[David Aldridge] Owner's are "tired of making these guys rich"

"Oh, I'm so tired of these players getting money that they completely don't deserve. They are robbing millions from me!"

-Billionaire NBA Owner

These are the type of people that you hope die in a huge fire. All they care about is how much more money they are making over everyone else.

 

If these owners are sincerely tired of making players rich, they should abolish the salary cap and salary floor and sign a bunch of d-league scrubs to $50,000 contracts.

Otherwise, get your heads out of your asses, come up with a viable revenue sharing plan and figure out a fair way to distribute revenue to the players. And if you want to get anything done, stop treating the Players' Union like an enemy that needs to be defeated.

 

Everybody involved gets rich. So whats the problem. Man, greed is a motherf*!@?*!!!

 

The same could be said by the players, no?

 

The players in my opinion definitely don't hold the upper hand. If the owners simply said, the NBA minimum is $3m a year with it topping out at $8-10M that's still MILLIONS more than they would make overseas with at most 4 or 5 exceptions. The players need the NBA and its exposure a lot more than the billionaire owners losing a few million with no season. If every NBA player took a 50% pay decrease, they'd still be considered extremely wealthy (top 1%) and would still be making a ton more than if they wanted to go play in Turkey or Italy.

 

It figures that once the grizzlies get good that the lockout is going to rob us of it.

 

The courts wouldn't allow that to happen. The players union would sue for sure if that happened.

 

Sue for what? There isn't a CBA, so no guidelines to follow. If that's what the owners say will happen for everything signed under the new CBA, the players have zero legs to stand on.

 

... And they'd be screwing over generations of players to come.

If NBA players are willing and capable of making sacrifices like MLB players have in the past, they'll get a fair deal.

 

The whole owner's stance is getting to be so ridiculous; however, they should light a fire in all the GMs/Team Presidents/Front Office people's asses and put more emphasis on giving out more sensible contracts. If an owner really cares about his franchise, he should have more input into Stromile Swift/Gilbert Arenas-type deals so that they don't happen in the first place.


They should have considered that in '99.

 

Owners

I'm not going to believe one word they say.

 

I don't understand why everyone is turning pro-player. The owners are clearly losing money and I think everyone can agree most contracts outside of rookie and max deals are bad values. The amount of money they're losing is up for debate but so many small market teams are struggling right now and the players don't seem to care at all. If anything I find them to be unreasonable. Their entire argument is they don't want to change their deal just because some owners are losing money; that's ridiculously short sighted.

 

It's hilarious that they think THEY are the reason these guys are marketable.

Please.

Tell that to Cleveland. Was Cleveland the reason Lebron became a mega-star? Or was it Lebron's sizzle, Lebron's dominance, and the excitement he bought to the team.

Just look at our own team the Rockets. They aren't as marketable now as they were 2-4 years ago with Tmac and Yao. They just aren't. So the owners should get nada from sponsors. The sponsors are selling the player, not the team. When Lebron went to Miami Nike didn't say "Oop, well now lets promote J.J Hickson!"

 

Exactly. Another thing- do the players get a cut of the money when the owners sell their franchises? The owners ought to realize how damaging work stoppages can be to their long term interests and negotiate accordingly.

 

So the owners are losing money and we don't know how much?

If a bunch of owners are willing to kill the season without any reservations, that tells me they are losing a lot. $340 million doesn't have to be the exact amount. However, if they suddenly cave and the new CBA doesn't radically restructure things, then we'll know they were blowing smoke. The players seem more than willing to call their bluff.

 

Who's being screwed? The new generation of players will still be making millions of dollars a year to play a game they love.

 

Its r****ded that anybody should lose money. Just get rid of the non-profitable teams. A new, smaller, shorter-season, deeper teams, league is a better business model. Put a pillow over the NBA's face and suffocate it. Force it to change.

 

That's not how markets work. The players who aren't receiving a fair share of revenues would be getting screwed.

You guys really want the money to go back into the owners pockets, so guys like Donald Serling can get richer?

 

Just the fact that they are losing money is unfair. Even the worst teams get an attendance of tens of thousands per game and host pretty good venues, or, at least, not that much of a fall off from the best teams. Everything outside of the players' domain is taken care of so it's not really fair the owners have to lose money if the team's performing badly.

I think the requirement to have a winning team, big television contracts, and 16k+ attendance per game to succeed in this business is too steep. The owners' incentive to win shouldn't be to not lose money but to make more.

 

Sure. I don’t know what the exact compromise should be, but there has to be compromise on both sides.. though “probably” more on the players sides than the owners with this one, imo.

Of course it could happen. But there are a LOT of impediments. Not the least of which, in the scenario you described, is the players themselves. Because, yes, sure it’s easy to call the owners greedy, but let’s not forget the players are also in it for the money. The league you described above takes a while to get to the point where the players get anywhere close to what they can get in the NBA, even if they move significantly from their current position. It comes down to money, and we have all found out that European teams don’t have it like it once seemed they might…. And a new league, while fun, would be way way way behind the 8-ball money wise.

It’s just 2 sides that heavily rely on the other. Replacement players would get some attention, but the owners would start hemorrhaging cash even moreso then they might currently. NBA players can go overseas or try and start new leagues, but they’ll quickly (well, maybe a year of lockout, but eventually) conclude that they’re best bet, economically, is the NBA.

That’s not true… there are plenty of highly informed people (as informed as they can be without full knowledge of open books). Plenty of people that understand accounting, and plenty of people that understand investments, etc.

Moreover, as none of us can really properly analyze the books, we can only guess. Especially when you add in the fact that there are often other entities, not included in the ownership of the team, that may be seeing value accretion or dilution to a greater magnitude than the team itself, but still as a function of owning the team (arena, real estate ownership, etc.).

My feel is that the accounting shenanigans that the truly uninformed consistently try to point to are ultimately overstated. For one, as you know as a business owner, there are the book books, and the tax books. Sure on the tax books, shelter as much taxable income as possible. On the regular books, though, the only benefit to doing it in this situation would be to game the system as you’re describing….

… which probably happens to a degree… but, many of these clubs aren’t capitalized by one person/entity. They typically have other capital holders, throughout the balance sheet. And the more owners you have, the less likely you see $10 million a year janitors on the payroll.

Whatever the case, it certainly isn’t as simple as Billy Hunter would have you believe, either, when he disputes the reports/contention of over 2/3 of the teams losing money.
I know it can seem ridiculous that these billionaires should be making more money, but not everyone treats there team like a hobby like Mark Cuban (and even has lead to owner disputes with regards to profitability), and a return on investment, even before waiting for an outright sale, isn’t asking for the moon.

Yep, and both sides are ultimately in it for the money, and will ultimately realize that they need each other. Which is too bad, because in reality what should happen is both sides should agree to take less money and give more back to the fans (if it was possible, which it really isn’t given the system that is professional sports and tv contracts, etc.)

All valid and correct points. But again, it ignores the importance of the system. Which isn’t to say that there couldn’t be another league and another system, but ultimately it will be about a system, and a give take between the owners and players… even if the players themselves owned the league, you’d have this dynamic.

As it happens, the most dynamic, successful and highest paying system in the world for the players is the NBA. If it didn’t exist, as has been noted, Lebron can go overseas and see if he does as well, or try and recruit some buddies to start a new league, but he’ll definitely be foregoing meaningful $$ during that period.