Sports execs react to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s plan to have fans when the games return
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick believes fans should be able to attend games in a limited capacity when sports resume, he wrote in an op-ed in The Dallas Morning News on Friday.
Patrick laid out a number of measures he felt would ensure fans can attend games as safely as possible, but his plan isn’t close to coming to fruition for the first sporting events coming back to Texas.
Texas Motor Speedway is set to host the first major sporting event in the state with IndyCar’s Genesys 300 scheduled to run on June 6. The PGA Tour then comes to town for the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club with tournament rounds being played June 11-14.
Both TMS and PGA Tour officials said there are no discussions of implementing any sort of fan attendance such as what Patrick has suggested.
“As things currently stand, we can’t host fans,” said TMS president Eddie Gossage. “We will follow the state’s directions that events like this cannot have people in the stands. We wish we could, but that’s not the direction we’ve been given by the state of Texas.”
The PGA Tour said it’s focused on its first four events, including the Colonial, being held without the general public.
A spokesman for the Texas Rangers said the team is in the midst of “operational planning for if and when we have a spring training and regular season games without fans at Globe Life Field. ... With where baseball is right now, the potential scenario of playing with fans at Globe Life Field really has not even been addressed.”
However, some of Patrick’s ideas may be implemented in time, particularly if there’s a slow buildup to full stadiums again.
Patrick’s plans called for outdoor stadiums to start by opening up to 30% capacity, something Patrick said teams should be able to “easily accommodate.”
He laid out measures such as fans having their temperatures checked at the gate, limiting groups sitting together to four and other social distancing measures for concessions and exiting the venue.
Patrick went on a tangent about sports improving pace of play, too, saying everything from batters taking too long in baseball adjusting their batting gloves to “speed up Zambonis” in hockey. He’d also like to see a 60-second clock on every football replay.
As far as fans attending games, Patrick states that “tickets will clearly state that fans waive liability if they should become ill.”
TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati said the school is preparing for all possibilities for its fall sports, including limited or no fans for football games and other sports.
“We anticipate having social distancing restrictions we have to manage heading into the fall sports seasons,” Donati said.
Patrick encouraged fans and teams to provide input to make his plan “even better.”
“Here’s the bottom line,” he wrote, “let’s end all this talk about playing in empty stadiums. Let the games begin with fans in the seats.”
This story was originally published May 15, 2020 at 12:03 PM.
