Whopping (and hypothetical) 'cost' of ticket price at socially-distanced Bramall Lane highlights financial pressure Covid-19 has placed on Sheffield United

The remaining 92 Premier League games will be played behind closed doors, and it is still unknown when supporters will be allowed back into grounds to watch their team play with Covid-19 tragically still claiming hundreds of victims per day in the United Kingdom.

Life in some other industries is beginning to slowly return to normal, with the Government's two-metre rule still very much in play. So sports comparison website Footy.com looked into how many socially-distanced fans could fit into Bramall Lane - and how much a ticket would have to cost, to make up for the loss of revenue.

It's important to note that the figures are purely hypothetical, and there is no suggestion that United would increase ticket prices - even in the unlikely event that they were allowed to open the stadium for socially-distanced fans.

But the figures do illustrate how clubs, including United, will be hit financially by the drop in matchday revenue.

With every fan needing 25 empty seats around them to comply with social distancing rules, Bramall Lane's 32,125 capacity would hypothetically be reduced to 1,285, according to Footy. The current average ticket price of £37 would have to go up to £925 to cover the shortfall, and the average £458 season ticket would need to be bumped to a whopping £11,450.

According to Footy's study, Premier League match tickets would be an average of £1,094 - an average increase of just over £1,000.

“Actually getting in and out of the stadium would prove far more complicated, since you’d need to make sure the person sat at the end of the row arrived first and could safely get to their seat,” a Footy.com spokesperson said.

“In fact, trying to orchestrate the rush for a half-time pie is enough to make my brain hurt, and those in sudden need of the toilet would be in for a very rough 90 minutes indeed.

“But we aren’t really interested in the logistics (that’s somebody else’s unsolvable problem). Instead, we wanted to know how many socially-distanced fans you could potentially fit inside each Premier League stadium and, more importantly, how much fans would have to pay.

"So how would Premier League stadiums look with social distancing measures in place? The short answer is - it would be absolutely ridiculous and, of course, would never happen,"

"But the long answer is a lot more fun."

And expensive – so the sooner we can all return, safely, to Bramall Lane, the better.

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