Florida Governor Ron DeSantis defended his the decision to label wrestling as an essential service to the state, allowing WWE to resume live television broadcasts behind closed doors, saying that people are starved for content.
“People are chomping at the bit,” DeSantis told reporters according to The Tampa Bay Times. “If you think about it, we have never had a period like this in modern American history where you’ve had so little new content, particularly in the sporting realm. I mean, we are watching reruns from like the early 2000s.”
DeSantis was accused of political interference because he signed the order after it was revealed that a Trump Super PAC headed by Linda McMahon would be spending nearly $20 million in marketing in Tampa and Orlando.
Confronted by these accusations at a COVID-19 press conference, DeSantis didn’t hold back. “Who suggested that? What does that have to do with me? Like, are they supporting me? Did you look up that? They didn’t, right? Okay.”
The Governor also suggested that a NASCAR race without crowd could be doable and supported the idea of a one-on-one golf match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.
“So my view would be, let’s do what we can do to stop the spread, to make sure we’re flattening the curve. But at the same time, you can give people some outlets. Maybe that’s with programming on TV, maybe that’s with essential activities,” DeSantis said. “And so that’s kind of the deal. But obviously, people can look up anyone that’s supported me. If there’s no support, it’d be really hard to draw that connection at that point. Not that it would be legitimate anyway, but in this case the factual predicate isn’t even there.”
