In a press conference at the White House briefing room on Thursday evening, President Donald J. Trump gave a special shoutout to the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and Tuscaloosa’s Bryant-Denny Stadium.
A reporter, apparently leading up to asking the president a question, mentioned a “new normal” of lower occupancies being allowed in public venues such as restaurants and bars, when Trump cut in to reject that premise.
Trump advised, “Oh, that’s not going to be normal. There’s not going to be a ‘new normal’ where somebody has been having for 25 years 158 seats in a restaurant and now he’s got 30 or he’s got 60, because that wouldn’t work. That’s not normal. No, normal will be if he has the 158 or 168 seats, and that’s going to happen — and it’s going to happen relatively quickly, we hope.”
He then explained that he wants the same to hold true for sporting events.
“But that’s our normal,” the president continued. “Our normal is if you have 100,000 people in an Alabama football game or 110,000, to be exact, we want 110,000 people. We want every seat occupied. Normal is not going to be where you have a game with 50,000 people.”
Watch:
President @realDonaldTrump wants Alabama Football back pic.twitter.com/ClRmekdud2
— Alabama Crimson Tide | BamaInsider.com (@bamainsider) April 16, 2020
Trump has expressed his desire for major professional sports leagues to start back up in the near future. He has even put leaders from various leagues on an advisory team regarding reopening the American economy.
The president has said this could mean professional leagues playing in empty stadiums this summer.
“[M]any of them will be starting without the fans, so it will be made for television, the good old days, made for television,” he outlined. “And it will go that way, and maybe the fans will start coming in. Maybe they will be separated by two seats. and then ultimately we want to have packed arenas when the virus is gone. When the virus is gone, we want to have packed arenas and we are going to be back to enjoying sports the way they are supposed to be.”
“We want to get our sports back, so importantly,” Trump added earlier this week.
His Thursday reference to University of Alabama football games came after he attended Bama’s home game against LSU this past fall. At that game, he notably received a raucous standing ovation from the crowd at Bryant-Denny.
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Tide coach Nick Saban called it “an honor” that the President of the United States attended the matchup.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
