Whether David Stern and the owners intended to let the NBA lockout kill off the start of the season or not, they have. Get used to it. The new sports landscape has no room for fairness and little concern for fans.
Nov 1, 2011 - It's November 1, and that means it would be time for basketball if it weren't still time for the NBA lockout. The league had a beautiful little match-up -- the NBA champ Dallas Mavericks hosting the powerful Chicago Bulls -- scheduled. It's gone down the tubes. TNT will offer something like Charmed instead. I might watch it, praying for Charles Barkley to pop up over Rose McGowan's shoulder.
If you believe Billy Hunter, the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, it was always going to come to this, the owners always intended to chop off the front end of the regular season to ensure that players missed a paycheck and felt real pain. The season itself was the owners' greatest bargaining tool. (You'll remember that the owners wouldn't meet with the players' union in July, met once in early August -- just preceding a federal lawsuit -- and didn't get started negotiating in earnest until September.)
The lockout battle has never been about fairness, something experienced labor issue reporters have consistently maintained. Who cares if it isn't fair that David Stern can wield a calendar like a club? Who cares that it isn't fair that the union has agreed to an 8 percent paycut, but the owners are pushing for more? Who cares that it isn't fair that cities who built arenas for these teams are left holding the bag as owners hold the league hostage for extra concessions?
None of it's fair, but neither is business. This is the game that these owners -- most of them, at least -- are good at. Do you think that Paul Allen doesn't know a thing or two about holding an ax over someone's neck? Of course he does. Do you think that Dan Gilbert earned his fortune by being fair in business deals? Of course he didn't. Big business, big finance -- these are brutal, dog-eat-dog industries where fairness and integrity is something like No. 99 on the list of institutional priorities. With the sort of assets that are typically at stake, there's no time for morality checks.
We think the NBA ought to be different, because we as fans drive the business. We literally pay to see Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin. The fact that we show up in droves at arenas allows the players to make phenomenal salaries. The fact that we turn on the TV to the regional sports network or TNT or ESPN allows the NBA and its team to negotiate ever increasing contracts. We buy the jerseys. We buy the snapbacks. And our patronage is based completely on loyalty and speculative investment. We buy Kings' season tickets because we know they'll be hot once Tyreke Evans regains form and DeMarcus Cousins improves. We buy Russell Westbrook jerseys because we know we'll be wearing it for years. We put out a few hundred bucks for NBA League Pass at the start of the season because we know we can't last until the holiday sale.
But fairness to us, the customers, has no place in the discussion. Fairness would mean that instead of arguing over the luxury tax, owners and players would be working to boost revenue sources so loyal customers didn't have to bear a larger burden. (You can stop laughing now.) The Knicks had a winning season for the first time in a decade, and raised ticket prices 49 percent. Fairness has nothing to do with this.
In fact, in the grand scheme of modern business practices, the owners would not have been doing their job if they'd cut a deal before killing games. This isn't the NFL, where every single game mints money for everyone involved, including the owners. In the NBA, not all teams make money, even if the owners get their most recent proposal through. Too many NBA owners are over-leveraged, the arena situation remains a big issue in a number of markets and the disastrously small national TV contract that the league is working under -- it's like a rookie scale for sports leagues -- is a severe kink in the revenue firehose. (As we've noted many times this summer and fall: the NBA took in $900 million for its national TV package last year. The networks -- TNT, ESPN and ABC -- turned around and sold their NBA inventory for $1.2 billion. The NBA missed about $300 million last year under this contract. The NBA claims to have lost $300 million last year. Guh.)
Until losing an NBA game is as painful to NBA owners as losing an NFL game is to NFL owners, we'll see this brinkmanship, this stakes-raising bullying, this complete and utter dismissal of fairness. This is the default state of big business: sharks everywhere, all of the time. When sports leagues became massive businesses, this is what that entails. This is what we live with now. Whether in six years, or eight years, or 10 years, it will happen again. If you're disgusted enough to walk away now -- we won't blame you, who could? -- you might want to stay away. This sort of negotiating tactic is a feature for owners, not a bug.
So we're left here, watching the trebuchet load up another rock aimed at the month of December. I imagine that November will be a lot like October was: brief periods of hope squelched by swift, realist kicks to the head. I don't know if Billy Hunter is right, that the owners had pre-ordained a shortened season to get what they want. But it sure feels like he's right, and it feels like this won't be the last time we sit on the sidelines on opening day, our heads in our hands wondering when we'll get our game back.
The Hook runs Monday through Friday. See the archives.
4 comments
5
Nov 28
3
Nov 27
Comments
This is very well-written, nice work.
by Billy Frijoles on Nov 1, 2011 1:57 PM EDT reply actions
Also - the only way the players will have any leverage is if they actually work on creating a new league or they all sign contracts in Europe
The best-case scenario is that some investors throw down some cash, biggest players buy in as well, and then launch a league immediately. Refuse to come back to work the entire season. Even if the league loses money they will have gained leverage of incalculable value. And the fans still get to watch their favorite players. However this is pretty impossible.
A middle case is if players start signing contracts to play in Europe that don’t let them jump ship if the lockout is resolved. All we need is for Kobe, Lebron, Wade, Durant, and a few other major stars to sign such deals. European fans would be treated to the greatest basketball they’ll ever see. Lesser players will follow the stars to Europe. European teams will be happy to sign them, they will make more money than they ever have before. The stars will have lucrative endorsements with European companies to help offset the lower salary.
And even if a deal gets pulled off to play a 50 games season, nobody will watch the NBA games without the stars. They will crush the owners.
It takes some balls to sign a binding contract to play in Europe. But this is easy to do logistically, it only takes a few calls to teams to bid on a player, then sign away.
The best thing the players can do for leverage is not care as much about the NBA and find other ways to make money.
by Billy Frijoles on Nov 1, 2011 2:13 PM EDT reply actions
Europe is less of an option now
Their season has already started, and they don’t really like being the backup plan. But if players do have it in their contracts that they can’t bail, maybe that could help out getting signed over there.
Sanka....you dead? Ya Man
by prowseinthehouse on Nov 1, 2011 2:30 PM EDT up reply actions
That is a good point
but I have to believe that yes, if there was a guarantee, any team/league would take an NBA star for 1/2 a season. If they could bail next week, maybe not.
by Billy Frijoles on Nov 1, 2011 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed