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Athletes to Floridians: Wear your mask
Evan Axelbank reports
TAMPA, Fla. - Florida's major league sports teams are dropping their rivalries and banding together to encourage people to wear masks.
"We need to have people in masks in order to curb what's going on," said Bill Wickett, the Tampa Bay Lightning vice president of communications. "We can't continue to have these high numbers."
All twelve of Florida's teams are leading by example, tweeting out their logo mosaic today, that had masks super-imposed over their logos.
The Lightning says the joint effort, with the hashtag #WearYourMaskFL is about reaching those that may not tune into government meetings or consume traditional media.
"We hope that this hits home a little bit with some of the younger people," said Wickett. "It seems like they are the ones that are more likely to be walking around right now without masks on."
The effort comes after county commissioners said last month that young people were driving the spread.
Though the median age of those with new cases has slowly increased, young people make up the biggest share of cases in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.
"Just like I don't listen to my daughter's music, she is not necessarily following the county Youtube page," Pinellas County Commissioner Kenneth Welch during a meeting June 11. " We have to find a way to reach those folks. Especially the millennials, with messages and messengers they will listen to."
Sports teams are as impacted as anyone, as those wearing these logos get set to restart their seasons in empty arenas.
"Full buildings is where we get our energy from," Wickett said. "Whether they be for concerts, Lightning games or anything else, we thrive on that, we enjoy putting smiles on people's faces,"