Stern: Deal By Tuesday Or No Games Through Christmas

Again, I never said team revenue sharing is the end-all be all. But it helps a lot.

The players have already conceded some of the BRI (which the owners thought in 1999 was a great deal for them personally), and they are sure to go down a little more as the lockout continues. All I'm saying is the owners should own up and increase the team revenue sharing a little more also, especially giving a little bit of the ticket sales/revenues to the road teams, and the local TV contracts.

A negotiation is a compromise. Both sides have to give up something. It seems to me that only the players are conceding. The owners are just making demands, and backing off of their extreme demands, and claiming those are concessions.

You can't really expect the players to concede to everything and the problems are solved do you?

So you were never an NBA fan then right? Because there was rarely parity in the NBA for most of its existence.

 

Why not? If teams are truly losing money, they should come out ahead during the lockout. Meanwhile players are going to start losing paychecks. From an owner's perspective, if something isn't working you fix it. That is exactly what they intend to do. Even if the owners made no more concessions the players would eventually fold. It is inevitable. Were talking Millionaires vs. Billionaires.

 

It's still not enough. Green Bay collects $147 mil from revenue sharing. Let's apply it to the NBA.

Hornets get $147 mil/yr of the Laker's $150 mil/yr Time Warner Deal($3 B over 20 years).

Lakers get $3 mil/yr of their own tv deal. Silly, I know. However, I am working with the same revenue numbers of the Green Bay Packers.

There are 14 other teams currently receiving luxury tax revenue, that will need $147 mil/yr. They need $2.058 bil/yr(14teams x $147 mil/yr).

So we are looking at 1 profit making team to subsidize 1 money loser.
Are there 14 other large market teams like the Lakers with $3 bil tv deals?

No.

Where is the other $2.058 bil/yr gong to come from, if there aren't 14 other teams with $3 bil tv deals?

Maybe those players aren't making enough revenue for the league to cover their own costs.

 

I don’t know why you keep insisting that the owners aren’t agreeing to revenue sharing. It’s been pretty widely reported that Stern's promised a revenue sharing plan, which the owners have agreed to. They're supposed to hammer out the details in the owners' meetings next week if the two sides have come to an agreement by Tuesday. But right now revenue sharing doesn't help anything if the league on a whole is losing money, and therefore they're sharing losses.

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/features/steve_aschburner/09/20/revenue-sharing-still-vital/index.html

If you read that article, I think you'll see you're a little misinformed about the owners expecting the players to concede everything.

 

You're using the Lakers as the sole player in the revenue sharing, which is absurd. And you are just using TV deals, and discounting ticket sales from games, and other sources of revenues from games. Green Bay's profits come from ALL the NFL teams sharing the pot, and they get some of the tickets/revenues from each road game they play, and so on. It's not rational to look at one profitable team subsidizing 1 money losing team.

The Knicks also have a huge deal with MSG, same with Bulls with WGN, and you can apply to the Heat with SUN network, Dallas, and several more.

Furthermore, it's a fact bigger market teams can charge bigger dollars, and they get to keep all of it. For instance, the Lakers charge 5x the price when the Heat come to play, yet the Lakers get to keep all of it. Why not put some of that into the central pie and spread it out to all the teams? You can't blame a small market team that they can't charge the same ticket price as a larger market team. Hence why Green Bay can get to keep 40% of the ticket revenues when they go play Dallas for instance, which charges an absurd amount for a ticket.

Again, revenue sharing can help a lot between teams. And you add to them the reduction in BRI for the players. You're helping teams make a lot of money right there already.

 

I could only pull $147 mil the Lakers deal to subsidize the Hornets. Are you sure the Bulls/Knicks/Mavs have $3 B deals with the tv networks? If so, they can take give $147 mil each to Kings/Timberwolves/Grizzlies.

You have 4 money losing teams out of $14 money losers getting the $147 mil.

Do the other 10 money makers all have $3 B tv deals. I don't think so.

 

It's just not the local TV deals (and yes, the Knicks make a TON of money from MSG, which is why they have been able to spend as much as they do in the past decade despite sucking, and the Bulls have a great deal with WGN).

But it's the revenue from each game also.

Look all I'm saying is both sides have to compromise a little more. It's a "negotiation" after all. The owners have to be willing to give up to the players "something" so they can go out of this thing not saying that they got beat down. If that is the case, this lockout will drag on until next year.

"The players don't want to eat the owners' losses -- reported to be in excess of $1.5 billion over the last CBA's full term -- without knowing what the league will be doing to heal itself.

The owners -- or at least those with the large-revenue franchises -- don't want to give up profits in revenue sharing until they get a sense of their savings through a more favorable split of basketball-related income (BRI) and a desired salary-cap system."

Both sides can do a little more to resolve this thing. And it needs to be done before Tuesday.

 

Your Joe Johnson example actually argues against your point. One of the major reasons (if not THE reason) for the Hawks to sign him to such a ridiculous contract was exactly because Atlanta doesn't attract big name FAs. They were stuck between a bad contract and losing Johnson and more fans. That's the predicament for small market teams like the Hawks.

And once somebody signs a guy like Johnson to such contract, other quasi superstars begin to demand the same and some desperate GM will yield to that. And that's how the market gets jacked up so that even a smart GM like Morey will have to overpay someone like Ariza.

And the "success" of OKC, as someone has already pointed out, was caused by their sucking for so long they got three top 5 picks in a short time. Wait till when Westbrook and Harden become FAs and see how successful they are trying to keep them. And Memphis was ridiculed when they signed Randolph and hoped he would become their leader. The odds for that plan to succeed was so low that when it happened it's like winning the lottery.

The only success story for a small market team in the past 4 decades was San Antonio. Apart from tanking for Duncan, they also was smart at stashing high potential foreign players overseas with low draft picks. That tactic won't work now because everybody else is scouting foreign players after seeing what the Spurs have done.

Most small market teams would get relative on court success after some years of sucking. But they seldom get over the hump because they lack the financial resources and the glamor appeal to attract or retain star players. Orlando is the classic case. The got lucky to have won the lottery several times. And that got them to the Finals. But they lost franchise players like Shaq and TMac, and now Howard is rumored to want to jump ship. This kind of teams are ripe for doling out the proverbial Rashard Lewis contracts.

 

Bill Simmons has a great take about the players.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7100999/avoiding-lockout-red-sox

Excellent comparison to the 2008 Hollywood Writer's strike.

 

1) The Hawks couldn't even sell out their home games in the playoffs this past year? Hawks' fans know they weren't going to win with Joe (the entire NBA knew that), and he wasn't going to bring in new fans for the Hawks. Their best/SMART bet would have let him go and save that boatload of cash for the future, and we don't know what the future would predict.

2) The OKC story is just like the Detroit Lions story. Exact same path way towards success. Sometimes you have to suck for a while to get success. Look at the Bulls with Rose. And now the Wiz with Wall.

3) Players know the "good" franchises in this league. Nobody wanted to go to the Knicks for the longest time, until the past few years under a more stable regime with Walsh. Nobody wanted to go to the Celtics until KG/Allen got traded there and changed the culture. Just because you are in a big market doesn't guarantee you much success even.

For your example of Orlando. Shaq was just striaght up Hollywood. TMAC wanted out b/c of beef with his GM. And Howard's situation would be much better if they didn't mess up their salary cap with Lewis/bad signings.

It's all about good management. And you can apply that to any sport. The Redskins/Cowboys are the most profitable teams in the NFL and they haven't sniffed any playoff success for the longest time. The Knicks play in the #1 market in the NBA and they haven't sniffed ANY success for over a decade, let alone get over the hump. Yet the Lakers are almost always successful!! Which is the smarter franchise?

The NBA never had parity. You had the Celts own in the early days, then the Lakers/Boston, then the Bulls, then the Lakers/Spurs.

This past year was the year that had the most parity b/c a team out of nowhere won it all. How ironic is that?

 

A team that was way over the cap....

 

So it seems like some of y'all think the owners shouldn't concede anything simply because they are owners and the players will start to miss their paychecks?

 

Our mayor is trying to get our Rockets back. :grin:

http://media2.wishtv.com/_local/pdf/10-13-11-mayors_letter_to_NBA_and_NBPA.pdf

 

I think the players need to take a 50/50 split and be happy.......otherwise it will get worse for them.

DD

 

I don't know why you read that into what other people say. I know you are on the players' side. I am not on either's side, as I suspect a lot of people here. I just think the notion "It's the players' league that's why they should get a big share in the profit" is quite ridiculous, as is the notion "They should get close to what they got because that's what they got."

Let me say this one more time. If this is really the players' league, they should just say **** the NBA and form their own league. If they can't do that and have to negotiate for their pay, that means it's not really their league. And ultimately it comes down to who has more leverage, fair or not.

This is a labor negotiation. It's about wanting more of the pie. I have no sympathy for either side since they are both rich beyond what ordinary people can imagine, especially when a lot of poorer people got the short end through the cracks because of the dispute between these rich people. I couldn't care less how much money they make or lose. As a fan, I just want a good healthy system that promotes good competitive basketball.

I am pretty sure a lot of people are like me, as opposed to some who think the owners are evil lords trying to exploit helpless slaves.

 

This is one of the most awesome things i have ever seen. Brings tears to my eyes. Go NBA!!!

 

I am on the players side. But as you say, this is a negotiation and I'm not seeing much in here to support exactly why the players should say....do a 50/50 split? Exactly why should they agree to that? Can the owners show proof that a 50/50 split is needed for the game to survive, or for most of them not to lose money? Can the owners show that a 50/50 split will lead to a more competitive league, as if parity even matters to the NBA? It seems like the only reasoning revolves around the players not having leverage to lose checks.

I want basketball as well, but I don't want the players to roll over for the owners just so I can watch it. And the players do have enough leverage to not just roll over because this game doesn't happen without their elite talent. Just like they can't start another league, the owners can't have one without them. Now the question is can they hold out without those checks to maintain their leverage. That I doubt but we will see.

 

So like I said, you think the players should fold because they will start to miss paychecks?

 

That and i think the las deal was horrible for the owners.

The players will fold the have no leverage.

DD

 

You might be the only fan I know who would somehow enjoy watching the NBA more if players earn an average of 6% more in salary.

Personally, I don't care how much the players make. For example, whether Courtney Lee's next contract will pay him $5 mil/yr or $5.3mil/yr is not something I give a damn about. Lee would obviously care, but as a fan I don't. I just know either way he's a hell of a lot richer than me.