Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick thinks sports fans should be able to attend games as long as some guidelines are in place, he wrote in a Friday opinion piece for The Dallas Morning News.
“Let’s end all this talk about playing in empty stadiums,” Patrick wrote. “Let the games begin with fans in the seats.”
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The lieutenant governor's ideas come a day after Gov. Greg Abbott hinted he may have news of sports facility reopenings in his upcoming Monday press conference, he said in a Thursday KBTX interview. Texas A&M University officials have said it plans to commence fall football.
Patrick laid out a series of proposals outdoor and indoor stadiums could implement to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stadiums should limit fan capacity, implement a social distance seating chart and check everyone’s temperature when they go through security. If a person’s temperature is high they can’t attend the game and should get a refund.
The lieutenant governor also proposed ways to skim time off the actual game by limiting timeouts in the last minute of basketball games and limiting how long a batter in baseball can step out of the box to readjust their gloves.
“I don’t believe Anthony Fauci should anoint himself as the commissioner of sports and tell the owners, players and fans what to do,” Patrick wrote. — Stacy Fernández