The NBA Postponement Means Everyone Loses
By the time late-October rolls around basketball fans were probably expecting to see their favorite player get air, unfortunately this year basketball fans might have to wait a whole year, to see dunks, alley-oops, and over the back passes. At the end of last year the contract between the NBA’s player association and the NBA owners expired. This meant that the players and owners would have to get together during the offseason and renegotiate terms for a new contract.
The contract negations in the NBA mirrored those of the NFL’s. In both cases the NFL and NBA players and owners disagreed on the most important factor of any contract negotiation, money. Unlike the negotiations in the NFL, the talks between the players and owners have cut it extremely close4 to the deadline.
The breakdown between the players and owners occurred when the matter as to how to split the basketball related income (BRI). The previous contract between the owners and players had 57% of the BRI going to the players. This time owners wanted to have a more equal split of the pie. The owners came to this negotiation with an offer of 46%, which was huge gap from the original 57, which the players previously had. The offer the owners gave was to be expected, because much like any negotiation one party has to come to the table with more than they themselves are expecting. Once the owners brought the more reasonable offer of a 50/50 split of the BRI, the negotiations became more intriguing. While the owners changed their initial proposal, the players remained firm on their offer of 52-53 percent. Since then players have remained resolute on 53 %, despite the looming deadline of Oct.10 commissioner David Stern set, for when talks would have to be finalized. If the agreement of six-years is followed the difference between fans being able to watch an NBA season and not seeing one, boils down to $796 million. The question then becomes, “don’t the players end up losing more money if the season is cancelled?” mathematically the answer is an unquestionable “yes,” but is saving face worth more to the players than the money? The players’ stance on 53 % has remained so fervent, that if they were to agree to the owners 50%, it would show that they caved in fear of the cancellation of the season, and as we all know professional athletes aren’t the most modest of people on the planet.
Although the BRI has been a controversial part of the contract negotiations, other sources close to the talks have stated, that the BRI is only a fraction of the disputes between them. Another one of the large sticking points is the owners’ insistence on putting a hard cap on team salaries. In previous seasons the NBA had soft cap, a limit on the amount of money paid to players, which if not followed would result in “luxury tax” unless the player is already on the roster. Now owners want to quadruple the luxury tax in order to dissuade teams from growing over the cap, which would result in players having to resign at the same amount, if not a lesser amount. With so many problems between the two parties, the cancellation of the NBA season was to be expected.
With the postponement of the NBA a season becomes more probable with each passing day; NBA players are singing contracts with foreign teams. Another alternative that players are exploring during these contract talks are hosting or taking part in exhibition or “street” games. These games are fairly exciting for fans. Since many of these exhibition games take place in local, small courts, fans are able to interact with players more so than if they were to spend fifty to 100 bucks, to see them play a regular NBA game.
As the talks progress it is clear, that while money is the main problem both sides really have a different philosophical approach to these talks. The owners want to copy their big brother, the NFL’s contract structure. The NBA wants the ability to have small market teams like the Milwaukee Bucks and the Minnesota Timberwolves to be able to compete for a championship. The players on the other hand want their contract rates to stay intact, and who can blame them. All they want to do is pay off their four different Mercedes Benzes and their 20,000 sq. foot mansions. In the end the players that are going to be affected are not the Lebron’s, Durant’s, or Stoudemire’s, a good part of their income comes from shoe deals and chicken Mcnugget commercials. The players that are going to be hurt by this new contract would be the middle tier players, who are only able to be signed by teams, because of the soft cap. One thing is for sure, if both sides don’t settle the dispute soon, all three sides will lose the players, the owners, and most importantly the fans.
