Every bit of help is key amidst this coronavirus pandemic, whether it’s food, cash or medical supplies. The Nets, Barclays Center and Alibaba — all owned by Joe Tsai — have been providing all of the above.
With live sports shut down and teams and arenas getting squeezed economically, many hourly workers have been laid off or face pay cuts.
But Nets and Barclays Center employees are getting the same checks they would have if they’d worked events as scheduled through the end of May. And it’s not just NBA games, but concerts, Islanders games, college basketball like the A-10 tourney and even graduations.
A source familiar with the unions and the overall process told The Post the checks cut could end up totaling an estimated $6 million.
Barclays Center also donated 10,000 pounds of food from the arena to City Harvest, the city’s biggest food bank. (The arena’s food and beverage partner Levy helped facilitate the donation).
They’ve kicked in on the medical side as well.
With New York in dire need of ventilators and other medical supplies to help treat COVID-19 patients, the Alibaba Group helped facilitate significant shipments to the state. It didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“We discussed supplies. I want to thank Michael Evans from Alibaba, who is here with us today,” Cuomo said at Monday’s press briefing. “I want to thank Elizabeth Jennings [the chief of staff] from the Asia Society, who is here with us today, who are helping us source supplies.“We’re in a situation where you have 50 states all competing for supplies, the federal government is now also competing for supplies, private hospitals are also competing for supplies. We’ve created a situation where you literally have hundreds of entities looking to buy the same exact materials basically from the same place, which is China.”
In the end, the buck stops with Tsai, who owns the Nets and Barclays, and cofounded Alibaba. While Houston’s Tilman Fertitta has been laying off Landry workers and Josh Harris initially asked at-will Sixers and Devils employees to take pay cuts, organizations such as the Nets, Warriors and Mavericks have been on the other end of the spectrum.
“How companies respond to that very question is going to define their brand for decades,” Mavs owner Mark Cuban said on CNBC. “If you rushed in and somebody got sick, you were that company. If you didn’t take care of your employees or stakeholders and put them first, you were that company.”