 Yes, we're here, Michael Gradius Network, and I'm joined by Todd Jacobson, VP of Social Responsibility for the NBA. Todd, I really appreciate your time. It has been a whirlwind, really around the country, but let's talk specifically with the NBA. Firstly, to suspend play due to the coronavirus, what have things been like for you before that and then immediately after that? Well, I think, thank you for having me today, I really appreciate it. It's great to be able to share this with everybody. I think for everyone it's been a whirlwind, I think as everybody is dealing with trying to get our feet underneath us and at the same time do whatever we can to be supportive and use our platform to do good, and so that's been our focus since play has stopped is what we do and how quickly can we do it, and NBA together is the output of those efforts. So, we continue to push and I think every day is something new, but we're continuing to keep positive and continue to try to make an impact out there. What was the importance of creating this NBA together program? You know, when everything happened, we really kind of thought to ourselves it's important at this time to stay connected, that, you know, during this time using our platform to make sure we're getting out important messages, that we're connecting to fans, that we're providing things for families and youth to do during this period of time to keep connected with our players is so important and to make sure that we're doing that in a way that's collective and so creating this big platform allowed our players, our teams, our offices around the world to be a part of this effort and we're constantly thinking of you and innovative ways to kind of engage with our fans out there. And what are these some of the things I've read with the pillars of this NBA together program? What are some of those pillars? Yeah, when we launched this platform, we thought about the different ways in which we wanted to engage and we really laid it out into four buckets. The first is called Know Your Facts and the most important thing we can do during this time is really about sharing the right information, health and safety. There's a lot out there. It's changing day by day. It also changes depending on the community that you're in and it's so important to have that right information. There's a lot of misinformation out there and misinformation leads to problems. And so we really wanted to make sure we were using our platform to do that. You know, all the social distancing, messaging, healthy habits of washing your hands, staying home when you're sick to covering your face now and really taking that recommendation or a face mask to not only protect yourselves, but more importantly, protect others that so you're helping your flatten the curve. And so knowing your facts became really important. So much so that when we launched the initiative, we really pushed public service announcements. And within the first two weeks, we had over 30 guys step up both NBA, WNBA, our 2K league. So really all kind of leagues together, our G-league stepped up to really do whatever they could to get out the right message. And not just in the US, but internationally as well. We taped messages in Italian and Spanish and Japanese. We really wanted to make sure we were reaching people widely. The second thing as we looked at is like, how do we continue to make sure we're inspiring acts of careness during this time? You know, you want people to be empathetic and reflective. You know, it's a scary time for everybody in uncertain time, but that's when you really need to make sure you're stepping up to be supportive. And acts of kindness can mean anything. It can be big or small. We wanted to inspire 1 million acts of kindness and an act of kindness to be picking up the phone to check in with a friend or a family member to dropping off groceries for an elderly neighbor or somebody that's high risk that can't go outside. To just making sure that you're doing your part to support community organizations that are providing support. You know, to date around NBA efforts, our collective NBA family, we made a commitment under this not only to a million acts, but to raise and contribute $50 million to support these ongoing relief efforts and in response to the coronavirus epidemic. So far, we're at 73 million as an NBA family providing a million masks as we did in New York thanks to the lot of the great leadership from the NETS organization and the NICS and others here and working with the Chinese Consulate to do great things. And so really making sure we're being as collaborative. This is a global pandemic. We all need to work together. And so those acts of kindness and making sure we're doing those things is really important. So we continue to inspire that. After that, it's really about how do we engage and connect to our community. And so expanding our community, you think of community as going out and doing things, but now it's virtual. We have to make sure that social isolation and social distancing doesn't happen in the sense of like when you're, when you're, you know, obviously when we're separated and we're distancing, we're not isolating. I'm sorry to correct myself there, but I think it's really important that we find ways to do that. So just trying to do a lot of things there to provide good resources and engagement. And then the last piece, which is so important and something is that NBA together lie, the ways you can connect with players and coaches and legends and fun ways. You've saw the informative ways in terms of some players really bringing out things around mental wellness, around health and safety measures. You know, this past Thursday was a World Autism Awareness Day on April 2nd. And what we had done around that is bringing Joe Ingalls, whose son is on the spectrum. And Joe brought in an expert from Culture City to share what families are, how to manage resources and get support. If you do have a child on the spectrum or a family member and how to do that during this time. And so just trying to find interactive and fun ways to make sure people are informed and have good information. And so these live sessions have been happening every day at 3pm on Instagram Live, at 4pm on Twitter. And then at night, we've been airing classic games on our social networks to really make sure people are engaged around the sport. So a lot of things happening overall, we're just so excited that we're able to do all that stuff. Yeah, you know, as you mentioned, we all miss basketball, we all miss the games, but there's so many more important things that are happening out there that really put everything in their perspective. And the NBA really get into the forefront to make sure the important messages are hitting home and giving a little taste of a little personality of the players as they hit those messages that are really important during this time as we, you know, self, you know, isolate that whole thing while remaining together. What's been the reaction to these NBA Together Live sessions? It's been great. I mean, it's been overwhelming. I think we're all learning about new and innovative ways to connect and this session of really just sharing fun and really personal ways in which, you know, players and their family members are managing the situation along the way to different tips and techniques they're doing, whether it be what they're cooking or ordering in the kitchen. So the exercises they're doing to just fun interactive ways. And so it's been really good. We've had we've had music acts, you know, Victor Oladipo performed a concert, which was a lot of fun. And so I think you're starting to see players share their talents and things that we see all the time. And it's nice for them to share that with fans. And the response has been overwhelming. It's been a really great way to connect and stay connected to the fans and to youth and to others out there that are doing as well as support first responders. There's a lot of people out there, the nurses, the doctors, the health officials, the police and others, even the, you know, the restaurant workers doing takeout in New York to the supermarket workers, the people doing those essential services to keep things going that we want to continue to recognize. And these sessions have enabled us to do that as well. And it's been a really, really great way to stay connected and really recognize and shine a light on the true heroes during this kind of response time when we're all trying to make sure we stay safe and flatten the curve. Yeah, no doubt about it. And not just with the messaging, the players that get involved in, but even those players who had Corona virus and it was publicly known that they had it. Some of those guys were finding ways to get involved behind the scenes as well from from a medicinal side of things. Yeah, you know, the players have been terrific. I mean, I think a lot, you know, anybody that's tested positive of Corona virus, we saw that very early on Donovan Mitchell shared PSA Rudy Albeiro shared kind of his feelings about it. It's important for people to be connected to break down the myths around it and make sure that you know, I think at some point, we're all going to know somebody that's been impacted by this. It's very scary. At the same time, it's important that as people recover from this, they share their stories, and they support efforts as they're ongoing. There's an ongoing effort right now around collecting blood and blood plasma and donating. If you have recovered from coronavirus, those antibodies can help expedite clinical trials and different things for testing and a vaccination and all those things that are so important to get us back and really being able to get ahead of this pandemic. And so it's been great to see players take the lead and do that. But it's not just players, it's everyone. And this is something I think, you know, for us, it's really about using the platform we have when you have a voice and you have that power to reach a lot of people. Our goal is how do we do that? How do we share the right information? How do we find fun ways to connect? And how do we make sure we keep people engaged during this time to keep everybody positive and moving forward so that we can continue to fight the epidemic? And what does it mean to you, Todd, as the VP of Social Responsibility to have so many players take seriously their responsibility to want to communicate to the public of the importance of the things that they need to do to stay safe during this time? You know, it's great. I mean, the response from the entire sports community has been absolutely outstanding. You've seen it across leagues and teams and players and think everybody just wants to do their part. And it's been great to see members of the NBA family step up in a variety of different ways to supporting part-time workers and all the people that really do the work day in and day out to really getting out the messages of health and safety to really kind of showing action and donating to these clinical trials. All these things that they're doing has been really powerful to see and inspirational and I hope we can share that inspiration collaboratively to really kind of make sure that we all move together positively and in a way that is supportive so that we can continue to really kind of get ahead of things out there. And last thing, your message to fans, you know, watching this to get anxiously anticipating and watching everything go down, paying attention to the news and also focusing on seeing the messages from the players as they also, they're all in the same boat. And we are, we are, I mean, you know, I think what's most important to people is to stay positive, make sure that you follow the information, that's what everybody's doing, we're doing it, make sure that you practice good healthy habits, you practice good social distancing, that you stay home and spend good time at home with your family and do the things to keep everybody healthy and safe. And now they're recommended to make sure you keep your face covered. You see a lot of people out there, most people like, well, I'm not sick and I'm not feeling that. What we're hearing from the CDC is a lot of people are asymptomatic and it's really important that you are protecting others. So making sure we encourage people to wear a face mask is really important. That's something that we're going to be really focused on as well. And just continuing to work and use our platform to support the experts in the right messaging out there while still staying engaged and make sure people have a way to be connected and can be healthy and active during this time, which is so important. I think, you know, these are uncertain times, you know, we're still, everybody's still in a wait and see to see how we how we can come out of this. But what's most important right now is to do our part, make sure we can plat the curve and stay positive while we do it. Terrific message, great information. Todd, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me. I would be amiss not to say this, but the leadership at the Nets all the way down has been incredible. I mean, the stuff that that Josiah has done in terms of providing support and medical supplies for the epidemic, sorry for the pandemic around the world, the mass donation, the ventilator donation he did recently was incredible to what the players have done. We haven't have a number of the Nets players. Spencer Dimwitty, we had Joe Harris, we have DeAndre Jordan coming on to do mental wellness stuff around headspace on April 13th to really kind of share ways to cope with anxiety and depression. It's been really amazing to see the Nets organization step forward and be true leaders here. So it's been a pleasure to be on the show and it's great to see the Nets step forward to be leaders here in the community. Now, Stan, thank you so much. Thank you.