Monday, Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox appeared on CNN to address a viral social media post showing adults outside of a Tuscaloosa bar near the University of Alabama not applying the mandated social distance and mask requirements.
The visual drew the ire of many as fears that the 2020 Alabama football season could be canceled if COVID-19 virus cases were to spike within the student population at the University of Alabama and potentially infected football players as well.
Maddox explained to CNN’s Anderson Cooper he saw that football was necessary for his city’s economy, noting that the direct economic impact of $200 million.
Exchange as follows:
COOPER: What about the football season? It is important to fans and the local economy.
MADDOX: We have got to have it. Football is a $200 million impact on the city of Tuscaloosa. And that’s —
COOPER: Really? That’s much?
MADDOX: That’s it. A direct economic impact is $200 million. You can only imagine the indirect. So it is important to us.
Not only do we have 100,000 in the stadium, but we normally have another 30,000 or 40,000 outside the stadium.
So we know that’s not going to happen even under the best of cases this year — circumstances this year. But even a modified fall can help us get through the economy.
But I do want to point this out, is when we talk about the economy, people somehow think it’s mutually exclusive of protecting our health care system. Our first and foremost priority is protecting our health care system. If we can do that by wearing a mask and social distance, we have a better shot at having some sort of fall that resembles what we’ve seen in the past.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
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