40,168!!! Huge number, but I’m confused about the so-called “tie”.

I understand the fire marshal sets the attendance cap and I’ve heard that there are fines for going over that cap. But does the university get fined if the ANNOUNCED attendance goes over or if the actual scanned attendance goes over?

How much are the fines, and would it be worth it to pay the fine to announce an new record?

If the fines are levied on actual scanned attendance why not announce 40,169? Because in no world do I believe the EXACT same number showed up for UNC and ECU.

I would think that if something went wrong in the stadium, going over the allowed capacity would be much more costly in lawsuits than a fine.

It's not a fine thing. It's a public university knowingly breaking the law thing...

Capacity restrictions are in place for a reason. You could argue for or against the reason, but it's still the law. Can you imagine the public relations hell the athletic department and University would get if they knowingly said "we know it's against the law to have more than this, but we did it!!!!!"