Nets owners, Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, pledge $50M to a social justice fund

BROOKLYN NETS

Owners Joe and Clara Wu Tsai at a Nets game.

Even before the NBA players voted Wednesday to suspend play in the middle of the league's playoffs, Brooklyn Nets owner pledged $50 million to a "Social Justice Fund" over the next 10 years.

Joe and Clara Wu Tsai announced Monday (Aug. 25) a “five-point plan” committed to “inclusiveness, justice, and equal opportunity.”  As part of that plan the couple, described in the press release as owners of the NBA's Nets, WNBA's Liberty and Barclays Center, pledged $50 million to kickstart the fund.

Among the commitments the Tsai’s discussed was one to “Supporting Athlete Voices” including “amplifying their voices through team and venue platforms.” 

“Joe and I are proud to present our statement of core principles and action plan as a continuation of our efforts to address racial injustice and economic inequality in our society,” said Clara Wu Tsai. 

“We plan to focus first on our organizations and our community in Brooklyn. We believe Barclays Center, the Nets, and the Liberty can be symbols of how we move forward together as a country. It is our hope to lead by example through supporting our athletes, employees, and our community in anti-racist and anti-discrimination work and providing the resources needed to accelerate change.”

“Alongside the leadership of our companies, we have spoken up against all forms of racism and made a commitment to work in partnership with our community to raise awareness and push back on racial prejudice,” said Joe Tsai, co-founder of Alibaba, China's equivalent to Google. Although born in Taiwan, the Yale-educated businessman has become a naturalized Canadian. According to Forbes, he is worth $13.5 billion.

“Brooklyn has long been a place where people of many different origins can engage in dialogue and find common ground, and we have seen the best example of that at the plaza in front of Barclays Center. Today, we present the framework for how we plan to accomplish the goals of justice and equality.”

The action plan is founded on the following core principles:

• Equal opportunity and respect for all people
• Diversity is a strength
• Our teams and arena serve a central purpose in uniting people
• Our entire organization has a responsibility in joining our players to influence and empower people around the issue of social justice

The $50 million pledge is in addition to the Nets $10 million contribution to the NBA Player Association's $300 million fund with similar goals.

Wu Tsai, a native of Kansas who was educated at Harvard and Stanford, has also been heavily involved in another social justice initiative, the REFORM Alliance, a consortium of sports and entertainment figures (including Jay-Z, a former Nets investor) who’ve contributed their names and financial support to reforming the nation’s prison and parole systems. She is a “founding partner” of the alliance and the Joe and Clara Wu Tsai Foundation has reportedly donated a seven-figure contribution to the alliance.

In an interview with CNBC’s Jabari Young, Wu Tsai said the couple were motivated in part by Garrett Temple. She noted as well how she was affected by the players’ response to the George Floyd killings.

“I want to keep that momentum going because I know that was a concern for some of the players — that going back to play was going to take some of the attention off of this,” Wu Tsai told CNBC, referring to objections, led by Kyrie Irving, to playing in the NBA’s “bubble,” believing it would take attention off the social injustice movement.

“We need to find ways to continue to keep this topic at the top of mind without it having to be the senseless death of somebody,” she told Young.