For the first time since the 2008 season opener, a UVA Football game at Scott Stadium will play before a full house.
UVA Athletics announced Thursday that the home opener with NC State is officially a sellout, which, gotta be honest, never thought that would ever happen again.
As recently as Monday, I was writing about how the athletics department was offering free tickets to the Charlottesville Schools community as a way to get butts in seats.
What have I been saying for years now? Just get people into the stadium, even if you have to give tickets away to do so?
Because these games are primarily played for the TV audience, and empty seats don’t go over well on TV screens?
We haven’t sniffed 60,000 in forever. The turnout for the win over Virginia Tech last November – 58,582 – was the closest we’d been in years.
Before that, it was the 57,826 that were on hand for the win over Florida State in 2019.
The last game to come close to selling out was the 2011 home finale with Virginia Tech, which was thisclose to capacity – finishing out at 61,124.
Capacity is 61,500.
The all-time record attendance at Scott Stadium is 64,947 for the 2008 season opener with a really good Southern Cal team.
It will be quite the experience this coming Saturday.
One that we haven’t had since George W. Bush was president, and the dominant social media platform was MySpace.
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Chris Graham
