Hall of Fame Aiming To Fill Stadium For Cowboys-Steelers

The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, wants to pack the house this August. That's when the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers meet in the annual Hall of Fame Game to kick off the preseason.

The date is Aug. 5 to be exact. Enshrinement of the latest class of inductees is scheduled for two days later.

“I think there's a very good shot that we'll be the first full stadium for football in the United States in nearly two years," Hall of Fame president David Baker told SiriusXM NFL Radio. "And, to me, that's going to be good for the rest of the country and for the football season ahead. It shows that we can get our economy going and our kids educated and make even more advances on health care. But we're going to be ready.”

Baker added that a COVID-19 vaccine has things trending in the right direction. Hence, the reason for his confidence in filling the stadium, which carries the name of late New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson.

The stadium seats 23,000 and boasts an NFL-caliber press box.

"I think by the time we get to August, we're gonna be ready to go," Baker said. "The vaccine is picking up, obviously the trend line is in the right direction right now. I think the NFL has a wonderful study that they did with the CDC that basically said that there wasn't one infection that could be traced to the 1.2 million people that went to a game.

“At the Pro Football Hall of Fame, we've got new technology that takes the temperature of as many as 70 people at a time as they go through the Hall. So there's a lot of things we can do. We got a great operational team. We're going to rely very heavily on the experts at the NFL."

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Sam Amico spent 15 years covering the NBA for Sports Illustrated, FOX Sports and NBA.com, along with a few other spots, and currently runs his own basketball website on the side, FortyEightMinutes.com.