From watching the game on television, it looked like a normal football game was being played, but there was nothing normal about Miami’s Thursday night matchup against the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
There were no cheerleaders. No band. No Sebastian the Ibis. And most noticeably, no students. Only 8,125 fans out of the 13,000 allowed were in the stands.
No alcohol was sold at the stadium. Fans were spaced out in small clusters around the stadium. All concessions were purchased via a mobile app.
Unlike other professional sports, there was no fake crowd noise pumped into the stadium, so the emptiness was apparent.