USA TODAY International Edition
Texas- sized concern: Fans in stands for Astros, Rangers
The coronavirus is surging in the Lone Star State but plans are to open baseball stadiums.
From the Texas state capitol, the message was sobering. “The safest place for you,” Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday from Austin, “is at your home.”
On a conference call with reporters a day later, Astros owner Jim Crane struck a different tone, bemoaning tens of millions of dollars his franchise will lose and the need for fans in his stadium in Houston to stop the bleeding. “The only thing we have that can counter that,” says Crane, “is to get some people into the building and sell some tickets and some merchandise and some cold beer or whatever they let us have.”
And herein lies the disconnect between public health and private industry and the mixed messages sportshungry fans receive as health experts aim to douse the raging fires of the novel coronavirus while leagues and franchises try to cut their losses.
All eyes will be on MLB’s ability to do business trapped between these forces as it welcomes players to their home stadiums for workouts starting July 3 and a 60- game regular season July 23.
No market might better exemplify this sports reckoning than Texas. The coronavirus is surging in the Lone Star State, where a record 5,551 new cases were reported Wednesday, the third consecutive day with a new high. The positivity rate reached 10.4%, its highest in more than two months, and hospitalizations peaked at 4,389. In Harris County, home to the Astros, ICU beds are at 97% capacity. Thursday, Abbott put a pause on further reopenings.
Abbott moved to aggressively reopen the state, allowing its stay- at- home order to expire April 30 and throwing a significant bouquet to the sports world: Stadiums, he announced on June 3, could welcome fans at 50% capacity.
Yet just because teams can charge paying customers to watch a sporting event as a pandemic rages around them doesn’t mean they should.
“I think teams have a responsibility,” says Ronald Waldman, a professor of global health at George Washington University who has worked with the
World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United Nations in the fight against infectious diseases. “I think a lot of people would assume if they’re saying, ‘ Come to the ballpark,’ they’re saying, ‘ It’s safe to come to the ballpark.’ But we see how much of a driver money is in this country and we saw it in the baseball negotiations. That was not about safety, I don’t think. If a rational person thinks about it, this is not the time to put a lot of fans in the seats.”
Yet teams are gradually shifting the paradigm from “no fans” to “some fans.” Twins President Dave St. Peter told reporters Wednesday that he’s engaged with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the department of health and is “hopeful we will have fans at some point in the 2020 season.”
In Texas, the plans are apace. COVID- 19 waylaid the Rangers’ opening of Globe Life Park, their $ 1.2 billion home in Arlington, but they’re not giving up. They are prepared to open with crowds as large as 20,000 in their 40,000- capacity stadium.
A baseball official confirmed that the league does not intend to influence clubs on whether to host fans, only that they will adhere to all local laws. The official spoke to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the matter.