nixluva wrote:CrushAlot wrote:It seems like the tone last night was that this would get done. The players were locked in at 53%BRI for a long time. They dropped to 52. It seems like the logical compromise that should have been proposed by the owners was 51%. Neither side is going to make up the money lost by their rigid stance. This is just stupid at this point.
The players came way down on BRI and gave back $800,000 on MLE and only 3 yrs max on MLE. So far I don't see where the owners are really making a real effort to compromise. Understand that back in 2005 the players split in BRI was 53%! The owners agreed to raising it to 57%. Why did the owners do this if they weren't profitable during the last CBA where the players got 53%? See the owners had other concerns namely small market owners were trying to block big market owners from stealing their players. It's never been about owners vs players! It's always been owners vs owners and still is. Players already gave back the $280mil they got in the last CBA so all this arguing is not about that. The small market beats the big market if they can shrink players take at the same time get a harder cap which will stifle the big markets from building powerhouse teams.
The players are merely unwitting pawns in this ongoing battle.
A lot of the owners probably weren't making money at 53%, but the economy, stock market etc.. were booming and prices of businesses were rising. So even though they were losing cash, they felt OK about it because the team was worth more. The problem is that it was a lot like the DOT.COM bubble in the late 90s where stupid people kept paying higher and higher prices for businesses that were not worth it. It was the greater fool theory. Then it all crashed. That's where the owner are now. They want earnings and they are 100% justified in that.
The implication that the players have done a lot of bending and that the owners haven't done enough misses the whole point. The owners were losing a ton of money at 57% and will be barely profitable at 50%. So in reality, even a 50-50 split could be a bad deal for the owners unless there is huge growth in revenue in coming years. That may be likely, but it's not guaranteed in this economy.
The NBA is NOT a wealth transfer system where the "super rich" owners are required give welfare checks to the "merely rich" players. It's a business where owners put up hundreds of millions of dollars of capital that could easily be invested in stocks, bonds, or other businesses earning them a lot more money instead. To make it worthwhile to own a basketball team, it has to have as good a chance of earning a profit as those other investments.
Nothing else should even be on the table until the revenue split is at a level that makes it fairly likely that the owners in aggregate will make an adequate profit in the typical economic environment. Under that scenario, well run teams in major markets will do great, well run teams in smaller markets will do OK, and poorly run teams will lose money.
It's the players have to give more.
I know it's hard to root for super rich guys, but this is basic business and economics. The rich make investments, start businesses, and create the jobs and goods/services for the rest of us. They do it to make even more money. If they don't make more money, they take their ball and go home. The rest of us work hard, save, invest etc.. and slowly move up the ladder until we can become owners and on and on up we go. Just like MJ used to be a player and is now an owner etc...
10/28/2011 7:02 PM