SI Now: What's Happening With MLB Vendors?
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00:00With the world of sports on hold because of the coronavirus,
00:03a large group of people in and around the sports world
00:06are already feeling the effects of the stoppage of play.
00:09Players, owners, executives, they're gonna be just fine,
00:12but how about different stadium employees,
00:14many of who are paid hourly like concession vendors?
00:18Sports Illustrated's Stephanie Apstein joins us now
00:20with more on this story.
00:22And Steph, stadium vendors around many different sports
00:25have had the rug pulled out for them
00:27as they were just really getting into the bulk
00:29of their season in the NBA and NHL.
00:31And of course, Major League Baseball
00:32was just about to get underway.
00:35How bad has the impact of this pandemic been
00:38for these type of workers in and around sports?
00:42It's been awful.
00:43They're sort of hit twice because they were in danger
00:47of contracting the virus more so than a normal person
00:49because of how many interactions they have with fans,
00:52how often they are in large groups
00:54and how little sort of hygiene,
00:57like a fan is not washing his hands
00:59before he hands you the money to buy his beer.
01:01So you're in danger there.
01:03And then once they shut down,
01:04I think what a lot of people don't understand
01:06and what I didn't understand
01:07until I started talking to these people
01:08is that they are not employed.
01:10The walking vendors,
01:11the guy who sells you your beer in the stands
01:13are usually not employed by the stadium.
01:16So I mentioned a GoFundMe in the story
01:18and the man who started that, Matt Young,
01:19told me that he actually,
01:21his heart sort of sank when he saw all of these teams
01:25commit to paying their stadium employees in this time off
01:30because he thought, great, now the public,
01:31like that's great for them,
01:32but now the public is gonna think this is taken care of.
01:35And in fact, most of the ticket takers, the ushers,
01:38the security guards for the most part
01:40are employees of the team or of the stadium.
01:43But most of these people are third-party contractors.
01:45They're employed by companies.
01:47They're not even employed by Aramark,
01:48but they contract out to Aramark
01:50and then Aramark employs these independent contractors.
01:53And so they are not gonna see any of the money
01:55that we're hearing about,
01:56the Mavericks or Zion Williamson putting up.
01:59These people aren't gonna get any of that.
02:01So they're very concerned.
02:03Yeah, you mentioned a lot of owners and players
02:06taking care of some of the employees
02:08that are employed by the team.
02:10When you mentioned these walking vendors
02:12that you're talking about,
02:13really independent contractors, third-party contractors,
02:17is anything being done to help them?
02:19Are any of the teams stepping up
02:21to the aid of these vendors?
02:25So far, no.
02:25I've reached out to a lot of teams
02:27and they said they're sort of in the process
02:29of figuring out what would happen,
02:30but they expect that they would cover
02:32only their own employees.
02:34They would not cover independent contractors.
02:37In talking with some of these vendors, Steph,
02:40how scared are they for what's ahead right now?
02:43They're really scared.
02:44A lot of these people are, some of them even travel.
02:47Some of them will work 300 days a year.
02:49I talked to one guy who works at 16 of the 32 NFL stadiums.
02:52They really make a living from this.
02:54And it's not even just the sporting events.
02:56They do music festivals, they do concerts at stadiums.
03:00Everything that they do has been shut down
03:02and there's no sense of when it will be safe
03:04to start back up again.
03:06So these people don't have much of a safety net
03:07since they're not salaried employees.
03:10They don't have paid sick leave.
03:12They don't have health insurance
03:13through their companies for the most part.
03:15The ones who have it had to buy it
03:17on the healthcare exchange.
03:18So they're worried.
03:20And a lot of them are paycheck to paycheck.
03:23They don't have a lot of cushion here.
03:26There's not a lot of time
03:27for them to figure out what they're gonna do.
03:29Yeah, Stephanie Epstein with the story
03:31on really a horrible trickle-down effect.
03:34We've seen a lot of these when it comes to the coronavirus,
03:37especially in sports.
03:38Steph, thank you.
03:40Thanks for having me.
03:41Yeah.