If Ohio State had made a decision on its own about whether fans could attend games at Ohio Stadium this season, there likely would have been more than 20,000 fans in the Shoe for Saturday’s season opener against Nebraska.
As Ohio State planned this summer for the possibility of playing football games amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it was hopeful that it would be able to host approximately 22,000 fans while adhering to physical distancing guidelines. Spacing out “pods” of tickets sold together would have limited Ohio Stadium to a small fraction of its normal capacity, but through his conversations with City of Columbus health commissioner Mysheika Roberts, athletic director Gene Smith was confident Ohio State would be able to garner approval for a plan that would enable a limited number of fans to attend games.