must observe social distancing and wear masks at all times.
The Kroger Field gates opened up two hours in advance of Saturday’s kickoff — instead of the usual three hours prior to kickoff in past seasons — and hand sanitizing and washing stations were set up around the stadium, while concessions stands accepted only cashless transactions. The program also transitioned to mobile-only ticketing for this season to limit contact between staff and fans. That was in effect for the first time Saturday and will be continued into the future.
UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart revealed the bulk of the team’s game-day operating procedures last month, saying that the decisions on home attendance were made after consulting with the NCAA, the Southeastern Conference’s medical task force, UK’s center for infectious disease control and other medical officials.
The home opener against Ole Miss on Saturday was the first of five games at Kroger Field this season. UK will host Mississippi State next weekend, followed by Georgia (Oct. 24), Vanderbilt (Nov. 14) and South Carolina (Dec. 5).
Kentucky football season ticket holders were given preference for ordering single-game tickets for the 2020 season. UK announced a few days ago that — after all season ticket holders were contacted — a limited number of single-game tickets remained for the Wildcats’ home games. Those tickets can be purchased on the UK Athletics’ website and are priced between $60 and $110 (with parking included).
This story was originally published October 3, 2020 at 4:01 PM.
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