Theres a chance NY Giants fans will be able to attend games in 2020
New Jersey Governor, Phil Murphy, gave his first lukewarm response on fans being able to attend NY Giants games in 2020.
While Governor Murphy was far from resolute in the fact that NY Giants fans would be swarming the meadowlands by the thousands, this is at least progress as we’ve heard other states and counties around the country almost completely rule out any large gathering involving fans by the thousands.
We’ve already heard the overwhelmingly positive news that New Jersey has allowed sports teams to begin gathering and practicing in all capacities, although the NFL really has the final say in that matter when it comes to the NY Giants.
As we’ve also discussed, Big Blue needs that to happen faster more than most as the team is employing a completely new coaching staff that has to teach entirely new schemes.
According to SI.com, Murphy is a huge sports fan and has been closely studying data that relates to this topic and comparing the COVID-19 statistics to the possibility of opening up sports arenas in his states to fans.
To be clear, he’s not guaranteeing that this is going to happen, but just the fact that the Governor seems to want this to happen badly is positive.
"“I’ve spoken to Roger Goodell, we speak with the Giants and the Jets all the time. I think it’s too early to tell on fans. We’re taking at this point, baby steps and slowly but surely trying to get there beginning with the staffs, the coaches, the players and I think we have to see where it goes from here,” Murphy told SportsIllustrated.com."
The fact that Murphy appears to be in close contact with Roger Goodell is an enormously positive thing, as the two are going to have to work hand in hand to make this longshot of a proposition happen.
I think they’re both smart in taking the ‘baby steps’ approach and would be strongly in favor of limiting the number of fans at first as a sort of test trial before opening the floodgates for all to fill the stadium, no matter how good the data looks.
The data is going to be key
Speaking of the data, Murphy had this to say to Sports Illustrated as well.
"“The trends in New Jersey right now – we have over 12,000 fatalities – but the ones we talk about each day are folks that have been infected for weeks. You look at the other data for the past several weeks, it is all gotten really quite good. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re getting much, much better."
This is more welcoming news as it seems the state – one of the most heavily devastated in the country – is seeing real progress in its attempt to combat this vicious virus.
So while we’re still a long way off from being able to purchase tickets and feel like we’ll actually be able to use them, these are all good things, and politics aside it seems like the Gov is taking a very measured approach to this, which is very important.
Just a short time ago some politicians were speculating that sports with fans of large capacities might not be able to return until 2021-2022, so any news is good news.
From the sound of this, as long as the data keeps improving we just might be able to watch out NY Giants play in person.
I think that’s something we can all be stoked about.