MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The Mountaineer Ticket Office is continuing to proceed with season ticket sales for the 2021 football season, according to Matt Wells, WVU's senior associate athletics director for external sales.
 
He said earlier this week that he's cautiously optimistic Milan Puskar Stadium can return to a pre-pandemic setting, provided COVID-19 numbers continue to decline and state vaccination rates continue to climb.
 
"We're continuing to move forward in our ticket sales planning," he said. "We're planning to return to full capacity, but we will obviously remain in constant contact with the University administration and local and state health officials. If reduced capacity is something that needs to exist this year, at whatever time that decision is made, we would reach back out to our fans and communicate the plan just like we did in 2020."
 
The priority season ticket deadline is this Friday, May 7, and orders postmarked on that date will be processed throughout the remainder of the month.
 
In June, Wells said information will be sent out to priority customers, Mountaineer Athletic Club members and past season-ticket holders to purchase mini-season ticket packages and single-game tickets before single-game sales will open up to the general public sometime after July 4.
 
This is in line with the Mountaineer Ticket Office's normal timeline for football ticket sales.
 
"A lot of fans will postmark their envelopes on or around the deadline date and it will take a week or so to process all of the mail that comes in after the deadline," Wells said. "We'll go through those and then reach out to those fans who haven't renewed and give them another chance to renew. That will take up the rest of the month of May."
 
Wells said most Mountaineer fans have been asking if they will be able to sit in their pre-pandemic seats, park and tailgate in the same lots. 
 
"As we sit here today, the answer is yes and that's our intent, but as we've all learned it's impossible to know in May how September is going to look," Wells cautioned. "If things continue to progress the way they are now, we feel good about returning to more of a pre-pandemic level of capacity."
 
Two metrics that will continue to be monitored by local and state health officials are the rate of infections and the number of vaccinations. As of Wednesday, approximately 36.4% of state residents are now fully vaccinated and 42.2% have received one shot.
 
Nationally, Vermont, Maine and Connecticut recently passed the 40% threshold for fully vaccinated citizens, according to Our World in Data. In places where the vaccination numbers are higher, infection rates and deaths have fallen dramatically.
 
Israel currently leads the world in vaccinations with 62.5% of its citizens receiving one shot and 58.5% being fully vaccinated. Not surprisingly, Israel recorded just 76 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Tuesday. The United Kingdom is another country with a high vaccination rate and it experienced just four deaths on Tuesday.
 
Therefore, the data clearly demonstrates that vaccinations are helping tamp down the spread of the virus. Wells believes as more West Virginians get vaccinated, local and state health officials will be more inclined to reduce restrictions on live sporting events.
 
We're seeing that in nearby Pennsylvania where Gov. Tom Wolf announced earlier this week that COVID-19 mitigation orders, except for the mask mandate, will be lifted May 31. Disneyland has resumed operations, Major League Baseball is now easing some of its on-field entertainment restrictions and Broadway announced yesterday that shows will resume on Sept. 14.
 
"This isn't just a West Virginia University football issue, but across the live-event landscape whether that's sporting events, concerts, plays or any spectator event, the more the vaccination rate goes up the more likely these things are going to return to normal," Wells noted. "We saw this with the NFL Draft last weekend. Those allowed to attend that event in person were vaccinated. 
 
"I don't know that it will go to that extent across college and pro sports, but I do think the more the rate of vaccination grows the less restrictive local and state health departments will need to be," he added.
 
Wells said industry-wide discussions requiring vaccinations for those attending large sporting events have been mostly in a hypothetical context, spurred on by the NFL Draft event held in Cleveland.
 
However, he's not sure there is a way to do this efficiently in large venues.
 
"I really think it would be such a cumbersome thing that I doubt we get to that point for most live events, especially when you are dealing with 50, 60, 70,000 fans at a particular venue," he said. "Imagine trying to manage that. You see these vaccination rankings and state X is at 40% and I think that is going to be the metric people are watching. 
 
"That is going to give the local and state decision makers the greatest level of comfort to loosen the restrictions on sporting events."
 
In short, the most important takeaway for Mountaineer fans to understand right now is the best chance of getting back to a pre-pandemic footing is by getting as many people vaccinated as possible.
 
Wouldn't it be great to greet our old friends at Virginia Tech on Saturday, Sept. 18 with a Gold-and-Blue striped stadium full of 60,000 Mountaineer fans?
 
"A key point here is the progress that we are continuing to see with the virus, people are beginning to feel more comfortable planning for a full return," Wells noted. "Now, if there is an outbreak, or the numbers go in the wrong direction again from an infection-rate standpoint, then we'll have to reevaluate and potentially reduce capacity. 
 
"But if the infection rates continue to go down and the vaccination rates continue to go up, that gives those of us in the live-event world more optimism for a return to pre-pandemic levels," he concluded.
 
Mountaineer fans interested in purchasing 2021 football season tickets can do so by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com.