UPDATE: STATEMENT FROM JOSH HARRIS, FOUNDER OF HARRIS BLITZER SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
“Our commitment has been to do our best to keep all of our employees working through this very difficult situation. As part of an effort to do that we asked salaried employees to take a temporary 20% pay cut while preserving everyone’s full benefits — and keeping our 1500 hourly workers paid throughout the regular season. 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 salaries. This is an extraordinary time in our world – unlike any most of us have ever lived through before – and ordinary business decisions are not enough to meet the moment. To our staff and fans, I apologize for getting this wrong.”
ORIGINAL POST BELOW. THE UPDATE IS ABOVE
Sports leagues are on hold. It’s an adjustment for the entire leagues, including individual teams, and of course the people they employ.
Here’s Philly Voice with an update:
At-will employees making over $50,000 for the Sixers and Devils have been asked to take salary reductions of up to 20 percent as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, a team source confirmed to PhillyVoice on Monday evening. Marc Stein of The New York Times was the first to report the news.
Those employees include employees in marketing, sales, communications, and a variety of different members of business and sports operations for both franchises, a team source told PhillyVoice. The change will apply to the period through the end of the Sixers’ fiscal year on June 30th.
The Sixers will not have layoffs and there will not be any changes to health insurance or 401k as a result of the move, a team source told PhillyVoice, which was part of the internal discussion about such a move being made.
The fallout from coronavirus continues.
