Expect A Long Lockout
by Jeff Clark on Oct 11, 2011 5:40 AM EDT
in NBA Articles
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PrintUp until last night I had hope that this was going to be resolved. I had faith until the 11th hour. Now I've lost faith and I'm more pessimistic than ever. Will we have an abbreviated season? Probably, but that's no guarantee. I'm guessing that this will last months. So buckle up boy and girls, it is going to be a long, bumpy, ...boring ride.
David Stern hints more cancellations ahead as NBA wonders what's next - Chris Mannix - SI.com
With both sides retreating to neutral corners -- no new negotiating sessions have been scheduled and neither Stern nor Fisher could say when the two sides will talk again -- the question becomes: What's next? Stern hinted that the league will likely cancel the next two weeks of the season two weeks from now. He also suggested that the revenues lost as a result of the lockout bleeding into the regular season, revenues that are expected to number in the hundreds of millions, will be factored into the next proposal.
Can the season be saved? The answer is yes, so long as the NBA owners are willing to negotiate into January, as they did to resolve their previous lockout in 1999. Understand that two weeks of NBA games have been wiped away, and that more cancellations are to come. Nothing important is likely to change over the next two weeks that will enable basketball to be played in late November or early December.
NBA cancels two weeks, earns self-inflicted wound - ESPN
Now the pretending can stop, all the pretense that the season would ever begin on Nov. 1, or the notion that anything else that mattered to the fans would be taken into account. You haven't heard the fans, or the game itself mentioned much lately, have you? That's because they don't factor into this discussion at all. It was always about people saving themselves: owners asking the players to bail them out of bad business moves, players asking to preserve their cushy status with the highest average salaries among American team sports.
The Point Forward " Posts Key points as full season falls by the wayside
And that brings us back to the pesky question: Why does the league care so much those system issues? Perhaps there are some competitive balance true believers, but hardening the cap also creates much-desired cost certainty. A hard-ish cap means owners have to control their spending, and it means that when they don’t — when they splurge on a mid-level guy — less of that money will be guaranteed, making the player easy to cut at no cost. That kind of cost certainty appeals to all owners — small-market guys who want to compete and make a buck, and big-market guys who know they are going to have to give up much more locally generated money as part of the league’s new revenue-sharing plan. You know how else you get cost certainty? By guaranteeing the players a lower percentage of revenue. That’s why amid all the hullabaloo about system issues, it was revealing how fast each side — especially the league — sprinted away from that 50/50 proposal that seemed so tantalizing and so fair a week ago.
NBA cancels first two weeks of season - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
While Stern claims the owners are no longer seeking a hard salary cap, Players Association president Derek Fisher(notes) said the proposed penalties for tax-paying teams will essentially act the same as a hard cap on player salaries. "You can’t say you’re moving away from a hard cap, but then do everything else that brings about the same result," Hunter said. "You’ve compressed salaries, and then you’ve fixed it so nobody is going to spend. You’ve got a hard-cap situation. That’s the reality. "If it quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it’s a duck. The tax system they wanted to impose would create a quadrupling of the tax."
NBA owners take big risk playing fans for fools | ProBasketballTalk
Monday night there was anger and the frustration out on the Internet when Stern walked out of a posh New York hotel Monday night and said the first two weeks of the NBA season are lost. The owners — and the league’s players — had better pray that anger sticks around for a while. If the lockout drags out and that starts to turn to apathy, then the league is really in trouble. Anger shows that the fans care. Love and hate are different sides of the same coin. Passion for the game, the players, and their favorite franchises has fans shelling out big money and screaming at their televisions for games in February. They want basketball — few fans really care how the BRI is split or how regressive the luxury tax is. They just want their basketball. But as this lockout drags out that will start to change and the league will pay for it.
Disgusting. All of it.
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As the other Jeff Green would say...
“That’s a big bowl of wrong”.
If only...
…all of us fans can do a united “strike” and threaten both owners and players that we will not watch the games live or on the television for the whole season if they don’t settle this soon!
haha
Don't worry, this will happen.
It took baseball and hockey a long time to regain their audiences. If the key people on both sides are smart (and I have every reason to think that they are) then they know this. Owners could be shooting themselves in the foot — winning a power struggle but losing the war.
I know the same could be said about the players
But people are always saying this about the players and I wanted to point out that the flip side is true too.
Actually hockey was able to regain thair audience pretty quickly
Within a year I believe. Didn’t take long at all. Alot of it had to do with the new talent that came in to make the game exciting and the new rules that opened up the game, creating a more offensive style of hockey.
Baseball, yeah i’m in agreement. It was bad for them because of all the protest by fans when the srike ended. Heck, if it was for the HR race in the late 90’s who knows how longer it would take for MLB to regain thair audience.
Pittsburgh Sports: Creating sports history and legends since 1887.
by Bradley James McEachern on Oct 12, 2011 12:31 AM EDT up reply actions
The encouraging statements just keep coming...
"They are more dug in than before, but it goes back to a comment David made to me several years ago," said Players Association executive director Billy Hunter. " ‘This is what my owners have to have.’ And I said, ‘The only way you’re going to get that, is if you’re prepared to lock us out for a year or two.’ And he’s indicated to me that they’re willing to do it.
All the negativity in this town sucks. It sucks, and it stinks, and it sucks. - Rick Pitino
Not Sure I Agree
I initially thought the season was a goner. Started reading some of the mis-information and that the season might actually start and maybe on time. But, now I’m pretty sure this season is toast. Check out Jan Hubbard’s post of Sheridan Hoops. It’s the best article I’ve seen yet.
I think he hit the nail on the head. I’ve said all along that the players would lose and that is what going to happen. The players can stand united all they want and just watch their 2.17B go up in smoke. Smart move guys.
The "encouraging statements" quip was laced with heavy sarcasm...
Those two statements suggest that this isn’t ending any time soon.
All the negativity in this town sucks. It sucks, and it stinks, and it sucks. - Rick Pitino
Big miscalculation by players
The league is run by its stars, most of whom stopped book learning in, what!, 10th grade. They are now advised by the worst of the worst, sports agents, and (sorry to repeat myself) cojones, testosterone, whatever guides them, not cool headed logic. David Stern has slowly, tactfully laid down concessions from their high starting point and seems to me to be winning the game of public opinion. How do these players not smell the air of the general economy?
Guess who just became more dug in? Not the players. Guess who is going to, in fact, get less in the final settlement. Not the owners.
If the owners ARE prepared to shut the season down for the sake of the long term, what bargaining leverage do the players have? Yes, most owners have a large percent of their wealth tied up in this ego-centric venture of theirs. But guess whose burn rate on their wealth is greater. Not the owners?
Around, maybe Christmas time there will be a huge “W…T…F” from the players to the union. Derek Fisher will look terrible (He deserves better) and Billy Hunter will be fired not too long after (He deserves it). And we’ll get a short season and the owners will get most of what they wanted going into this.
You were doing good until....
Fisher deserves exactly what he’ll get. Supremo sleazeball on and off the court.
50 game season looks like a reach.
by Finkelskyhook on Oct 11, 2011 2:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Eh, it's not totally nuts
Imagine going up to your employee, a guy on whom you depend for making all your money. You hold a gun to his head and say, “Work harder and make me more money.” He then pulls out a gun and holds it to his own head and says he’ll shoot if you don’t back off. Yes, he has more to lose than you. But you’ll still lose plenty if he shoots himself.
The point is that yes, the owners seem to have a stronger bargaining position. But if the players aren’t willing to undergo any pain, then they have no bargaining position at all … they can only beg. But if they make a credible demonstration that they are willing to do something that would hurt the owners — even if it seems to be against their own self interest — then suddenly they have a bargaining position. If the players are willing to have games canceled if the owners don’t meet their price, then suddenly owners who are struggling to get by, who still have to make interest payments on their franchises, and who now won’t have any revenues from gate receipts or the tv contract, might start to get a bit nervous. The players might be crazy, but it could turn out that appearing to act crazy is actually the sanest thing they can do.
Furthermore, the owners are locked into owning these franchises, and these franchises will suffer greatly if the public finds that there’s plenty of other stuff to do instead of watching NBA games.
I don’t know about current public opinion but I doubt informed folks would think its reasonable for the owners to think the players would easily accept a cut from 57% to 47%..50/50 probably does make sense but again going from 57 to 50 is tough to swallow.
I don’t know how Stern wins the pr contest. Folks who don’t care much about the NBA but are sports fans, hate him. Folks who care about the NBA, hate him. He is a pompous jerk and everyone seems to know it
The other thing is
public opinion really doesn’t matter. There’s no election. Either side (or both) could have an incredibly unpopular position and I don’t see how it affects the negotiations one bit. Sure, it’s nice to feel like the public doesn’t hate you. But how does it affect the economics of the situation?
How.
If fans tune out, turn on to other things.
"Celtics bring order and structure to a chaotic world"
I would argue that no one’s going to miss the product till about Christmas time. I honestly don’t think the NBA has anywhere near the # of passionate fans that the NFL has. Plus it competes with too many other sports during the course of its season, unlike say baseball.
Plus the fans came back in 98 and they came back to the NHL after their last stoppage. Stern’s looking for a knockout punch here….so I think this is going to drag on. The owners hold most of the cards and they know it. And it’s has been the case all along. When the majority of players finally start to realize this, it will get solved but not until then.
I’d say late January……
I couldn’t be more happy than if they cancelled the WHOLE season, then again next year then again the next year…. you see, I want a hard cap and I want no guaranteed contracts. I want to watch players play their arses off like there’s no tomorrow and I want every city with a team to have a chance at the title.
Stern and his owners are damaging the league
Is it the players fault that owners have been giving huge
salaries to medicore players? No one made the owners
sign guys like Curry, Ben Gordan, Rashad Lewis, Baron Davis, etc.
to huge contracts.
David Stern has become such a joke that a NBA GM openly talks of a
fixed lottery to the media. Stern needs to go and the league needs
new officials to restore credibility back to the NBA.
Another good move would be a review of Comrade Owner and his business
interests. There is something fishy about that dude.
" No one made the owners sign guys like Curry, Ben Gordan, Rashad Lewis, Baron Davis, etc.
to huge contracts." Unfortunately, owners wont take responsibility for spending sprees in the pursuit of glory (and glory is not a business). As for the players, so they still think its the 90s?
What’s sad to me is players in the twilight of their careers not having another go because of this foolishness.
"Celtics bring order and structure to a chaotic world"
It's going to be hard being a fan
with Stern as Commissioner. I might just check out until he’s gone. If they magically get a 70 or 60 game season in, I might back off that (I have thought for a while now that a shorter season would be better for the players and the game itself) — but I don’t really see that happening now.
I feel like asking @celtics: why should I care about the NBA anymore? Not to be too dramatic, but I honestly can’t think of a good answer at this moment.
I can’t feel sorry for either side, but the owners are asking for unreasonable concessions. How can we voice our displeasure to Wyc? Someone has to put pressure on them to speed this process up. Doubt we fans can do much, but I’ll support any ideas people might have.
My winter will be very bleak without games to watch. Seriously, it’s already affecting me…
Asking for unreasonable concessions?
Are you aware of how many concessions the owners gave? They back down from the hard cap and contracts and went from wanting to give the players 46 percent of the revenue to 50 percent and yet there the ones that are unrwasonable because they want it split 50/50? Players got to give in as well since the owners made some concessions.
Pittsburgh Sports: Creating sports history and legends since 1887.
by Bradley James McEachern on Oct 12, 2011 12:37 AM EDT up reply actions
Players are making ALL the concessions
In the last CBA, they made 57% of revenues. Whatever deal is reached, it will pay players below 57%. The owners haven’t conceded a single thing besides the ridiculous demands they started off with. It’s like if the players had started off with ridiculous demands like “Every contract should be guaranteed for a minimum of 8 years” and “Players get 75% of BRI” and then agreed to take 56% of BRI and gave up on the demand that all contracts be guaranteed for a minimum of 8 years — and then you said that the players are making all the concessions.
Again, whatever deal is reached will involve concessions from only the players relative to the last CBA.
Well the players getting 57 percent of the revenue
Too much money for them to be making. The owners regardless of what you said has been making all the concessions. They backed down on a hard cap, contracts and went from wanting to give the players 46 percent of the revenue to 50 percent. Those are very big concessions, espically with the hard cap. It’s time for the players to come down to earth and be reasonable. That will happen once we get deeper into the lockout and the players start missing paychecks.
Pittsburgh Sports: Creating sports history and legends since 1887.
by Bradley James McEachern on Oct 12, 2011 2:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Except no
The owners started off with an absurd list of demands. The players started off with a reasonable list. Just because the owners have moved somewhat from their initial position doesn’t change the fact that the players initial position involved only concessions relative to the last CBA.
And you don’t provide any evidence that 57% is too much. The owners collectively lost money in 1 season. 1. In a ridiculously abnormally bad business climate. With a new TV contract on the horizon so that their losses are unlikely to be repeated. What other business has a guarantee that it will never ever lose money? The NBA is profitable every year to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars (not counting the large increase in franchise values year by year) and they had one year where they might have lost $300M (and others question that accounting) so 57% is therefore automatically too high? It might be, but you haven’t provided any evidence that it is, and so I’m not convinced.
I don't think the owners were too unreaonable
A hard cap wasn’t unreasonable, espically with how many teams were losing money. no gareenteed contracts was something unreasonavle in my opinion. In time the owners were the ones that backed away from those demands such as a hard cap (which was supposed to be a blood issue) and contracts and how the BRI is divided. It’s the players who are unreasonable because their too stubborn to be reasonable. 57 percent is too much for one side to make, espically when most of the league the players are getting revenue in the high 50’s.
Pittsburgh Sports: Creating sports history and legends since 1887.
by Bradley James McEachern on Oct 12, 2011 8:14 PM EDT up reply actions
A hard cap makes more teams lose money
If the Lakers and Knicks can go way above the cap, then the small market owners can pay less for the league to meet its BRI requirement. A hard cap prevents the Lakers and Knicks from paying more and therefore requires the small market owners — the ones who claim they’re losing all this money — to pay more.
And about guaranteed contracts — no one’s forcing the owners to give guaranteed contracts now. But it would be strange to have a rule preventing guaranteed contracts.
The owners have been profitable by hundreds of millions of dollars every year while giving the players 57% of basketball related income. They had one down year, and they suddenly claim the system is “broken.” Over the last 3 years, they’ve made over a hundred million dollars. If they’re suddenly losing money while paying the players the same percentage as they’ve always paid, then it’s not as a result of skyrocketing player costs.
I see no reason why the owners wouldn’t continue to be wildly profitable in almost every season if they continued to pay the players 57% of BRI. The players generate 95% of the value; it seems reasonable that they get over half the revenue.
Hey i'm not saying the hard cap was the solution
Yes the NFL has it, but the main reason why it works there because of thair robust revenue sharing program that have.
I don’t find it pretty reasonable for the players to get close to 60 percent of the revenue. I like it how most of the leagues have he where the players end is in the high 50’s.
Pittsburgh Sports: Creating sports history and legends since 1887.
by Bradley James McEachern on Oct 13, 2011 1:06 AM EDT up reply actions
But the NBA WAS in the high 50s
What’s the difference between “the high 50s” and “close to 60”? Doesn’t 57% count as both?
23 NBA teams lost money last year....
Either the players come to their senses {assuming they have any}…or kiss the NBA goodbye forever!
First of all, the statement that 22 teams are losing money is heavily contested. Larry Coon had a great piece which shows how a team such as the Nets can claim to be in trouble financially when in reality they may not be.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=coon_larry&page=NBAFinancials-110630
Second of all, one could make the argument that teams are losing money purely because of their own stupidity in giving out enormous, unwarranted contracts (Rashard Lewis, Amir Johnson etc).
The situation the NBA is facing isn’t entirely the player’s fault. It isn’t entirely the owner’s fault either. It’s simply two sides who have differing opinions on how best to secure the financial future of the NBA and can’t come to an agreement. Unfortunately it’s fans like us who have to suffer because of it.
by IsItTheShoes on Oct 11, 2011 9:37 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Doesn`t matter whose at fault....
These owners are determined to overturn the last collective bargaining agreement, which has simply not worked out for them.
Fault is not the issue. The issue is that no sport is sustainable if 75% of the teams are bleeding cash.
Billionaires can outlast Millionaires…especially when the Millionaires have short careers.
The players have to asked themselves : Do we want to be “right” or “employed”?
Too Big To Fail. Bring it to Congress. They’ll work it our.
HAHAHAHA
by johnnymost on Oct 12, 2011 8:44 AM EDT via iPhone app reply actions
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