Cal takes tarps off end zone seats and hopes for biggest crowd for the opener in more than a decade

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — California is taking the tarps off the seats in the south end zone of Memorial Stadium and is trending toward having its biggest home crowd in more than a decade for its season opener against UCLA.

First-year coach Tosh Lupoi personally removed the tarps in a social media video released by the school on Tuesday, and the school plans to keep them off all season. Tickets are already being sold for those sections for the entire home schedule, and Cal is trending toward a crowd of more than 60,000 fans for the first game against the Bruins on Sept. 5.

“We’ve done some really good things with our ticket sales that most certainly are up,” general manager Ron Rivera said Wednesday. “This also shows the interest. One of the things that has been really good for us is to have a marquee game. Marquee games at home mean an awful lot. It means the attendance most certainly will be up and also good for television for us. These are part of the metrics that we’re being measured on, is the butts in the seats, and how the eyeballs are on the television sets when we play.”

The tarps have been up for several seasons as Cal has struggled to fill its home stadium, averaging less than 35,000 fans per home game last season under coach Justin Wilcox. That was down from more than 39,000 fans per game in 2024, when the home schedule featured premium games against Miami and Stanford that drew sellouts of 52,428.

Removing the tarps would add about 10,000 seats and give Cal the opportunity to exceed 60,000 fans for just the fifth time since the remodeled stadium reopened in 2012. The high in that time was 63,186 for the first game in 2012 against Nevada. Cal also topped the 60,000 mark for the Big Game against Stanford that season, a 2013 game against Ohio State and a 2015 game against Grambling when the famed marching band was the biggest draw.

But excitement is high this season for a program that has won more than seven games just once in the past 10 seasons and hasn’t had a winning record in conference play since 2009.

Rivera has done a good job engaging alumni and raising money in his two years as general manager and Lupoi has energized the fan base with his string recruiting since being hired in December. Quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is back after a strong freshman season and provides hope that the Bears can be a contender again soon.

Cal has a higher-profile home schedule this season, with the opener against UCLA being the first meeting between the longtime Pac-12 rivals since the two schools left that conference following the 2023 season. The Bears also host traditional power Clemson on Sept. 25 and Stanford on Nov. 21.

Rivera said it's important to win games, which would help increase both attendance and television viewership to help put Cal in a better position for either the next wave of realignment or for the Atlantic Coast Conference's next media rights deal.

“The West Coast viewers are very valuable. This is the sixth-largest TV market in America. There is value to who Cal and Stanford are,” Rivera said. “That to me is one of the things that we have to sell. But we can only sell it if the numbers continue to rise. If we continue to get fan engagement on television, continue to get fan engagement in our stadiums. That’s what’s important. That’s what we need and we need it now.”

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