California Governor Gavin Newsom thinks his state is more than five months away from being ready to pack tens of thousands of people into a stadium.
Newsom said today that California’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic is unlikely to have made sufficient progress for the football season to be played as normal.
“I’m not anticipating that happening in this state,” Newsom said, via SFGate.com. “We’ve all seen the headlines over the last couple days in Asia where they opening up certain businesses and now they’re starting to roll back those openings because they’re starting seeing some spread and there’s a boomerang. One has to be very cautious here, one has to be careful not to overpromise.”
Newsom said he’d rather be safe than sorry when it comes to allowing major sporting events to happen in his state.
“I would move very cautiously in that expectation,” Newsom said. “Our decision on that basis here in the State of California will be determined by the facts, will be determined by the health experts, will be determined by our ability to meet this moment and bend the curve. . . . Right now I’m just focusing on the immediate, but that’s not something I anticipate happening in the next few months.”
Newsom sounds less optimistic than President Trump, who said he’s hoping to have fans in stadiums again by August or September. The reality is, no one knows in April what the situation is going to be in August. But at the moment, it’s hard to be optimistic.