I’ve been inspired to write again. This happens much too infrequently so savor this while you have it. Part of my inspiration comes from the devoted effort by the NBA owners and the players association to meet for three consecutive days with federal mediator George Cohen (who is not to be confused with Webster, Webster & Cohen of Cool Runnings Fame). Luckily for all of us NBA fans it has only taken the cancellation of the first 100 regular season games and the threat of the Christmas Day games for these sides to show some real effort. We can only hope that these two sides will come to their senses and find an agreement to share their billions. Here is what I hope to see as a result of these meetings:
1.) Increased Revenue Sharing
This will be the biggest move the owners can make toward long-term financial success for all teams. The NBA has said that up to 23 teams are losing money. Forbes estimates that number at 19. Either way, that’s ridiculous. There is no way any teams should be losing money. Share the pie, folks.
Now I’m sure some people will point fingers and call names saying that this is an injustice towards those teams that are doing well financially. Listen, the NBA does not work under normal market conditions. If it did, then we’d have eight teams in New York, six in L.A. and three in Chicago, because that is where the money is. We’d also have a huge influx of start-up teams. But, the NBA as a whole is a business and they make the rules. Teams aren’t allowed to just up and leave their city unless they have the blessing of the Commish (This is where we could rehash some of the Clay Bennett/Seattle Supersonics fiasco, but we won’t for the sake of time). If they could, I’m sure Jerry Colangelo would have never sold the Suns to that over-leveraged, under-loved Robert Sarver, and would have moved them to his hometown, Chicago. And don’t try and tell me that those teams are responsible for themselves and if they can’t hack it with the big boys then they should close up shop or sell to someone else. The NBA needs lots of teams. The big markets rely on the smaller markets too. You can’t have a five-team league of Boston, New York, Chicago, Dallas and LA. They all need each other.
According to The Nielsen Company, Phoenix has the twelfth largest TV market. That sounds pretty good, that means we’re in the top half and moving up. But wait, even as the twelfth largest TV market in the country Phoenix is still four times smaller than New York, and three times smaller than Los Angeles with over 7.5 million and 5.6 million TV homes respectively. Phoenix comes in at 1.8 million and that market stretches all the way to Prescott! And that doesn’t even mention the marketing advantage the big cities have. Arizona has seven Fortune 500 companies. New York has 57. Illinois has 31. California has 53. Now remember, this is only in comparison to Phoenix, which is nearly in the top third of largest NBA markets. Just think how Charlotte, Indiana and Utah stack up against these juggernauts. It’s clear they’re not because they are all losing money according to Forbes.
Okay, the biggest hurdle has now been cleared. The owners have agreed to share the majority of their revenues to secure the long-term financial viability of every team in the league.
2.) Revenue Split
I was watching a segment on the lockout on SportsCenter the other day with my 11-year old brother. He asked me why they were in a lockout. I explained that they couldn’t agree on a split of the Basketball Related Revenue. I explained that under the previous deal the players had gotten 57% and that now the owners were offering a 53-47 split in favor of the owners. My brother got a puzzled look on his face and asked disdainfully, “Why don’t they just split it 50-50?” I could only chuckle. It just made too much sense and would be far too easy. Can’t happen.
Despite the wisdom of my brother, I still think that if there is going to be anything other than a 50-50 split the larger portion needs to go to the players. They make the league. There really isn’t any arguing this either. If we completely scrapped the league and started over fresh with either 100% new owners or 100% new players, it’s pretty obvious which league would succeed. The owners are completely interchangeable with the next overly-rich-nerd-who-wants-to-show-how-cool-he-is guy. Owning an NBA team is not a business venture as much as it is a hobby for the uber-wealthy.
Whether its 50-50 or 53-47 in favor of the players, let’s just make it happen. Suck it up owners, we don’t watch basketball for you…well maybe a little for Mark Cuban.
3.) Salary cap
This shouldn’t be a hard one to figure out either, especially now that we have shared revenues. Set the cap at a friendly place for everyone, and make it just a little harder. We wouldn’t even need a luxury tax threshold. We just need to limit the Bird Rights to one per team, as Bill Simmons has suggested (And undoubtedly other people as well. I’m just too lazy to search for them. I’m not a real journalist; I don’t need to follow proper citation etiquette). This way teams can still keep their star player IF they create an environment that people want to play in, unlike a franchise tag that doesn’t give the player a choice, but it won’t allow the Lakers to make a sham trade for Pau Gasol and then give huge contracts to Kobe, Gasol, Odom and Bynum. If you re-signed a player whose contract you over the salary cap, you cannot add any further salaries unless you cut from someplace else. Which leads to the next item on my wish list.
4.) Guaranteed Contracts
This one is a little sticky for me. I tend to side with the players, if the owners gave you the contract, then they should stick with it. But, this is where some compromise comes into play. Owners want fully unguaranteed contracts to get out from underneath any poor decision they made or poor performance by a player following a big deal. Personally, I think that might be a bit too far. Let’s make it three-year max guarantee and anything after three years is unguaranteed. This way players can negotiate a front-loaded contract if they want the security right away and if they want a seven-year max deal, then they will just need to continue to earn that salary year-in and year-out. Under these circumstances teams cannot dump their entire roster to make a move on a few key free agents, and players cannot stuff their faces with cream puffs during the offseason. Shrewd front office moves will still be a necessity.
This is what I want to see. Will I see it? Probably not tomorrow. I just hope it happens sometime soon. Steve Nash and Grant Hill only have so many good years left.
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