Opinion | Coronavirus: billionaire sport team owners find themselves faced with financial choice – to pay or not to pay?
- Multiple high-profile athletes and owners have pledged to pay arena staff for the coming weeks
- However there are some notable holdouts, billionaires who have remained quiet as the world comes together to fight the virus
The short answer is yes. In a just and honourable society, billionaire owners of sports franchises would pay the salaries of their workers during this unprecedented public health crisis – it’s just the right thing to do. Sadly, our reality is a little more complicated, and as we head into unchartered waters with the coronavirus crisis, true colours are starting to emerge.
Covid-19 has forced society into a host of unprecedented situations. Right now the world’s largest work from home experiment is taking place, one which will drastically alter the workplace of the future.
Companies have been forced to pivot, entire sectors have been brought to their knees and governments are scrambling to provide adequate services to those in need as we rethink globalisation under an entirely different scope.
In the world of North American sports, we’ve had some good stories out of the NBA, and some notable silence. Many star athletes, from Zion Williamson and Kevin Love to Giannis Antetokounmpo, have pledged to help cover some arena staff salaries as it looks like the league will be on pause for at least the next three weeks.
Many owners have also been notably proactive, including Dallas Mavericks boss Mark Cuban, who announced his organisation will foot the bill, while other teams’ ownership groups, such as the Cleveland Cavaliers, followed suit with similar responses.
