First with what's already in place, Lyke said the decision to refund all ticket sales if a game is cancelled this fall, or held without fans, is beneficial to everyone.
"It's definitely the best option I would say in terms of, you're able to purchase the tickets and if, for some reason, we have to modify the season obviously it's a full refund. It also gives us flexibility to move you throughout the stadium and keep us socially distant if that's what we need to do."
What if the season does get modified and the football schedule does need to be shorten, modified or moved back in any way?
"We've tried to evaluate what we do (in that case). If it is shortened we are definitely going to prioritize our conference schedule, the ACC opponents, and do everything that we can to have a full conference schedule. In fact, if it means, unfortunately, maybe having to get rid of non-conference games, we would do that if he had to shorten or start the season later."
That being said, a notable non-conference opponent is featured on Pitt's 2020 football schedule...Notre Dame. Will that game be axed too, then?
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"Well, technically it is a non-conference game. It's a priority game for us. I know that Notre Dame is going to be a situation obviously that they're going to be looking for games. So we're hoping to obviously help them and to accomodate that in some way or fashion. Great opponent. Unbelievable game to have at Heinz Field, obviously one that we were expecting a sellout crowd so that's going to be a bit of a challenge, potentially I should say."
If there comes a situation in which Pitt has sold more tickets to a game than are allowed to accomodate in the stadium later, Lyke laid out what she is thinking to be able to handle that.
"That's a hard situation that we may have to face, just having to turn people away. We have thought through that, I'm not willing to share exactly what our plans are because we just don't know exactly but we've definitely given thought to, 'How do we manage?'
We will probably give priority, frankly, to our suite holders because they're in isolation and our club area because we feel we can set up some isolation or separation possibilities. And then, our season ticket holders will probably get priority next. But again, we have to figure out what those numbers are and how it all shakes down but those are probably are three highest priority levels."