Money

A slew of Coachella-area hotels will take a beating when it comes to their bottom-line after its two famed festivals were postponed ... and the coronavirus, of course, is to blame.

We spoke to employees at various hotels in the region and they tell us losses in April will push well over $1 million ... a huge amount for a sleepy town that heavily relies on revenue from Coachella and Stagecoach's back-to-back-to-back weekends.

The festivals -- postponed due to an outbreak of the coronavirus -- will now take place on consecutive weekends beginning with Coachella October 9. For now, the hotel industry in the desert braces for a tough April.

The Homewood Suites by Hilton La Quinta expects revenue to be down a whopping 60% ... amounting to about $500k in total revenue.

The Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Palm Desert was expecting to bring in around $450k. The hotel, which has 110 rooms, saw an immediate 10% drop in room cancelations just hours after promoters announced the festival's postponement. Same with Courtyard by Marriott Palm Desert, which had 25 rooms canceled.

The Comfort Suites Palm Desert, with 72 rooms, expects to lose about $200k. Indian Wells Resort Hotel expects to lose about $400k for the 3 weekends, but its bottom-line is also being affected by the famous Indian Wells tennis tournament also getting canceled.

We've been told there's optimism the hotels will make up the revenue -- not to mention TIPS for service workers -- when the festivals return in October, but a lot can happen between now and then too.

As we reported ... Airbnb's also been dealing with this and began issuing refunds.

Rudy Gobert -- the first NBA player to be diagnosed with coronavirus -- is paying it forward to his arena family and surrounding communities with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Utah Jazz star announced Saturday he'd be forking $500k of his money toward the COVID-19 pandemic -- divvying up the dough to different groups, but all with the intent to relieve people who are going to be hurt by it the most, like part-timers at the team's arena.

$200k of Gobert's pledge will help cover the salaries of part-time employees working at Vivint Smart Home Arena -- all of whom were sent home earlier this week after the NBA canceled the remainder of the regular season. The money is in conjunction with efforts already being undertaken by ex-Jazz owner Larry H. Miller's sports and entertainment company.

Another couple hundred thousand are being dispersed to help families affected by coronavirus in Utah and Oklahoma City. Rudy's also donating a bunch of euros to help people in his native country of France ... which was just recently placed on lockdown.

Of course, the gesture from Gobert comes after he caught flak on Wednesday for touching a bunch of reporters' microphones during a press briefing ... this after word was out that he'd contracted coronavirus. He apologized for that -- seems he's going the extra mile.

Other NBA players have stepped up for their arena staffers as well ... Zion Williamson is picking up the tab for the Pelicans crew, and Kevin Love's doing the same in Cleveland.

You would think people in the market for buying or selling a house might think twice before holding or going to an open house, but we made a bunch of calls and, with a few exceptions, it's still full steam ahead.

We called a number of realtors in the Los Angeles/Beverly Hills/Malibu areas ... you'd think fears in L.A. would roughly match those in most of the country.

The obvious concern ... people moseying through houses have no idea about the medical condition of those in the house, the other lookie-loos and the realtor. And the owner has no idea what strangers are touching surfaces -- doorknobs, faucets, kitchen counters, etc -- that could lead to a very bad outcome.

The other side of the coin -- interest rates just went down again and it's super-cheap these days to get a mortgage, which is good for both buyers and sellers.

One big real estate company -- WEA -- is shutting down all of its open houses and even putting tight restrictions on showings. It sent a memo to its agents which says in part, "For the health and safety of all involved -- you the agent, strangers touring your sellers' homes and buyers interacting with other buyers -- they should be postponed." The memo recommends that all showings be with only one buyer (or family) at a time. But, the WEA official advises NO OPEN HOUSES for the time being.

Another major realtor tells TMZ, he's doing an open house tomorrow, adding, "Everyone is being cautious, but not coming to a stop. Hand sanitizers, Clorox, no shaking hands, but not halting work."

A big realtor from Coldwell Banker tells us, "We haven't seen a drop off in the number of people who are coming to open houses. People are still out there looking, especially with lower interest rates ... however, we are not shaking hands, we put out hand sanitizer for everyone to use and a sign stating that if you have a fever, cough or any symptoms of being ill, please do not come inside."

Another realtor is showing a celebrity home tomorrow but didn't want us to say whose, because there's such panic, it might affect the sale.

Cavs star Kevin Love is stepping up to help the hundreds of arena staffers out of work during the NBA suspension ... donating a HUGE amount of money to support the hard workers in Cleveland.

Love shared his feelings about the league shutting down on Thursday ... saying his concern isn't about basketball, but the people who help make the game day experience possible.

"Everyone reacts differently to stressful situations," Love said in a statement. "And the fear and anxiety resulting from the recent outbreak of COVID-19 can be extremely overwhelming."

Of course, the Association decided to suspend the 2019-20 season Wednesday ... after Utah Jazz stars Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell tested positive for coronavirus.

"Through the game of basketball, we've been able to address major issues and stand together as a progressive league that cares about the players, the fans, and the communities where we work."

Love -- who is outspoken about mental health awareness -- says his foundation will write up a check for $100k to "support staff that had a sudden life shift due to the cancellation of the NBA season."

Along with the contribution ... the Cavs released a statement saying the team is currently working on finding a way to financially help the employees during the time off.

As coronavirus fears skyrocket and the stock market plummets ... Soulja Boy's making a whole lot of money off a pretty clean gamble.

Sources close to the rapper-turned-entrepreneur tell TMZ ... he's invested in a company called The Soap Shop -- which, of course, sells soap products and the like. We're told Soulja went in on a franchise location in Mississippi last year with his manager, CEO Miami Mike.

Our sources say Soulja's trying to diversify and heard it was a good investment opportunity. What he didn't know is how well-timed it was.

As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic has people frantically looking for soaps, disinfectant products and anything that'll kill germs. That all adds up to a massive profit for Soulja and co.

Our sources say TSS as a corporation has gone from selling 100 bottles of cleaning products per month to well over 3,000-plus cleaning products in the last 2 months. That's about a 3,000 percent increase, and we're told it's record-setting production.

Soulja and Mike's specific Soap Shop location -- in South Haven, MS -- is seeing similar results. Our sources say profits have tripled without changing anything.

One last thing, the soap venture actually benefits the youth. Soulja has linked his Soap Shop location to a charity called Bubbles for Cash.

Rob Lowe's game show that's supposed to be an obstacle course for the mind is about to become a maze of budget misery for producers ... who got screwed by the coronavirus.

Sources connected to Rob tell TMZ ... season 2 of "Mental Samurai" is moving forward as scheduled -- it's set to air next month -- but there's been a wrench thrown in that's kinda left the team holding the bag financially.

'MS' was scheduled to shoot new episodes in Madrid, Spain for the upcoming season. An entire second set was built in Madrid for international versions of the show, and producers of the American version were going to use the set, presumably in part to save money.

Season 1 was shot on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, but producers wanted to go a different route. Now that they can't, we're told they will use the same Burbank sound stage and set they used in the first season.

Of course, much of Europe is under partial or full quarantines right now ... and Spain is no exception.

We're told the show will be delivered on time, for the April 22 season 2 premiere on Fox.

The coronavirus is now turning legal -- a quarantined cruise in California has been sued for allegedly putting passengers at risk ... when they knew the virus was running rampant on the ship.

Ronald and Eva Weissberger -- two elderly passengers who are currently on the Grand Princess cruise ship that was quarantined and stranded out in the Bay Area waters for at least a week -- just filed suit against the parent company, Princess Cruise Lines.

In the docs, obtained by TMZ, the couple claims the PCL was grossly negligent in allowing them and thousands of other passengers onboard in late February ... when the ship's staff knew damn well at least 2 other passengers with coronavirus had just disembarked from a previous voyage -- and at least one of them died as a result.

They go on to allege that PCL had an awful screening process -- claiming that the new group of passengers were only asked to fill out a basic piece of paper stating if they were sick or not. There was no other testing, so claim the Weissbergers.

Adding insult to injury, the couple goes on to claim that at least 62 passengers onboard the current cruise were also on the prior infected voyage. BTW, the Grand Princess was finally allowed to dock Monday in Oakland.

They have a damning quote that reads, "Incredibly, not one of those sixty two passengers or crew members who were mixing and mingling with the infected prior passengers were ever  examined during the instant voyage until being tested for the virus on Thursday March 5, 2020, two weeks after the ship sailed."

Bottom line ... the Weissbergers say they would have NEVER stepped foot on the ship had they known all these potentially infected people were all around them. Now they're traumatized from the fear of developing coronavirus ... especially because they're older and already have underlying medical conditions. They claim PCL put profits over the safety of their passengers.