Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper weighed in on the possibility of the 2020 NFL season having no fans due to COVID-19.
"There should be some amount of fans in the stadiums, depending on what locale and where you are and what the local rules are," Tepper said. "You won’t be having full stadiums, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have some fans in the stadium either."
Tepper, the richest owner in the league, bought the Panthers in 2018 and hasn't shied away from speaking his mind in the past.
"If you're comfortable being in a closed airplane for a cross-country trip, 18 inches apart, maybe with two seats in between you and being five feet away from each other, you might be comfortable in an open-air stadium," he added.
The NFL released it's 2020 regular season schedule last week and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, warned the league that NFL players could spread coronavirus even without fans.
"Once you wind up having a situation where it looks like it's spread within a team, you got a real problem. You gotta shut it down," Fauci said on CNN.
Fauci remains optimistic that sports leagues can resume eventually but told Peter King of NBC Sports earlier this week that the virus will decide, not the NFL.