Colts Announce They Will Have 2,500 Fans For Home Opener Against Vikings
The Vikings won't have fans at U.S. Bank Stadium for at least the first two homes games of the 2020 season, but we now know that they'll play in front of a small crowd during their first road game.
On Friday, the Indianapolis Colts announced that they will have up to 2,500 fans present at their home opener on September 20th. That's the Vikings' second game of the season.
The Indianapolis Colts today announced that they will host a maximum of 2,500 attendees at Lucas Oil Stadium for the team's home opener on Sun., Sept. 20 vs. the Minnesota Vikings. The attendance number was determined following discussions with the Marion County Public Health Department and were set to meet local, NFL, and CDC guidelines to help limit the spread of COVID-19. As such, the Colts are developing a process for limiting the number of tickets for the Sept. 20 game, as well as a process to address those who already purchased a single-game ticket to the home opener or a four-game ticket pack that included this game.
The Vikings won't have fans in Week 1 against the Packers or Week 3 against the Titans, but they're hopeful that they'll be able to have some sort of crowd later in the season. Until then, it'll be interesting to monitor whether or not their road opponents are cleared to host fans.
Last month, Mike Zimmer said he felt like there was a "competitive disadvantage" that some teams will be able to have fans and others won't. The NFL recently released a statement essentially saying that they don't think there will be any competitive advantage.
“We do not believe it’s a competitive advantage,” Roger Goodell said. “We discussed it very early on with our Competition Committee and with our clubs. We do not see that. We obviously have varying capacities across the league, and from our standpoint, we want to invite our fans in if we can do it safely and we can do it with the full support of local officials."
This game against the Colts will be an interesting test for the Vikings, who will hopefully be coming off of a big win over the Packers in Week 1. New Colts QB Philip Rivers turned the ball over four times in a blowout loss to the Vikings last year as a member of the Chargers, but will be playing behind a much better offensive line in Indy than he had in LA. The Colts have plenty of talented offensive weapons for Rivers, including T.Y. Hilton, Marlon Mack, and rookies Jonathan Taylor and Michael Pittman Jr.
The Colts also have a solid defense led by Darius Leonard and offseason acquisition DeForest Buckner. And of course, this will be a "revenge game" of sorts for cornerback Xavier Rhodes, who will face the team that drafted him in the first round in 2013 and moved on from him this offseason.
2,500 fans in a stadium with a capacity of 70,000 isn't much, but at least it's something.
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