Perhaps the most upsetting thing for Danilo Gallinari was that there simply were not enough hospital beds for all the very sick people in the area where he grew up in Northern Italy.
In February, while the NBA played games and much of the U.S. was unaware of the threat COVID-19 posed, Gallinari, who plays forward for the Oklahoma City Thunder, was getting reports from his mother about how bad the outbreak had become in his homeland. He was born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in the Lombardy region of Italy. By early March, people were dying and that region was put on lockdown.
“The first big problem is you had too many people that didn’t fit in the hospital, so the request on the hospital is too much,” Gallinari said. “And the hospital collapsed.”
Gallinari donated money to turn a building that had been used as part of a trade fair in Milan into a 200-bed intensive care hospital. A friend of Gallinari’s who is a doctor visited the site and confirmed for him that the hospital was operating in that space and treating patients.
After the NBA season was suspended when COVID-19 hit the U.S., Gallinari made a donation to provide masks, gowns and face shields to health workers in Oklahoma City.
Gallinari is one of hundreds of athletes in North America to assist those in need as a result of the pandemic. Some give to health care workers, whether it be masks or other personal protective equipment. Others are giving meals to children who have lost access to lunches as schools shut down. Or to seniors, through programs like Meals on Wheels, as the elderly are more isolated than ever because they are at high risk for a bad COVID-19 outcome. Athletes also are giving to a special, sports-related cause — donating money to stadium and arena employees who are out of work with all of the major sports shut down.
As professional athletes have come through for people in need during the major disasters of this century, their agencies and unions have become very sophisticated about finding ways for players to give and making sure the money goes to the right people and places.
More than 100 MLB players have given money, time and resources to COVID-19 relief, according to Leonor Colon, MLB Players Association senior director, international and domestic players operations, who oversees charitable efforts for the union and its players. The MLBPA will match up to $2,500 for every current and former player who gives to a charitable cause.
Colon pointed to an alphabetical list of 100 players and the donations they made to myriad causes since the pandemic shut down sports. In fact, Colon said, the number of current and former players who have tried to help is “way more” than 100.
“We have a bunch of players who keep things quiet; they don’t want to be highlighted,” she said.
Among the efforts listed:
■ Washington Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman gave $165,000 to stadium employees and raised an additional $300,000 for continued support through his Pros for Heroes campaign. His teammates and coaches got together online to relive last season’s World Series-winning Game 7, livestreaming their reactions as fans donated to an online pledge drive. Nicklas Backstrom of the Washington Capitals kicked in $20,000 to the fund.
■ Houston Astros outfielder George Springer donated $100,000 to those who work at Minute Maid Park after it was shut down. Cincinnati Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer established a GoFundMe fund for game-day employees.
■ Seattle Mariners infielder Dee Gordon, Chicago Cubs right fielder Jason Heyward and Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor made donations to buy face masks for health care workers.
■ Over 50 MLB players and all 30 MLB clubs donated to the #HomePlateProject, which provides meals to children who rely on free or reduced-price school lunches. The effort is led by St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright and Texas Rangers pitcher Kyle Gibson. They were going to launch its second year of operation in the fall, but started it up early when they realized the urgency to provide meals to kids who were not in school because of the pandemic.
■ Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo is donating restaurant food to hospital workers in Chicago and in Florida. Rizzo’s agent Marc Pollack said the effort serves a double purpose. “We are helping all these restaurants stay in business,” Pollack said.
Colon has worked through charitable giving issues with multiple disasters, but this one is different. In any catastrophe, she said, people need food, so players mobilized to get food to kids and to seniors. That was the first wave. “The second wave is our first responders did not have supplies,” she said, adding that with people out of work, there will be new challenges.
Oklahoma City health care workers express their gratitude for Danilo Gallinari’s donations.OKC-County Health Department
NHL, NFL players mobilize
More than 80 NHL players also donated to COVID-19 relief efforts, including to food banks and for health care workers, according to information provided to Sports Business Journal by the NHL Players’ Association. At least 22 players donated 17,850 surgical masks to Canadian health care workers as part of a program in which hockey equipment manufacturer CCM is working to get protective equipment to doctors and nurses.
At least 20 NHL players donated signed jerseys to be auctioned for Athletes for COVID-19 Relief, an effort that agency Octagon organized for athletes across sports. As of last week, the effort had raised more than $225,000 for Disaster Philanthropy’s COVID-19 Response Fund.
Multiple players on the Calgary Flames and the Boston Bruins made donations to GoFundMe sites for arena staff and employees who were out of work. Las Vegas Golden Knights goalie Marc-André Fleury gave $100,000 to T-Mobile Arena employees, as well as 17,500 surgical masks to Canadian health care workers.
In the NFL, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees announced his family was donating $5 million to help feed needy families in Louisiana, a state hard-hit by the pandemic. New York Jets cornerback Pierre Desir pledged a donation that will provide more than 20,000 meals to struggling families in Indianapolis.
Atlanta Falcons defensive end Dante Fowler donated $100,000 to #ATLStrong Fund, which supports Atlanta residents experiencing economic hardships and health-related issues due to COVID-19. Buffalo Bills cornerback Josh Norman donated $50,000 to provide meals and web-based programs for kids in need.
NFL players also participated in a number of public service announcements to stay home and stay safe.
MLB free agent player Yasiel Puig teamed up with Presidente Supermarkets to donate meals to health care workers in the Miami area.Courtesy of MLB Players Trust
Social media outreach
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry created perhaps the best known pandemic social media post when he conducted a 30-minute question-and-answer session with White House coronavirus task force member and infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci in late March. The Instagram interview was watched in 146 countries and widely praised for presenting important information in an easy-to-understand and entertaining fashion.
Bryant Barr, president of Curry’s company SC30, thought it would be a way to reach an audience that was not watching the daily White House briefings or channels like CNN. “We saw that, and Stephen has a perfect outlet to reach a younger demographic through his social channels,” Barr said. “He has 30 million followers on Instagram and almost half of them are 40 years or younger. So you have millennials and Gen Z and people all over the world are potentially not hearing this information or at least not adhering to it if they are getting it.” Curry is active in other relief efforts, as well, including donating 1 million meals to kids in the Oakland area.
In the NBA, at least 97 players have donated at least $4.9 million toward COVID-19 relief, said Sherrie Deans, executive director of the NBPA Foundation. But basketball players, like baseball players, like to keep donations private, and the actual amount is much more, Deans said.
The National Basketball Players Association has a robust foundation and can match up to $25,000 of player contributions and that amount goes up to $50,000 for disasters. So far, the amount the NBPA Foundation has matched is “approximately $575,000 and climbing,” Deans said.
Ironically, the foundation has a lot of money for good deeds that it gets from players’ (alleged) bad deeds. In the NBA collective-bargaining agreement, every time a player is fined, say, $15,000 for throwing a ball into the stands or $10,000 for directing inappropriate language at a game official, the foundation gets half of that fine.
Players are choosing a variety of causes to support, including testing; food pantries; computers for low-income kids; masks, other personal protective equipment and food for health care workers; and education support for kids at home, among others.
The pandemic hit while the NBA was in season, so many players thought immediately of the arena workers they see every day losing their jobs. New Orleans Pelicans power forward Zion Williamson made a pledge to fund the salaries of Smoothie King Center workers for 30 days. Cleveland Cavaliers center Andre Drummond donated $60,000 to the staff of the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
Cavaliers forward Kevin Love donated $100,000 to arena workers, and later made public service announcements focusing on how to deal with the mental health issues people were facing as a result of the pandemic.
Colleen Garrity worked in a community service role for the Cavaliers prior to joining Excel Sports Management, where she is now senior vice president of marketing and works with athlete clients, including Love, on their charitable efforts.
She noted that this pandemic is different than other disasters, like the hurricanes of 2017, because it’s gone on for a much longer period of time and has caused many different and unexpected problems. “The needs are constantly changing,” she said.
“Kevin is a great example,” Garrity said. “He thought initially, ‘I want to help the arena workers.’ And then as you get into this pandemic, people are having to self-quarantine and not be with their families, people start to get depressed and have anxiety and fear.”
Connections to Europe
The NBA has a large number of players who hail from Europe. As European countries were hit earlier than the U.S., a number of players have tried to reach out and help their native countries, according to Matteo Zuretti, NBPA chief of international relations and marketing.
San Antonio Spurs forward/guard Marco Belinelli and Pelicans forward/center Nicolo Melli are both from Italy. “Italy became the epicenter of this pandemic, right after China,” Zuretti said. Belinelli supported efforts to purchase ventilators for his native city of Bologna, and Melli did the same for the hospital in his native city of Reggio Emilia, Zuretti said.
Gallinari may have been the first NBA player to begin charitable work on COVID-19 relief, Deans said, because it hit so close to his home.
Gallinari said he is pleased with his efforts to build the hospital in Milan. “The result has been great,” he said. “Now the pressure of the people going to the hospital because they are sick is less. There is more space; there is more beds; there is more equipment.”
But now is not the time to let up as the pandemic is a problem that won’t go away soon, Gallinari said. As of May 12, Italy had the highest COVID-19 death toll in the European Union at 30,911, with more than 221,000 infections.
“You have to be able to manage the first wave, the second wave, the third wave, and how you manage the waves is something that is going to take a long time,” he said. “We are going to find a solution. The only problem is what we do right now before we get the vaccine.”
