When the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) began emerging on the U.S. radar in early March, Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta was vocally opposed to the prospect of NBA games without fans.
But with the league’s COVID-19 hiatus well over a month old and without an immediate end in sight, it seems Fertitta has had a change of heart.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a White House health advisor, has said that the path for sports to return likely involves games without fans — along with a relative quarantine procedure for players and widespread testing.
In a recent interview with ESPN’s Marty Smith, Fertitta seemed to endorse a similar concept for the 2019-20 season’s resumption. He said:
This is a horrible crisis, this coronavirus. We’ve always said ‘Gosh, when we come back, I want to play in front of the fans.’ I don’t think we’re going to be able to play in front of the fans, because it’s not going to be the right thing to do.
If we can test the players and we make sure that everybody’s healthy and nobody has another issue of an asthma issue or something that could cause them a problem, I think it would be great for us to start playing basketball whenever the doctors and NBA tell us it’s alright. It would be a shame not to play basketball and finish this year.
Later in the interview, Fertitta stressed that the environment needs to be safe not only for the players, but also the support staff who would need to be with the players at games — even if there are no fans.
Fertitta also owns the Landry’s restaurant group and Golden Nugget casino chain, and he’s part of the new advisory council of Texas Governor Greg Abbott tasked with helping reopen the state amid the pandemic.
