The NBA reportedly issued a memo Friday night to its teams asking them to prepare to play games without fans in attendance, should it be necessary due to the ongoing U.S. coronavirus outbreak.
In an interview the same day, Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta made it clear that he’s not a fan of that concept.
In comments to CNBC, Fertitta said he would rather suspend or postpone games for a period of time, rather than play them without fans.
Fertitta said:
I don’t think you ever want to play games in front of no audiences. If it ever got so bad, and this is just my opinion, I would hope that we would just suspend for a week, or two weeks, or whatever. You don’t want to play games with no fans. That’s never going to work.
Fertitta urged fans to take basic precautions, but to remain calm and avoid panic. “We’ve got to go on about our lives,” he said.
Fertitta said the team didn’t see any negative attendance impact from coronavirus fears at Thursday’s home game, noting that there were actually fewer no-shows than usual among ticket holders.
“The only no show was us last night, against the Clippers,” Fertitta joked, referring to the 15-point loss by the Rockets in which they trailed by a huge margin for most of the night. “Our fans were all there.”
Earlier Friday, the Rockets announced additional illness preventive measures for home games at Toyota Center, based on recommendations by the NBA as well as local and national healthcare professionals.
Houston’s next home game is Sunday night against the Orlando Magic, with tipoff scheduled for 6 p.m. Central time from Toyota Center.
