Posts for sixers

Seems like the Sixers have been more active than any of the local teams when it comes to COVID-19 related stuff, for better or worse.

That includes positives like the Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment decision to pay workers at the Prudential Center and Wells Fargo Center. It also includes negatives, like the 24 hour rollercoaster of deafening feedback that resulted in the scrapping of a plan to reduce employee pay.

Josh Harris sent out a statement apologizing for that, even though it’s his company and he can do what he wants. Maybe they messed up when it came to the furlough idea, but they’ve gotten pretty much everything else right, in my opinion, which includes two more initiatives made public today.

First up, we’ve got the School District of Philadelphia announcing that HBSE stepped up to help purchase 10,000 Chromebooks for students:

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Co-owner Michael Rubin was not exempt from criticism when the Sixers went through Tuesday’s public relations rollercoaster, reversing course after initially announcing a plan to temporarily reduce employee pay via staggered furloughs.

Fast forward to today, with Rubin announcing that the Fanatics factory in Easton would be shifting 100 workers to the production of masks and gowns in an effort to help combat the Coronavirus crisis.

Here’s a thread explaining what they’re doing, via Rubin himself:

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All of that negative publicity resulted in this:

Sixers ownership statement to ESPN: ''….After listening to our staff and players, it's clear that was the wrong decision. We have reversed it and will be paying these employees their full salary." https://t.co/0mn1NthccQ

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 24, 2020

We have a full statement from Josh Harris here:

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This is how you do it:

76ers star Joel Embiid says he is donating $500,000 to coronavirus relief and helping team workers who are temporarily reducing their salary during pandemic.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 24, 2020

Now Howard Eskin’s concerns are assuaged.

Need more details, of course, but at surface level this makes Embiid look really good and makes Harris/Blitzer/etc look really bad.

Edit:

What a mess this has become –

Only at-will employees — over $50K a year in salary — are required to accept the Sixers salary reductions. Those under contract are needed to "volunteer" to do it. https://t.co/irBrW1DNpm

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 24, 2020

I made a bet with Kyle last week.

I think one of the NBA, NHL, MLB, or MLS will play a game in an empty arena by June 1st. He thinks this thing will stretch on much longer than that, and the winner of the bet gets $5. This is the easiest money I’ll ever make.

June 1st was just an arbitrary date we picked, but Mavericks owner Mark Cuban seems to be going with 6/1 as well, telling Dallas TV station WFAA that he feels like that’s the over/under point for a return to action.

Speaking via Skype, Cuban said this:

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