New York State's Andrew Cuomo on Monday joined the chorus of governors calling for a return of professional sports inside his state borders.
"Hockey, basketball, baseball, football -- whoever can reopen -- we're a ready, willing and able partner," Cuomo said Monday during his daily news conference.
He repeated the claim on Twitter.
The announcement is significant because New York State has emerged as the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. The Empire State has had 355,347 confirmed cases and 27,515 measured deaths thus far, accounting for 23 percent of the case load and 30 percent of the fatalities nationwide. New York State's population of 19.45 million is just under 6 percent of the general US population. With so much attention on New York, Cuomo's briefings have become newsworthy events nationwide, setting the tone nationally for the progress in battling the coronavirus pandemic. Thus far, Florida's Ron DeSantis and Arizona's Doug Ducey have been the governors beckoning the loudest toward professional sports leagues, while leaders in California have indicated it could be November or later before live sports -- even without fans -- returns inside their state. If New York gets back up and running quickly, it will place tremendous political pressure on all 50 governors to do the same. (Update: California gov. Gavin Newsom said his state will welcome the return of fan-less pro sports in the first week of June.)
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.
Update: Texas is opening as well.