jrodmc wrote:"There is no free lunch.."

Bonn1997 wrote:

jrodmc wrote:"There is no free lunch.."

Except when you're an NBA team owner taking $100 mil in taxpayer money to build or renovate your stadium!

When the model works, such a thing creates jobs and revenue. Revenue is taxed. Sometimes a city feels its collective self esteem needs/wants a Major league team to think itself "we are a major league market!!"

Sometimes cities say no like Seattle. Or Sacremento. Or In Charlotte (to George shinn).

As long as another city is willing to whore themselves out the owners have leverage. Don't get the deal in one city, then they go to another.

Taxpayers vote to get them done.

Who is at fault? Who ultimatly pays?

Fans that buy tickets or fans that only watch on tv?

Seattle decided the Seahawks and Mariners were more important. Their choice.

IF an owner is presented with money why would they not take it?

And if its 47%, 50 % or 53%, those new stadiums raise revenue which helps the players!

What Am I missing?

Bonn1997 wrote:

Nalod wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

jrodmc wrote:"There is no free lunch.."

Except when you're an NBA team owner taking $100 mil in taxpayer money to build or renovate your stadium!

When the model works, such a thing creates jobs and revenue. Revenue is taxed. Sometimes a city feels its collective self esteem needs/wants a Major league team to think itself "we are a major league market!!"

Sometimes cities say no like Seattle. Or Sacremento. Or In Charlotte (to George shinn).

As long as another city is willing to whore themselves out the owners have leverage. Don't get the deal in one city, then they go to another.

Taxpayers vote to get them done.

Who is at fault? Who ultimatly pays?

Fans that buy tickets or fans that only watch on tv?

Seattle decided the Seahawks and Mariners were more important. Their choice.

IF an owner is presented with money why would they not take it?

And if its 47%, 50 % or 53%, those new stadiums raise revenue which helps the players!

What Am I missing?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing when government invests in teams. I'm just pointing out that you can't criticize the players for having a sense of entitlement without also pointing out the billions in unearned taxpayer dollars the owners are taking.

To me, its irrelevant!

Im not getting on the players but favor the owners based on realities of numbers and not on the morality of Greed.

Players are free to play elsewhere. The entitlement of that payday is perhaps at stake.

I favor a system of rewarding producing players but not penalizing the owners when a player does not live up to the contract.

MOst contracts have two parties. Guarantee should be best efforts. Eddy? Arenas? Etc.

Im ok for a player to get most of his contract and im ok with an upfront payment. Sign a 5 year 100mil contract for 20 mil a year! Give the player 30mil upfront (it is in the players interest to do so.) and a three year guarantee. Say for what ever reason the player is injured or just plain stupid (Marbles). HE gets a guarantee 60 million of the 100. What is the stipulation? Morals clause, gun clause, maintain weight/fitness.......

jrodmc wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Nalod wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

jrodmc wrote:"There is no free lunch.."

Except when you're an NBA team owner taking $100 mil in taxpayer money to build or renovate your stadium!

When the model works, such a thing creates jobs and revenue. Revenue is taxed. Sometimes a city feels its collective self esteem needs/wants a Major league team to think itself "we are a major league market!!"

Sometimes cities say no like Seattle. Or Sacremento. Or In Charlotte (to George shinn).

As long as another city is willing to whore themselves out the owners have leverage. Don't get the deal in one city, then they go to another.

Taxpayers vote to get them done.Who is at fault? Who ultimatly pays?

Fans that buy tickets or fans that only watch on tv?

Seattle decided the Seahawks and Mariners were more important. Their choice.

IF an owner is presented with money why would they not take it?

And if its 47%, 50 % or 53%, those new stadiums raise revenue which helps the players!

What Am I missing?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing when government invests in teams. I'm just pointing out that you can't criticize the players for having a sense of entitlement without also pointing out the billions in unearned taxpayer dollars the owners are taking.

The owners don't vote, the taxpayers do. Where does this show that owners have a sense of entitlement for taxpayer dollars? Who's going to pay the people who ultimately work in these arenas, including the players? Again, the owners are investing in a team and possibly a city. The players show up to play. And get paid. Handsomely.

Why does this always have to degenerate into the individual rage against the machine?

Nalod wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

jrodmc wrote:"There is no free lunch.."

Except when you're an NBA team owner taking $100 mil in taxpayer money to build or renovate your stadium!

When the model works, such a thing creates jobs and revenue. Revenue is taxed. Sometimes a city feels its collective self esteem needs/wants a Major league team to think itself "we are a major league market!!"

Sometimes cities say no like Seattle. Or Sacremento. Or In Charlotte (to George shinn).

As long as another city is willing to whore themselves out the owners have leverage. Don't get the deal in one city, then they go to another.

Taxpayers vote to get them done.

Who is at fault? Who ultimatly pays?

Fans that buy tickets or fans that only watch on tv?

Seattle decided the Seahawks and Mariners were more important. Their choice.

IF an owner is presented with money why would they not take it?

And if its 47%, 50 % or 53%, those new stadiums raise revenue which helps the players!

What Am I missing?

I would gladly pay the small additional tax to be able to drive 25 minutes to go to a Hawks , or Braves game..

nixluva wrote:Isn't it funny that the league jumped in to buy the Hornets for $300 mil, but Stern refused to sell the Hornets at a profit when a billionaire Larry Ellison wanted to buy the team for $350mil? Gee, why would the NBA not want to sell a team to a perfectly suitable wealthy businessman? That would break up their streak of net loss seasons right before they go into the CBA negotiations.

How does the sale of one team have any impact of the years profit overall for the NBA? I think you are way off on this one.

Now does that make any sense to any of you? Most of these teams seem perfectly willing to stay in a business that has lost almost 2 billion and new guys want to buy in right now!!!

no it does not make any sense Nix. Thats what we keep trying to tell you. New guys want to buy in cuz the owners are telling them its gonna get fixed.

Teams can lose 10 mil a year against a value franchise of say 400mm, but not for long.

They can write off one third of the loss. Its still a loss.

Teams don't want to lose anymore.

Soooooooo the are locked out.

I have read the definition of insanity is "when someone does the same thing over and over expecting a differeent outcome".

No nix, it does not make sense, thats why they are vying for change.

Status quo makes no sense. so they are locking them out until it does.

Andrew wrote:

nixluva wrote:Isn't it funny that the league jumped in to buy the Hornets for $300 mil, but Stern refused to sell the Hornets at a profit when a billionaire Larry Ellison wanted to buy the team for $350mil? Gee, why would the NBA not want to sell a team to a perfectly suitable wealthy businessman? That would break up their streak of net loss seasons right before they go into the CBA negotiations.

How does the sale of one team have any impact of the years profit overall for the NBA? I think you are way off on this one.

Why would one more healthy team make a diff? Every bit of bad news helps make the Owners argument, which is why some believe they would gladly show more losses in order to make the point that changes needed to be made. Also it would look funny for a league that is having losses in the hundreds of millions to have yet another buyer come into the league. People would have to wonder why, if things are so bad is there a LINE of rich businessmen looking to get in.

Ellison revealed that he bid $350 million for the team--$50 million more than the NBA paid—but was not allowed to buy the franchise.-

Stern has repeatedly said that he wants to keep the Hornets in New Orleans, and that he has 4-5 interested buyers who are committed to doing just that. Yet he continually claims that he will not sell the team until the team gains a more stable situation in New Orleans, particularly with regards to season-ticket sales. This concerns me because of the possibility that Stern is being disingenuous—and that he is holding onto the team for the benefit of the NBA and the other owners, instead of preparing the team for a new owner.

If Stern had allowed the Hornets to be bought, there would've likely one less team with huge losses to show this last year. From what I understand the Hornets and Sacremento have a disproportionate amount of the losses the league reported. The Hornets could've been aggressive in building up the team and with a new owner, perhaps the fans would've felt safer in investing in season tickets, knowing their team was going to make every effort to win. Or perhaps they would've moved the team to a new city willing to support it's team. New Orleans has been a dreadful BB city.

The new television deal for the Los Angeles Lakers is scheduled to kick in at the beginning of the 2012-13 season, last 20 years and reportedly pay the Lakers $3 billion, though that princely sum has been disputed. The TV deal for the New York Knicks is believed to net the NBA franchise around $150 million per year.

The Boston Celtics signed a 20-year deal not long after their rival, the Lakers, got theirs, and even though the numbers weren’t divulged, the sane assumption is that it’s worth significantly more than the $15 million to $20 million per year Boston reportedly received in its former deal.

On the bottom tier of the television money tree, the Portland Trail Blazers collect $12 million per year from their deal. The Memphis Grizzlies reportedly haul in $5 million to $10 million annually from theirs, a neighborhood likely occupied by the Sacramento Kings and New Orleans Hornets.

The Lakers, Knicks and Celtics haven’t shared a dime of the money earned from their local television rights with the Blazers, Grizzlies, Kings and Hornets. As far as I know, they aren’t sprinting to the bank to make withdrawals and share with their small-market brethren now, either.

Instead, NBA owners from markets big and small tell NBA players that the league’s past revenue distribution model is obscenely flawed, that salaries are exorbitant, that players have to give back money to make the league economically viable, and that if an agreement isn’t reached by Monday the league will lose the first two weeks of the regular season.

But owners don’t talk much about sharing revenue with each other to provide relief.

It is a conversation that you will never hear on the sports radio talk shows in New York or Philadelphia or read about in area newspapers. It is an issue that never gets discussed on cable TV sports talk shows. The NBA's big market teams are in decent financial shape; the New York Knicks have to be rolling in dough with sellout crowds, not paying New York city property tax and owning a cable TV regional sports network. Mikhail Prokhorov must think the New Jersey Nets will be a goldmine once the franchise moves to Brooklyn and it would be fascinating to take a look at Comcast's real books when assessing the Philadelphia 76ers finances given that the country's largest cable TV multi systems operator owns the team, the arena and the regional cable TV network in Philadelphia.

I agree along with the players that salaries need to be trimmed, but Real revenue sharing and getting teams out of bad NBA cities is the real answer to the leagues problems. The players salaries are only part of the problem. My list of the teams that are going t be under the cap shows that the salaries have been held in check. We know the players are going to get a payment from the league. It's IMO not their salaries as much as the fact that too many teams simply can't or don't know how to get significant revenues from all of the possible ways they can. Owners that have a piece of the Arena, their own Cable or TV network etc, can find ancillary ways to make more money from owning a team.

tkf wrote:

nixluva wrote:

tkf wrote:

jrodmc wrote:

tkf wrote:

nixluva wrote:

TheloniusMonk wrote:Without the players no one shows up. No one cares. NBA is a ghost town. Case closed. Pay the men. Period.

Exactly!!! I also don't like this notion that the Players haven't invested in this enterprise. For one thing there's such a thing as Sweat equity and the players have that in spades! They sacrifice a lot to become good enough to be a Pro Baller. Not to mention the wear and tear on their bodies which is often irreversible. Owners only risk expendable cash, but not life and limb.

Both parties are invested. It looks like they're going to come up with a fair CBA in the end. However, MOST of the problem that the owners have is self inflicted. Take for example the MLE. There's no rule that you have to use it and yet how many owners have shot themselves in the face using the MLE for players that weren't worth it? That's not something you can blame on the players. How about the Max contracts given to NON Max players like Joe Johnson or even the Rudy Gay 5yr 82 mil contract extension? These teams didn't have make those deals. Players don't pay themselves, owners do.

sweat equity is fine, and they are payed well for that sweat, but unfortunately we live in a world in which you can't buy bentleys and Bimmers with sweat!!

Certain people refuse to believe in a real world. In entitlement fairyland, if you wear out your joints prematurely while playing a sport at the highest levels, you should be given the entire earth, possibly with a 58% cut of the universe.

And again, the players are playing in little venues, and I hate to point this out to all you jock sniffers, but there seem to be ALOT of empty seats shown in the highlight pics of these events.

Without the league and the owners and THEIR buildings and THEIR infrastructure, there is no NBA. In case you forgot, it's the National BASKETBALL Association, not the the Notional PLAYERS Association. Case closed. Comma. Accept your pay and get back to "work". Period. End of sentence.

yea, I agree, entitlement fairyland.. these players are paid that well because the owner know, people come to see them, they know these guys are giving up their physical primes.. well at least some of them.. LOL.. so they are paid on average more than anyone else on the face of the earth pretty much..

At the same time, the owners have made financial investments that equal some small countries GDP.. so it is understandable that these owners want to protect these investments and make some money not only now, but longterm.....

The NBA since the current CBA was signed has reported Major losses every year:

* 05-06: 19 clubs ran at a loss, total losses of $220 million
* 06-07: 21 clubs ran at a loss, total losses of $285 million
* 07-08: 23 clubs ran at a loss, total losses of $330 million
* 08-09: 24 clubs ran at a loss, total losses of $370 million
* 09-10: 23 clubs ran at a loss, total losses of $340 million
* 10-11: 23 clubs ran at a loss, total losses of $300 million
Total = $1.845 billion!

Now does that make any sense to any of you? Most of these teams seem perfectly willing to stay in a business that has lost almost 2 billion and new guys want to buy in right now!!! You have to ask yourself why? The thing is that these owners can write off the losses on their taxes at 35% now and when they sell only pay 15% on their gains. The only time this becomes impossible is if cash flow is so low that they can't sustain, like Sacramento and New Orleans. Most Owners don't look at things short term, year to year. These are long term investments.

Isn't it funny that the league jumped in to buy the Hornets for $300 mil, but Stern refused to sell the Hornets at a profit when a billionaire Larry Ellison wanted to buy the team for $350mil? Gee, why would the NBA not want to sell a team to a perfectly suitable wealthy businessman? That would break up their streak of net loss seasons right before they go into the CBA negotiations. It suits the NBA to have shown such unbelievable losses to strengthen their bargaining position so they can finally force the players into accepting a reworking of the entire system.

The current CBA stunk. I don't know why the owners financial advisers told them they could handle a BRI split of 57/43. Still the owners agreed to it and so here we are. The Problems in the NBA aren't just the players salaries. In truth the real fight isn't with the players. That fight is pretty much over now. The players will have no choice but to take less. The successful small and big market owners verses the small market and unsuccessful owners is the real fight. Trying to drag them to a real revenue sharing and competitively balanced system is the hard part. I can't imagine the Dolan's wanting to share their money with the lesser teams. In the end if they see it the right way, the entire league benefits from a more even distribution of wealth. We'll have to see if they ever get there.

nix, potential buyers know one thing.. The CBA will run out and when it does, a CBA that is more balanced can yield a profit for a franchise owner.. so potential buyers are not looking a the past mistakes of the CBA so much as they are looking at a new CBA in which the owners can negotiate a better cut for themselves.... I am speculating, but I feel safe in doing so that the current owners would tell potential owners that they are going to fix the CBA in order that all of their investments will be protected..

The league says that 22 teams lost money, but they don't say exactly who lost and how much! It's my belief that in truth most teams are doing well enough to be profitable if they had revenue sharing. Some teams are of course doing great and don't need a player give back. Some teams are so way below water that none of this player squeeze is gonna help them. It's the truly floundering franchises that are in really poor NBA cities that are the source of the problem. The league won't contract and is unwilling to move certain teams to better cities. Ultimately a lack of revenue sharing is the biggest issue.