NEW ORLEANS, La. –
The New Orleans Saints continue to work with state and city government leaders, ASM leadership, health departments and local health experts in formulating the process and procedure for hosting games for the 2020 season with the highest priority being the health and safety of our players, coaches, staff and fans. In the next few weeks, the team will announce a comprehensive 2020 ticket and seating policy, which will be fully communicated to all season ticket holders.
Though we remain fully confident games will be played, we are preparing to begin the NFL season at a reduced capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The process for determining gameday seating capacity has been set forth in the NFL’s Prepare to Watch Guidelines issued to all clubs. The guidelines state that maximum stadium capacity for each NFL team across both general admission seats and club seats will be the maximum capacity allowed by state and local governments, subject at all times to CDC guidelines, physical distancing protocols, and all relevant NFL Stadium Operations guidelines.
In formulating this plan, the Saints have been working closely with world-class health and safety experts from Ochsner Clinic Foundation and other entities for the past several months to determine a seating configuration and capacity that safely meet the guidelines and best practices of the NFL’s Prepare to Watch policies. Upon completion of the plan and after being finalized with our health and safety experts, the NFL and our state and local leaders, the seating and ticketing policies will be promptly communicated to our fans.
Our seating and ticketing plan will be designed to be flexible throughout the season and driven by current health and safety guidelines, so that we can adjust to changes in CDC and/or government guidance, while continuing to allow the most access we safely can to our season ticket holders. The initial policy and options offered to our fans will be for the first part of the NFL season and will be extended and/or altered based on health and safety guidance as determined by our health and safety experts, the NFL and our state and local governments.
This week, we began communicating with season ticket holders on options for the 2020 season. These options will come without loss of season ticket privileges for the 2021 season and receive a credit towards 2021 season tickets or a refund. If a season ticket holder opts to not redeem his tickets for this season, the club’s ticket sales & service department will make best efforts to offer any tickets that do come available in the event capacity increases, but we do not anticipate at this time that we will have the necessary inventory to accommodate single game or postseason requests.
As a part of the formulation of a stadium configuration change, the NFL also recently notified clubs of the covering of several front rows of seats for the 2020 season and as a result we will be reaching out to these impacted season ticket holders shortly once we have a finalized manifest from the NFL. We will offer these season ticket holders the option to relocate to other available locations at the same level as other season ticket holders. They will also have an option to receive a credit or refund.
{Courtesy: Press Release from the New Orleans Saints}
