Boston College Announces Vaccination/Negative Test Requirement To Attend Events

Boston College Athletics announced on Friday the requirements for fans to attend sporting events on campus, mandating either proof of vaccination from COVID-19 or proof of a negative test from within the last 72 hours.

First things first: Implicit in the announcement is YEAHHHH, WE CAN GO TO BC SPORTS AGAIN! High fives all around. Very exciting.

Boston College joins a growing list of programs who are requiring vaccination (or a recent negative test) to attend sporting events. Given that BC requires all students and employees to be vaccinated, this comes as no surprise — it would have been kind of silly to allow unvaccinated masses into the campus bubble.

It’s definitely worth reading through BC’s entire announcement as there are some good details in there, but here are some of the important points:

• Everyone 12 and older must have documentation. Kids 12 and younger are exempt but must wear a mask.
• The requirement applies to “guests at Alumni Stadium and other campus athletics events.” Presumably this would mean vaccination/negative tests will be required whether tickets are sold for the event or not, but we’ll check with BC on that. Women’s hockey games, for example, do not sell tickets and therefore don’t have any restrictions on entering the building. It’ll be interesting to see how BC handles that.
• For football games, BC is going to avoid massive headaches at the gate by having tents outside the stadium where you can show your documentation to get a wristband to enter Alumni. Starting at the end of September, BC hopes to roll out a mobile app that will allow you to upload your documentation to show a QR code, which will help speed things along.

This also seems to mean that there will be no capacity restrictions for sporting events. That’s obviously particularly good news with football looking to have a big season this year.

We’ll share any other details as they become available, but at least we now know that we can finally get back to campus this year for sports!