NBA 2012......Maybe

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by Chip R

Stern's full of crap. Why can't they extend the season a month or so? They play inside so that weather won't be an issue.

They already play into June as it is... extending the season into July probably would have a very ugly impact on ratings. It's hard enough to grab ratings in the summer, but pushing it even further into the summer would be difficult.

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by Brutus the Pimp

They already play into June as it is... extending the season into July probably would have a very ugly impact on ratings. It's hard enough to grab ratings in the summer, but pushing it even further into the summer would be difficult.

So what? All there is in the summer is baseball.

[Danny Serafini]

Basketball at the Olympics starts at the end of July. The players will want some sort of break before that.

[improbus]

Originally Posted by Yachtzee

I think the underlying reason for this is fallout from the shenanigans pulled by Lebron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade. Small market teams benefit from an NFL-style system not just from keeping a ceiling on salaries, but also by prevent top talent from gravitating toward large markets. Success in the NFL is determined more by football acumen than by market-size. Green Bay and Indy wouldn't have teams, let alone successful ones, if the NFL was like the NBA or MLB. But because the NFL system keeps talent spread across markets, small markets can thrive and be profitable.

The LeBron move has been happening for years. Shaq did it in the 90's and Kareem did it in the 70's. Moving from a small market to large market is nothing new in basketball (or any other sport for that matter).

It is unfair to compare the NFL and NBA's revenue system because they are very different. The NFL makes all of its money from TV, which they are able to run from the top because they play so many games at TV friendly times. The NBA (and MLB for that matter) have relatively small national TV deals, but they have larger local cable deals. This probably won't change because the big networks aren't going to want to pay for the rights to a Tuesday night Bucks vs. Raptors game. So, revenue sharing is not really possible on the NFL's scale.

BTW, does anyone else find it ironic in an era of attacking big federal government and federal welfare that the NFL, our most nation's most socialist organization, is also its shining model of prosperity? We really are an interesting and bizarre country.

[Yachtzee]

Originally Posted by improbus

The LeBron move has been happening for years. Shaq did it in the 90's and Kareem did it in the 70's. Moving from a small market to large market is nothing new in basketball (or any other sport for that matter).

It is unfair to compare the NFL and NBA's revenue system because they are very different. The NFL makes all of its money from TV, which they are able to run from the top because they play so many games at TV friendly times. The NBA (and MLB for that matter) have relatively small national TV deals, but they have larger local cable deals. This probably won't change because the big networks aren't going to want to pay for the rights to a Tuesday night Bucks vs. Raptors game. So, revenue sharing is not really possible on the NFL's scale.

BTW, does anyone else find it ironic in an era of attacking big federal government and federal welfare that the NFL, our most nation's most socialist organization, is also its shining model of prosperity? We really are an interesting and bizarre country.

It's not a socialist organization. Let's just stop throwing the word "socialist" out there in a context where it has absolutely no connection. Socialism is purely political in nature and has no real application in a purely business-oriented industry. For the NFL to be socialist, it would have to be a government-run enterprise with management either elected by the populace or appointed by the political regime.

If you want a word that more closely fits the description of the NFL, and other professional sports leagues for that matter, is a cartel. It is a group of like-minded businessmen who individually own businesses in a particular industry who agree to work together for their mutual benefit in order to ensure a stable market for their product. Every sports league is the same. They have rules that limit who may enter the league and where they may place their reams. They set a joint schedule for competition and decide the rules that govern the competition the field. They limit how, when and where teams can solicit players to play for their teams. In fact, sports teams are not even considered independent businesses, but rather "franchises" granted by the league, subject to approval by other owners. It's similar to the way industries like oil, gas, and railroads were run before the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust act and it is the reason why sports leagues have limited anti-trust exemptions necessary to conduct business.

If you look at leagues as cartels, the spectrum you judge leagues by would be strong v. weak cartel. And one end you would have a strong cartel with a high-degree of cooperation between owners. The other end of the spectrum would be an open market structure, where anyone with enough cash and a place to do business could start up a team, solicit players from anywhere, including players already under contract from other teams, and could set their own schedules based on who they think would bring in the most cash. This style of business environment would likely result in players jumping teams on a regular basis and owners being able to start an new team or move an existing team into any geographic market they saw fit. In fact, this open-market style sports league would probably best describe MLB under the National Association era and earlier, before the advent of the National League in 1876, or pro football before 1921 when a group of like-minded owners got together in Canton, OH to from what would become the NFL.

Because we look at sports as "competition" between teams, it's easy to lose site of the fact that no professional sports franchise truly in competition with the other franchises its league, but rather, each league is in competition with other forms of entertainment for the discretionary income of potential customers.

A socialist sports league would be something akin to the professional sports leagues of the Soviet Union, where teams were underwritten by trade unions and branches of the government rather than wealthy businessmen.

[texasdave]

The rubber is meeting the road.

The NBA players rejected the league's latest offer Monday and have begun the process to disband the union.The decision likely jeopardizes the season.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz1diDef7GJ

[HotCorner]

Well at least the last imagine from the NBA is still this ...

[Roy Tucker]

Pretty good column on how equally guilty the owners and the players are and how they will collectively regret getting to this point some day. I know it sums up my feelings. The NFL and MLB may be viewed as essential, but if the NBA thinks they also are, they are very sorely mistaken. The sports world will hardly skip a beat.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...2_a6&eref=sihp

For the NBA owners and players to shut down their league during the worst economic times in more than 60 years has got to be the dumbest thing they could imagine doing. At a time when so many businesses are fighting for every last dollar, the NBA players and owners are giving back money to their season-ticket holders -- their die-hard fans -- and saying we don't want it. Put that money back in your pockets for now, and when we decide to start playing again, think about whether we are worthy of your investment.

[texasdave]

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/N...CAR-UFC-111711

Sadly, there is a lot of truth to this. I hardly hear anyone bemoaning the lack of NBA games.

[jmac]

Originally Posted by texasdave

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/N...CAR-UFC-111711

Sadly, there is a lot of truth to this. I hardly hear anyone bemoaning the lack of NBA games.

Article nails it !

[texasdave]

NBA owners and players reached a tentative agreement early Saturday to end the 149-day lockout and hope to begin the delayed season on Christmas Day

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz1eoGIRnua

That wasn't so hard, now was it?

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by texasdave

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz1eoGIRnua

That wasn't so hard, now was it?

What amuses me is that the players were trying to gain leverage by decertifying, yet they reportedly wind up with the same 50-50 deal in this agreement that the owners were willing to agree to a month ago. Seems the owners got what they wanted lol

[George Foster]

If the players do not want to agree to a 50%-50% split...the heck with them. They do not own the team, they did not risk their money to buy and operate an NBA team. I think a 50%-50% split is crazy if you are an owner, but it beats the last agreement. The owners will survive with or without the NBA...what will the players do? What other jobs skills to they have?

Most over seas leagues have rules that limit the number of americans to 2 on each team...so 98% of them can't play over seas.

The players need to realize they are living a charmed life and take the money offered and run! Before the NBA as we know it does not exist anymore, which is a real possibility. I could see 6-8 teams go belly-up.

[IslandRed]

Originally Posted by George Foster

The owners will survive with or without the NBA...what will the players do? What other jobs skills to they have?

True enough. But let's be fair, the league couldn't exist without a demand for the product (admittedly, the demand exists at a lesser level than for the NFL and MLB) and the players are the product. If the current batch of NBA owners didn't provide it, someone else would. In the big picture, an individual owner is just as disposable as a player. If one leaves, someone else will buy the team; if they fold the league, someone will start a new league as long as people still want to watch the world's best players play.

Of course, the real risk of the NBA lockout was that NBA fans would get used to living without it.

[nmculbreth]

Originally Posted by George Foster

If the players do not want to agree to a 50%-50% split...the heck with them. They do not own the team, they did not risk their money to buy and operate an NBA team. I think a 50%-50% split is crazy if you are an owner, but it beats the last agreement. The owners will survive with or without the NBA...what will the players do? What other jobs skills to they have?

Most over seas leagues have rules that limit the number of americans to 2 on each team...so 98% of them can't play over seas.

The players need to realize they are living a charmed life and take the money offered and run! Before the NBA as we know it does not exist anymore, which is a real possibility. I could see 6-8 teams go belly-up.

I don't buy this argument.

First and foremost, exactly how much risk is their in owning an NBA franchise? With the exception of the past few years the value of NBA franchises has steadily increased and even at the height of the post-recession malaise the Golden State Warriors were sold for a record price of $450mil.

Were there some problems with the old CBA? Absolutely. That I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the argument that every NBA owner should expect to make a profit, regardless of how they run their franchise. If you're going to overpay for the franchise with borrowed money, sign mid-level players to awful contracts and do a bad job of promoting your product you should lose money.