Giants, Jets say they won’t have fans at MetLife Stadium ‘until circumstances change’
“We support Governor Murphy’s decision in the interest of public health and safety,” the Giants and Jets said, adding that they “would prefer to have fans” but, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, will also bar them from training camp and practices this year.
“We urge our fans to continue to take the necessary precautions recommended by health officials to stay safe and we look forward to seeing you at MetLife Stadium as soon as possible,” the teams said in their statement. “Thank you again for your continued patience and understanding during these unprecedented times and we will continue to provide additional information as it becomes available.”
Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis, whose team is moving into a nearly completed stadium in that city, said recently that his inclination was to “go with no fans in the stands.”
“The only way I believe [playing in a full stadium] can happen is if they delayed the start of the season rather than trying to start it right now in the middle of the uncertainty we have,” Davis added. “I believe we could get all the way up to November and still get a full season and playoffs and Super Bowl in, and if we went to November, we may have a better feel for what’s going on with the virus with some type of inoculation or something of that nature that could give us a better feel for the safety of the players, fans and everyone else.”
The NFL appears intent on following the calendar it put in place before the pandemic drastically altered the sports landscape. That called for rookies to begin reporting to training camps Monday, with quarterbacks and other veterans following soon after, and for the regular season to begin Sept. 10.
The Trump administration’s top infectious-diseases official, Anthony S. Fauci, said in May that he could see “filling a third of the stadium or half” of NFL stadiums with socially distancing fans this fall, but only “if the virus is so low that even in the general community the risk is low.”
By June, Fauci was warning that unless “players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall.”
Since then, the national rate of new coronavirus cases has only climbed, in contrast to Europe, where most top soccer leagues resumed play. Even there, though, no fans have been attending games in Germany’s Bundesliga, England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A.
There is still much concern among college football coaches and administrators in the United States that they won’t be able to have a season this year, with some conferences already moving fall sports to the spring. NCAA President Mark Emmert cautioned Thursday that coronavirus numbers “point in the wrong direction,” and the NCAA released a chart showing that when it began making plans in April for the return of fall sports, it expected new cases to continue to fall steadily rather than to rise.
“Everything that we’re doing is centered around the concept of risk mitigation,” Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, said in a conference call with reporters. “We know that we can’t eliminate risk. But we’re trying to mitigate it as much as possible for everyone. … I think that these protocols are very much living and breathing documents, which means that they will change.”
Murphy had raised the New Jersey limit on public gatherings from 250 to 500 on July 3, just in time for the holiday weekend. Whereas New Jersey and New York were notable hot spots for the virus in the early stages of the pandemic, rates there have steadily fallen while the epicenters have largely shifted to the South and Southwest.
Still, the governor said Monday in a statement (via NJ.com) that “continued concerns for the health and safety of fans, team members, and staff dictate that our executive order limiting outdoor gatherings does apply to sporting events, including training camp.”
“We will continue to closely monitor the public health reality and work with health experts to determine how to move forward, and we will continue to work closely with the teams as conditions change,” he added. “Like all fans across New Jersey, I look forward to watching our teams play from home and plan to be there in person to support the teams when it is safe to do so.”
According to NJ.com, the number of players, coaches and other officials NFL teams bring to MetLife Stadium will not count toward the 500-person limit. That could leave open the possibility of having a few people, such as family members, in the stands.
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