Let’s start with the good news. On Monday, the New Orleans Saints announced nine open training camp dates for fans to attend at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center in Metairie, with the first practice session kicking off on July 23. Here’s the full schedule:

Wednesday, July 23: 9-11 a.m. (Shells)

Thursday, July 24: 9-11 a.m. (Shells)

Friday, July 25: 9-11 a.m. (Shells)

Sunday, July 27: 9-11 a.m. (Shells)

Monday, July 28: 9:30-11:30 a.m. (Pads)

Wednesday, July 30: 9:30-11:30 a.m. (Pads)

Saturday, Aug. 2: 9:30-11:30 a.m. (Pads)

Sunday, Aug. 3: 9:30-11:30 a.m. (Pads)

Tuesday, Aug. 5: 9:30-11:30 a.m. (Pads)

Now the bad news. Like last summer, the Saints are not opening practices in Irvine, Calif. to fans leading up to their first preseason game with the Los Angeles Chargers. That’s despite working out of the same facility the L.A. Rams hosted 10,000 fans per day at training camp in years before. They’ll practice on five days in California and hold a walkthrough before that preseason game but all of those sessions will be closed to the public.

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When asked why they didn’t invite fans to attend practice in Irvine last year, Saints GM Mickey Loomis essentially said he didn’t think it would be worth the effort: “I think for us here, you know we’re away from our home market, we’re not expecting a lot of fans. We weren’t expecting a lot of fans. It’s just the venue, all the logistics that are involved. It’s significantly more logistics that are involved when you open it up to the public as to when you don’t. So all those factors came into play. I didn’t really do much inquiry about what we were allowed to do with fans or not allowed to do … Because pretty quickly we determined that, hey, it’s going to be a limited amount of people at practice.”

That’s disappointing, especially for Saints fans who live in California and the West Coast who spend a lot of money supporting their team by purchasing exclusive streaming packages like NFL Sunday Ticket and paying a premium to ship merchandise across the country. But it’s the Saints’ decision to make. While they will play two preseason games at the Caesars Superdome after returning to Louisiana, the Saints currently don’t plan on holding any practices there or at Tulane’s Yulman Stadium, as they did last year after flying home from California. That could change, but for now it’s only those nine training camp practices and a couple of preseason games for fans in New Orleans.

This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: 2025 Saints training camp: Fans invited to attend these nine practices