Joe Tsai, co-founder and executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group and the new owner of the New York Liberty, speaks to reporters during a news conference before a WNBA exhibition basketball game between the New York Liberty and China, Thursday, May 9, 2019 in New York. Tsai saw the team's exhibition game against the Chinese national team Thursday night as a chance to grow relations between the two countries.
(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai publicly committed to compensating Barclays Center staff during the NBA’s break.

The Brooklyn Nets join a slew of NBA teams and players who are pledging to pay stadium staff while the league’s season is suspended. The team released a statement on Saturday, confirming that they would be committing to the Barclays Center employees.

“We commit to provide relief to hourly employees for the paychecks they would have earned if Brooklyn Nets regular season games and non-Nets events as originally scheduled. The plan will cover the period from now until the end of May unless the events are rescheduled before that,” part of the statement read.

In addition to Nets games, Barclays Center hosts New York Islanders games, concerts, boxing, and MMA events. Not only is the NBA on hiatus, but nearly every other American sport is shut down or postponed as well. In fact, New York state instituted a state-wide ban of events with 500 or more people in attendance.

As a result, Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden are going to be sitting idle for a long time.

Committing to this plan is an excellent move by Nets owner Joe Tsai and he is one of many NBA owners to make sure the stadium staff is secure during the shutdown. New York Knicks owner James Dolan is also working towards a long-term solution to ensure that stadium staff is compensated during the time off.

Despite the Nets and Tsai’s public statement on the matter, some Barclays Center employees are still skeptical of the arrangement according to Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News.

“A Barclays Center source, however, expressed some skepticism to The Daily News,” wrote Winfield. “They explained that the news of pay through the suspended season was announced via social media before it was relayed to the hourly workers it would be affecting.”

Hopefully, this is just a miscommunication that will get cleared up once the weekend is over. The country is still trying to figure out exactly what is going on, but it looks like the Nets are going to take care of their own.

NY/NJ hoops reporter (NBA/NCAA) & sports betting writer for XL Media. Never had the makings of a varsity athlete.