Tiger King star Carole Baskin has ripped the “irresponsible” NFL for allowing fans at Super Bowl 55 amid the continued coronavirus crisis.
Baskin brought out her claws to take a swipe at the Super Bowl, being held at Raymond James Stadium, only about 12 miles from her Tampa-based Big Cat Rescue animal sanctuary in Florida.
“We are right now dealing with life or death on this planet, and I think every one of us should be doing our part to stay home,” Baskin said of the big game.
“I just think it’s irresponsible for people to be gathering in large groups, even though I understand they’re saying this is a much smaller group than they’ve ever had,” Baskin told USA Today. “But it doesn’t matter that it’s a smaller group. It’s way more people than should be exposed to each other for the purpose of watching a game.”
The NFL limited the number of fans at RayJay to only 22,500 for the February 7 game. However, restricting the numbers of fans is no balm on the wound as far as Baskin is concerned.
“What I have seen is every time there’s a big event — whether it be a protest or a political rally — after that thing happens, there’s this huge uptick in the number of local people who (test) positive for COVID-19,” Baskin insisted. “And there’s no way if you bring 22,000 people to Tampa, from all over the place, that you’re not going to see that same kind of huge uptick in cases here. There’s nothing that would justify that sort of risk-taking.”
Despite her criticism, though, Baskin is not above using the Super Bowl to promote her business. On Thursday, Baskin claims one of her tigers will predict which team will win the game.
Last year Baskin’s tiger Kali tried to make the prediction but muffed it. “We retired Kali after her wrong prediction last year,” said Baskin’s manager, Afton Tasler.
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