Find out the latest on COVID-19's impact on the sports world and when sports are returning by subscribing to Breaking News push notifications in the Sports and COVID-19 section.
Major League Baseball's 2020 season may be uncertain, but the Philadelphia Phillies are ensuring their employees won't be worried about the future.
Phillies ownership informed full-time staff on Friday that their jobs will be safe and they will continue to be paid through the end of October, according to an internal letter obtained by Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia.
"The Buck and Middleton families have decided that there will be no furloughs or layoffs due to the coronavirus crisis through the end of our fiscal year (Oct. 31, 2020) for regular full-time employees," Phillies managing partner John Middleton wrote.
He added: "While we will likely need to implement other cost-cutting alternatives in the interim to deal with our extraordinary loss of revenue, including possible salary reductions, you can be assured of your job and health insurance for the next five-plus months."
Ownership's decision means approximately 460 full-time Phillies employees will have their jobs secured, according to Salisbury. The Phillies have staff in Philadelphia, their spring-training home of Clearwater, Florida, and the Dominican Republic.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred reportedly suspended Uniform Employee Contracts as of May 1, a move that allowed teams to furlough non-player staff if they chose to do so.
The Phillies were one of the first teams to commit to paying employees through the end of May, doing so shortly after Manfred's announcement; a majority of the other 29 teams reportedly soon followed.
Philadelphia is not the only team that's guaranteed employees their pay beyond May. The Cleveland Indians reportedly committed to paying their full-time staff through the end of June, though they also furloughed some part-time employees. The Detroit Tigers and Colorado Rockies, meanwhile, both committed to paying all of their employees indefinitely during the pandemic.