Fauci: The only way pro sports can come back this year is in empty arenas

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PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Picture an empty ballpark, stadium or arena and think about how different that would make a sporting event feel.

That’s what Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, thinks it’s going to take for games to resume this year.

Trout said there are a lot of red flags, and this plan would have to be something the players agree on.

“I think the mentality is we wanna get back as soon as we can, but obviously it’s got to be realistic. It can’t be sitting in our hotel rooms, just going from the field to the hotel room and not being able to do anything, I think that’s pretty crazy.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in favor of having no fans in the ballparks. It’s something he brought up to New York Mets Chief Operating Officer Jeff Wilpon.

“I think it would be good for the country,” Cuomo told his brother, Chris, on CNN. “I think it would good be for people to have something to watch and do to fight cabin fever. And it’s something that I’m gonna pursue.”

Cuomo added, “Apparently Major League Baseball would have to make a deal with the players, because if you have no one in the stands, then the numbers are going to change. The economics are going to change. But, if Major League Baseball and the players could come to an agreement on how to adjust the economics for that reality, I think that would be a good thing. We have to start to move to normalcy, and people have to start to see some hope and light.”

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN earlier Wednesday that he doesn’t anticipate any large gatherings in his city for the rest of 2020. 

“It’s difficult to imagine us getting together in the thousands anytime soon,” Garcetti said, “so I think we should be prepared for that this year.“I think we all have never wanted science to work so quickly. But until there’s either a vaccine, some sort of pharmaceutical intervention or herd immunity, the science is the science, and public health officials have been very clear — we’ve got many, many miles to walk before we’re going to be back in those environments.”

Garcetti added that hopefully we can watch sports without fans on television.

Fauci is like most sports fans in this country: He wants baseball, too.

“People say you can’t play without spectators,” he told Snapchat. “Well, I think you probably get enough buy-in from people who are dying to see a baseball game, particularly me. I’m living in Washington. We have the world champion Washington Nationals. I want to see them play again.”