Sacramento Kings extend furloughs, lay off workers amid losses from COVID-19 pandemic
Excitement is building as the Kings prepare to resume the NBA season at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, but at the same time the organization is being forced to make some increasingly difficult decisions at home.
The Kings laid off some workers and extended furloughs for others Wednesday amid growing financial losses and event cancellations due to the coronavirus pandemic, league sources told The Sacramento Bee, confirming details first reported by ABC10. Essential basketball operations personnel have not been impacted, including members of the front office, health and performance, and scouting/analytics departments, a source told The Bee.
Kings President of Business Operations John Rinehart released a statement explaining the decision was made “as part of the organization’s ongoing evolution of efforts to align with the changes in our business.” Rinehart cited the “continued uncertainty surrounding the resumption of live events at Golden 1 Center resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Concerts, sporting events and other functions at the downtown arena have been postponed or canceled since the NBA season was suspended March 11. Live-audience events have been prohibited for months in California, where more than 485,000 people have contracted COVID-19 and 8,909 have died, according to The COVID Tracking Project and Johns Hopkins University.
In May, the Kings informed about 100 employees they would be furloughed for four months beginning June 1, affecting more than one-third of the team’s full-time workforce. The latest cutbacks impact a portion of those workers, some of whom were laid off while others had their furloughs tentatively extended to Nov. 1, Rinehart said.
All previously furloughed full-time employees impacted by the workforce reduction were offered a tenure-based severance and benefits package good for a minimum of four weeks and a maximum of 52 weeks, a source said.
The Bee obtained a copy of the email Rinehart sent employees in May. Rinehart explained the sports and entertainment industries have been hit hard by the suspension of NBA play and live events at Golden 1 Center, resulting in “an unprecedented impact on our bottom line” and “significant fiscal uncertainty about the future.”
“Since all live events have been cancelled or postponed in the arena for at least the next several months, we need to reduce our operations to meet our current economic situation,” Rinehart said in the May email. “We delayed this for as long as possible but, unfortunately, the harsh economic realities facing the live sports and entertainment industries were just too much to overcome.”
