Like other entities, the NBA was not immune to hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to moving players and personnel to a Florida bubble in order to resume the season, the hunt was on to find medical-grade equipment to protect the well-being of all participants.
Rather than using corporations to secure personal protective equipment (PPE), league officials instead turned their focus to members of their Business 2 Business (B2B) diversity program. In doing that, the NBA identified two Black-owned businesses who completed the project: Ice Safety Solutions, Inc. and Desavo.
The NBA's B2B program began in 2001 as an effort to enlist the help of local minority-owned businesses around All-Star weekend host cities and since then, the reach has grown yet messaging remains clear: promote and advocate for more opportunities them at all times.
"The NBA and players have a long history of standing up for the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion," Michel said. "Throughout our history, we’ve seen the ability basketball has to bring people together and bridge many different communities. Because of this, the NBA family takes seriously our responsibility to use the power of our platforms and position to drive change."
Ice and Desavo are both PPE companies that were selected for the NBA's B2B program.
Founded more than two decades ago by president and CEO, Pamela Isom, Ice is a Black and woman-owned business based in Fremont, California.
They specialize in providing safe training and equipment to workers of all industries nationwide. Speaking to Blavity, Isom explained how being selected to provide the NBA services helped her organization prosper.
"Being chosen for the program and serving large corporations, such as the NBA, offers our firm the credibility and experience that we can deliver to a national corporation," she said.
Since getting funding, Isom has seen quite a noticeable difference in reception to her company.
"It is interesting, to watch the reactions from buyers and procurement when we list our client list our thousands of clients including Twitter, NBA and Honda how surprised they are that a Black and woman-owned firm could secure and deliver nationally and globally," Isom continued. "The truth is, our firm is not surprised, because we do not view ourselves and success as a Black-owned business, instead, we view ourselves as a business who is successful and happens to be Black owned," Isom continued.
David Sajous, co-founder of the Desavo, a brand offering non-N95 masks, echoed Isom's remarks about his experience working with one of the biggest sports leagues in the country.
"The NBA has set the standard in COVID protection by choosing one of the best performing and most comfortable masks on the market; CDC labs (NPPTL) tested Desavo at 99.9% filter efficiency, validating the NBA’s uncompromising commitment to quality and protection," Sajous and his co-founder Jonathan Malveaux told Blavity. "We welcomed the challenge to meet the NBA's broad needs, including across the WNBA and the G-League, providing our exclusive masks to players, coaches, staff and even Delta airlines pilots and crew."
Considerable success, unfortunately, does not come without its difficulties. Both Isom and Sajous know far too well the struggles of being a Black business owner in a sea of competition.
"Prior to being recipients, we struggled with getting access to decision makers within organizations that we knew would benefit greatly from our products, particularly since we were new to the PPE space. The unique challenge of launching a business during the pandemic and not being able to freely travel or schedule in-person meetings, made it even harder for us to get our message across," Sajous said.
But since being chosen, Desavo has now supplied PPE to teams like the Brooklyn Nets, Fortune 100 companies and serviced the Oscars.
"Assumptions are made by the corporation assuming Black businesses are too small to compete against the larger firms," Isom added. "Ironically, though the firms are larger, their internal departments operate as small businesses, often times with departments much smaller than the Black-owned firms. Therefore, corporations thinking that larger white-owned firms have more capacity is often an incorrect assumption."
While the bubble may be gone, the NBA's decision to take a chance on these businesses will have a lasting impact on their profits. For Isom, that's just the minimum. She still has her doubts about firms using her services in the future, but having the backing of the premier men's professional basketball league is a heavy perk.
"Being awarded an opportunity such as this, enables me to breathe and believe that the next moment will be my opportunity to shine," Isom said.
Sajous shares the same hope and using his 20 years of experience in business, will continuously work to bolster other minority-owned institutions as best he can:
"We are encouraged by the greater willingness to acknowledge the contributions of Black-owned businesses to the success of our economy and to support these businesses across the board. We are also acutely aware of the challenges that Black entrepreneurs face whether that’s to secure initial financing, working capital or business development opportunities. Desavo has been a great success story and we are proud to be able to set an example for future Black entrepreneurs."
