[UPDATED] Breaking News: UCLA Will Not Have Fans at Softball (& Other Sporting Events) Through April 10 Due to Coronavirus Concerns

With the dramatic rise in the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) recently and to aid efforts to prevent the disease greater impact, the UCLA athletic department announced today that home games for softball and other sports will be played in front of “essential personnel” only meaning spectators will not be allowed to attend “until “April 10 or until further notice.”

For UCLA, this means home series versus Arizona State (Mar. 13-15), Oregon State (Mar. 27-29) and Stanford (April 10-11, with another game scheduled on April 12) will be without fans unless the policy is changed before these games.

This will undoubtedly be followed by other universities so expect similar announcements to be made soon. It is expected that games scheduled to be televised or streamed will continue to be viewed on these formats.

Update: Stanford has announced the following: “all competitions hosted by Stanford Athletics will be closed to the public through May 15 or until further notice. Only participants, coaches, working staff, officials, credentialed media, and a very limited number of family members, friends, and guests of the competing teams will be allowed to attend.” Click HERE to see the Cardinal release.

Many universities are already cancelling on-campus classes including notable schools such as UCLA, Duke, Purdue, Harvard, Ohio State, Cal-Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, Hofstra, Princeton, USC, UC San Diego and several others.

Here’s the release as issued by UCLA athletics in the last 24 hours…

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UCLA Athletics Announces Coronavirus Precautions for Home Events

UCLA Athletics Coronavirus Update – 3/10/2020

UCLA Athletics continues to work closely with campus leadership to monitor and respond to the evolving coronavirus situation. Based on the decisions announced today by UCLA and out of an abundance of caution, attendance at all UCLA Athletics home events will be limited to essential personnel only at least until April 10, or until further notice.

Essential personnel are defined as student-athletes, coaches, team trainers and medical personnel, game officials, operational and administrative staff, and credentialed media members. Spectators who have pre-purchased tickets for scheduled events during this time period may contact UCLA’s Central Ticket Office with inquiries.

UCLA Athletics will continue to follow University of California and UCLA travel guidelines when it comes to team and personnel travel. At this point in time, teams will continue to practice and compete; however, any student-athlete who does not feel comfortable traveling or participating in team activities will be excused from doing so.

We will continue to closely monitor the situation as well as recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, and we will work together with campus officials to make any additional changes deemed in the best interest of our student-athletes, coaches, staff and fans.

More information on the novel coronavirus and preventative measures can be found here.  Additional updates regarding UCLA Athletics events will be published here as they become available.

The latest information can also be found by following us on Twitter (@UCLAAthletics).