The Golden State Warriors are audaciously leading the pack in terms of bringing in fans to home games for the upcoming season. ESPN's Ramona Shelburne reports that the Warriors are hoping that state and local officials allow them to reopen the Chase Center at 50% capacity for the 2020-21 season, in a plan that has been internally named as “Operation Dub Nation.”
Team owner Joe Lacob expressed how serious the Warriors are about making this dream come to fruition, including their willingness to spend more than $30 million to test every single fan for COVID-19.
According to the Warriors owner, the fans are the heart of the NBA, and not allowing them to watch home games could lead to catastrophic results down the road:
“I not only want to get this done and show the world how we can do it now, I'm willing to spend the money to do it,” said Lacob, the Warriors owner who holds a master's degree in public health from UCLA and built his fortune as a venture capitalist in biotechnology. “This is a serious, serious problem. It cannot go on for multiple years … because if this were to go on for several years, the NBA is no more.
“You cannot sustain this league with no fans. You can do it for a year. We'll all get by for a year. But suppose we're in this situation next year. Now we're talking some serious, serious financial damage to a lot of people.”
Lacob makes a lot of sense here. The NBA was very successful in seeing out the previous season inside the Disney World bubble, but as the Warriors owner said, this format simply isn't sustainable.
More importantly, Lacob is willing to put his money where his mouth is by spending a significant amount of money to make sure that this plan becomes a reality for Golden State.
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