Monumental Sports & Entertainment Founder, Chair & CEO Ted Leonsis today commended the NHL, NBA and WNBA's responses to the twin challenges of the coronavirus and social injustice, referring to a "case history on very good governance." Leonsis: "Sports really is a great metaphor for managing through crisis.” The NBA and its teams have “kept our players and employees safe, we’ve allowed them to self-express around social justice and we’ve been able to keep the business going, mostly serving our immediate partners and our sponsors.” Leonsis: “This is much bigger than basketball or hockey. ... We want to be very, very socially responsible and this was the time to do it." More highlights from Leonsis:
- On fan attendance: “Obviously, our businesses are dramatically affected locally. We can’t bring fans into the arena. Our goal for next season would be how can we find ways through rapid testing, hopefully as the vaccines start to roll out, that we can start to get fans back into the buildings. That represents usually about half of our revenues."
- On the crowded sports calendar: "There is this great equinox -- we’ve never seen this before -- of having both baseball and football and basketball and hockey and other sports all coming at the same time. ... Hopefully we can do better on the scheduling but when you think about it, we were the harbinger of shutting down businesses and doing it in the right way back in March” (“Squawk Box,” CNBC, 9/16).
