Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
The NBA sent out a press release right around closing time on Friday alerting the world that the league did in fact have a great season, increasing total basketball-related income to $3.817 billion, a 4.8 percent bump. Included in the brief release were four bullet points, three of which are quite obviously written to help frame the NBA's pleas about suffocating losses due to (you guessed it) rising player salaries.
Those bullet points with some annotations are below.
Lines from the press release in bold. My annotations in normal fontface.
BRI increased by 4.8% from $3.643 billion in 2009-10 to $3.817 billion in 2010-11.
Awesomesauce. The league is healthy! Right ...?
Total player compensation also increased by 4.8% from $2.076 billion in 2009-10 to $2.176 billion in 2010-11.
Oh.
But wait, considering that the NBA's salary system -- as approved unanimously by owners in 1999 and again in 2005 -- ties player salary to revenue, this makes total sense. As revenues rise, salaries rise. If revenues dip, salaries dip. If revenues blast into a new, uncharted galaxy, salaries blast into a new, uncharted galaxy. The two, revenue and salaries, are coupled.
This marks the sixth consecutive season that player compensation increased under the expired CBA.
Oh. Well, cool! That makes total sense, considering that this also marks the sixth consecutive season that league revenue increased under the expired CBA.
Total player compensation equaled 57% of BRI.
... as it is designed to under the salary system, which means that -- bar the doors, Sally, this is a big one -- the salary cap is working as designed.
The average player salary for the 2010-11 season was $5.15 million.
What a load of money for "average" players!
Over the six-year term of the expired CBA, the average player salary increased by a total of 16%.
What a huge increase! A 16 percent raise over six years? That's more than 2.5 percent per year! Meanwhile, NBA league revenues have increased 20.2 percent over the six-year term of the expired CBA. Or 3.3 percent annually.
By the NBA's own numbers, revenues over this CBA grew faster than the average salary did. That bullet point is, unfortunately, missing from the NBA's release. Understandable, of course, as it hurts the NBA's case that player salaries and not self-imposed other expenses are to blame for the league's claimed losess.
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Proofreader on duty
I think you meant to repeat something differently there.
@CRZ
by CRZ on Jul 22, 2011 6:09 PM EDT reply actions
good post
The NBA and NFL are showing how poor their governance of themselves really is with all these low attempts at advertising their desired position as the collective good
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8252631/sports_2011.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150241904474064_17762525_10150242479294064
by central harlemite on Jul 22, 2011 9:39 PM EDT reply actions
Lockout Breakdown?
This is starting to look more and more like the owners are the bad guys. I don’t think the owners are necessarily bad, they make good points (partially guaranteed contracts, a hard cap) but aren’t exactly making those points look good (trying to drop players for nothing, making the hard cap lower than the current luxury cap). People are confused about who is good or bad in this lockout and this PR war is not helping.
For example, I feel like owners signing players for a lot of money isn’t their fault, but the players’. When you have to compete in a price war, you have to offer your most effective offer, which isn’t always the best for the team. The player has a lot of leverage if you want them. Hard caps and partially guaranteed contracts would put power back in the owner/GM’s hands, if implemented correctly.
On the other side, I feel the players just want to make sure they have job security even if they’re injured and the such. But at the expense of hurting the entire team on the court (being inactive) and off (salary cap) makes it frustrating for owners and fans.
I’ve followed you on what is now Sporting News by AOL when you were with @FreeDarko so I appreciate your work. Is their anyway you’ll post a lockdown breakdown so that everyone understands the stances of both sides and the good and bad to those stances? I’d love to see a breakdown that will allow people to choose sides based on the truth, not what the media twists it to look like.
by TheZen on Jul 23, 2011 5:22 AM EDT reply actions
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