New Union Chief Calls Owners Expendable - [Fox Sports]

I agree. Well you need some kind of ownership structure, whether it's a nonprofit or a partnership or a corporation or whatever. But, the current structure of having a majority owner for each team isn't needed for the consumer.

But, you also need a path to get from where we are to where we could be. If players want to have their own league and cut the owners out -- well, there's a ****-ton of work to do, and significant risk to bear, to get there. That's why owners have leverage in these talks, because as replaceable as they may be it's hard to actually replace them.

 

I don't think owners are interchangeable. There are good players and bad players; there are good owners and bad owners. People use Dan Gilbert as an example and compare him to Lebron James, but that's a ridiculous comparison. Dan Gilbert is presumably a lower-tier owner - so compare him to a lower-tier player. Dan Gilbert could be flipped for another owner with no one noticing, just like Tarik Black could be replaced with another player with no one noticing. But there are good owners that make a difference for their teams, just like Lebron does. Owners hire GMs, coaches, and create team culture. Their decisions are vital to a franchise having success. Does anyone think the the Spurs would have been as good over the last 15 years with Donald Sterling as owner?

 

Yes, I completely agree.

They are completely replaceable but there is no means by which to actually replace them. Perfect description. It's not like they would just agree to give up their ownership model!

 

There are good owners and bad owners. But, you can find more good owners out in the market if you needed to. You're not going to find a lot of people better at playing basketball than the guys who are already in the NBA.

 

How's the Lakers organization doing after replacing one Buss with another? Don't underestimate the value of a good owner... As much I dislike the guy, The league needs more Mark Cubans (involved and willing to spend) and less Donald Sterlings (subpar product until hitting lottery paydirt on the cheap)...

 

Elite players are not expendable, everyone else is. Owners are expendable, but players can't buy arenas, and have 500 people on their payroll, and still manage their money. This lady comes off as a b***h who doesn't know what she's getting into. If she comes up with this no salary BS, shows over. She wants no rookie wage scale? Then stuff like this year would be cutting all those rookies who haven't done s**t, which is 90% of them. They aren't worth what they make now, let alone what she thinks they should make.

F***ing tools like this lead us to fewer games watched. She may not have gotten to every game when she owned tickets, but I watch every damn game there is to watch.

She wants a 60 game schedule? Better drop that income to 30% for the players.

 

The players are replaceable - except the non-elite ones. For every mid-level or lower level player, there are a thousand of others willing to take his place at a lower level salary.

Also, the owners are not replaceable, since you'd need their consent to sell their franchises (except in the Sterling case), and they're not going to do it. So, they are not replaceable until the players can start their own leagues, negotiate their own TV contracts, and build their own stadiums (or have the public build it). Good luck with that. A player's career is to short to invest the time and money to build a players league that's going to help SOMEONE ELSE 10 years later.

 

This.

 

She's just a mouthpiece for the players. She's putting as much requests on the plate as she can asper the player reps requesting and seeing which one will stick. When it gets down to the serious negotiations she and the player reps know which ones are more important and feasible.

 

I dont really think so. Of course owners can be replaced more easily than players, but where have the Mavs been before Cuban? Where are the Lakers after Jerry Buss? And as someone asked before, would the Spurs have had the same success with a different owner (as mentioned before, maybe with Sterling)? No way. Managing an organization is very important.

A simple (very theoretical) question for you: If you'd somehow get 1-2billion dollars (rich uncle you didnt know about ), could you simply build a franchise or (even harder) take over the 76ers and lead them to success within some years? That's as unlikely as you suddenly becoming as good as Lebron James and joining the NBA. Owners are replacable, rather than players, but its still a difficult task to succesfully(key point here) manage (or build) a franchise.

If all owners would move their franchises (including employees, except players) to Europe, but all players want to remain in the NBA, could they easily build own franchises, replace everyone and get back to business without losing a single season? No way. New billionaires would come and build teams, but with all old teams gone would it be easy for you to simply chose the next team you cheer for and go on? I dont really think so, because ownership and franchise-culture matters. And those things arent coming from the players, at least not in the long-term.

Exactly, and if 'elite' players are leaving the league they would be replaced by previously good (not elite) players that then look elite in comparison to the new mid/low-level players. At the end of the day, you would always have some elite players, good players and a lot of average players. And of course talented players that are reaching that elite level other time. Its not like the NBA stopped working when elite players have left before, they got replaced.

 

I disagree with that too. It's true if you're talking about the Lebrons of the world. But outside of the superstars, I'd bet the vast majority of middle and lower tier NBA players are at similar levels to the stars of leagues around the world. And even if not, assuming an average NBA player has a 10 year career, then you're cycling in 10% new players every single year anyway. Over a decade, you'll basically replace almost the entire league.

It's easy to say owners are replaceable and don't bring much value. But when you then say it's so difficult to actually do it, then it doesn't make a lot of sense. They either are easily replaceable or not - if they are, then the NBA players can go build their own league. Otherwise, you're saying that the owners' contribution is necessary to make the league work, meaning they provide value.

 

Quite taking the point so literally.

The point is that in the Entertainment Industry across all sectors (sports, movies, music, dance, etc) the Talent is more important than the producers of the venues.

Yeah, if you remove all the top talent in movies, others will replace them, but that doesn't mean 20th Century Fox, Time Warner, Viacom, Sony, MGM and Disney are what people pay to see. You remove them, and others will replace them, too.

Compare this to other businesses. We buy brands associated with companies, not the employee talent. There is no comparison to the Entertainment Industry.

The point she made is solid, just like movie and music talent.

We pay to see talent in sports. Who the owner is doesn't matter nearly as much.

 

Well when the NFL players went on their strike and the product wasn't as good.

I don't think that would happen.

If all the players that made the all-star game goe on strike for example, Lets say Lebron, Melo, Durant, Paul George...and the best SF left in the NBA is say Chandler Parsons, Ariza, Batum...they will look nothing like those guys no matter how bad the competition is. Only Durant can pull up from way beyond 3 and drain a shot. Only Lebron can play point forward for an entire game and dunk on guys all game long.

These elite players have special moves that aren't easily replicated. Will there ever be another Hakeem? The center position sucked for a while now, despite the lack of good centers no one came close to being another Hakeem or Shaq. Every realized "Well these Centers are just bad now..." so I don't believe that in the absence of elite players that other guys will look elite by comparison.

I mean Parsons would dominate in a league without those guys, but it wouldn't look as good. The quality would be much different. Just look at international basketball...or even the Dleague..even NCAA ball. Anyone can see how low quality a product that is compared to the NBA.

 

I think it's just harder to understand the value of people who aren't on the screen. It's easy to comprehend no more Lebron, but it's hard to fathom what replacing all the owners would actually mean. Therefore we assume it would mean nothing.

 

Do you really think Channel 4 News in San Diego can replace a Talent like Ron Burgundy vs replacing the ownership of Channel 4.

<img src="http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/I-dont-believe-you.gif">

 

Take the hard cap altogether off of sports.....

 

Do you really think Wonder Bread, Dennit Racing and Carly Bobby could ever replace a Talent like Ricky Bobby with Cal, or are they more replaceable?



...Cal and Carly say "What?"



OK, maybe not the best example I've ever come up with. But you get my drift [pun intended]

 

I don't know much about the entertainment industry, but I've always thought there's a lot of marketing and promotion into getting stars to be stars. Are you saying it's the opposite?

 

Yes.

"There's a lot of marketing and promotion" to make money off of star talent, that I agree with.

Let's not get into a semantic discussion. The Jackson Five was a creation, but Micheal Jackson was pure talent. Both Eddie Murphy and Prince rebelled against their slave-owner contracts and still survived and excelled.

And no one owns Robert De Niro or Jack Nicholson

<img src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQDbBx70jOZDBiYOUN3FZc11ck8RmA_PB-tbL0q5QuC9IZFTtlz" width=500>

Do you want me to go on?

 

OMG Nobody is forcing people to play basketball for a living. Here is a big pile of money and here are a set of terms. If you do not agree to these set of terms then you do not get this big pile of money.

A great product does not make a great business. It is not the case that "if you build it they will come".

People had to build up the business to what it is today. That takes a partnership between ownership/management and employees. Owners paid a significant amount of money in order to own their respective franchise and the previous owner likely received a significant ROI for their prior work.

If you do not believe this to be the case then go start a sport league and become filthy rich.