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The NBA may be suspending the regular season after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus, but Mark Cuban isn’t letting that stop him from taking care of his hourly workers at American Airlines Center.
“There’s going to be hourly employees that aren’t working,” Cuban said on ESPN’s Get Up Thursday morning.
“And so, we talked again this morning with our folks at the AAC and getting the numbers. For the next four Mavs games we have a program where—the next four would-have-been Mavs games—we’ll pay our employees, our hourly employees as if they worked.”
READ MORE: NBA suspends season after player tests positive for coronavirus
According to Forbes, as soon as the league’s decision to postpone games was announced, the Dallas Mavericks team owner began working on a game plan to protect his people. In fact, when the Denver Nuggets primetime game aired on ESPN, during a courtside interview he made it a point to mention put his staff’s fires to rest with the reassurance that they would be paid regardless of the league’s decision.
“When some of the things were coming up that we might not play games—this was yesterday—I reached out to the folks at the arena and our folks at the Mavs to find out what it would cost to support, financially support, people who aren’t going to be able to come to work,” Cuban said.
“You know, they get paid by the hour, and this was their source of income … We’ve already started the process of having a program in place. I don’t have any details to give, but it’s certainly something that’s important to me.”
READ MORE: Utah Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell is latest player to test positive for coronavirus: report
“I reached out … to find out what it would cost to financially support people who aren’t going to be able to come to work.”
–Mark Cuban on his plan for Mavericks employees during the NBA suspension pic.twitter.com/McOl1vHUqO
— ESPN (@espn) March 12, 2020
READ MORE: First African to be diagnosed with Coronavirus also becomes the first to recover
Given that a second player on the Jazz confirmed to have tested positive for the coronavirus hourly staff at arenas across the country could go without work for weeks, if not months.
Cuban’s announcement comes after Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers told reporters, “We feel for the workers mostly, the low-income wage earners that count on working our games. If you’re going to have empathy, have it for them, not for us. We play basketball. It’s a big business, but we’re just playing basketball.”
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