1-Man’s Opinion on Sports–Thursday. “Teams-in-Town-Shutdown But Operating”
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“In This Town-Shutdown-But Operating”
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In the midst of everything going on, the Pandemic, Politics, the Baseball-Union salary war, and leagues trying to get up and running…a couple of candid comments.
PADRES…Hats off to this organization. No one is talking about it, but the Padres ownership, despite the layoffs and furloughs of from office employees, guaranteed all employees ‘health care benefits’ for them and their families, thru December 31st, whether they are brought back or not.
The Padres also decided they would continue monthly payments to all 220-minor league players, including health benefits, thru August 31st, which normally would be the end of the minor league season, a season now not likely to be played. The first wave of payments to all minor leaguers, was to end this Friday night. The Padres are the first team to announce this plan. Others like the Orioles, A’s, White Sox are releasing truckloads of lower minor league players.
At last count, according to employees from within, the Padres furloughed or laid off about 110-of-230 employees, a couple of weeks ago. Some will be brought back once the season starts up in July. If fans are allowed back in stadiums, sometime in season, other employees could be recalled.
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AZTECS….Facing the loss of 43M in university moneys because of the school shutdown, SDSU Athletics has stood by all their employees. No one in athletics was asked to take a pay-cut over the last three months. No employees in the Athletic Center have been laid off or furloughed either during the campus-wide shutdown.
Still on schedule is groundbreaking for the new football stadium, now likely in August, if City Council approves the signed sales agreement in its special session on Friday, called to review SDSU’s agreement.
If approved, SDSU takes over operation of SDCCU Stadium on July 1st. An outside operator will be hired to run the facility, but it will not be JMI, hired to oversee the construction of the new Aztecs Stadium.
Despite the university wide money-crunch, SDSU will not cut any varsity sports programs, unlike what has happened at Akron, Bowling Green, Furman and other Group of 5-schools with serious money issues.
Target January 2nd on your Aztecs calendar, that’s when the school says football players will be allowed back on campus. That coincides with the start of the 2nd Summer School Term. To be decided, would student athletes be required to take on-line summer school courses to be on campus for conditioning drills? SDSU maintains Coach Brady Hoke wants-needs 6-weeks of preseason camp to get ready for the start of the season.
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GULLS…They are making plans for the 2020-21 AHL season. Taget date to open would be October 9th, but no one knows if fans will be in the stands. Of grave concern, of the 31-AHL teams, 19-are owned outright by NHL teams (Gulls-Anaheim), so those clubs are not as reliant on gate receipts, as some of the other 12-teams, run by independent owners. If there are no fans in the stands in places like Syracuse-Rochester-Charlotte, what happens to those franchises?.
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