Get to know an NBA owner!

[r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t]

This article claims to represent the "bargaining position of each NBA owner":

https://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/31683/nba-owners-bargaining-positions

Here is the alleged position of each owner that has been profiled in this thread:

Hawk:

• Grousbeck (Celtics)
• Kroenke (Nuggets)
• Kohl (Bucks)
• Holt (Spurs)
• Miller (Jazz)
• Leonsis (Wizards)

Dove:

• Arison (Heat)
• Prokhorov (Nets)
• McClendon (Thunder)
• DeVos (Magic)

Besides Kroenke, the "Hawk" list looks a bit light in the wallet to me. The "Doves" are all loaded.

 

[Sneakers]

So what's your exact take on the negotiations then? Clearly you're anti-owners, but what concessions should they make? ... how should the deal turn out.

 

[r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t]

So what's your exact take on the negotiations then? Clearly you're anti-owners, but what concessions should they make? ... how should the deal turn out.

I'm not anti- (or pro-) owners, or players. I do think the knee-jerk public support of the owners is ridiculous. These guys are a joke. Six of the ten profiled in this thread essentially inherited their wealth. Kroenke married his. Prokhorov and DeVos are scammers, and McClendon probably is too.

I guess my "take" would be that this is simply a case of ownership using leverage to extract money from the players, thus improving their bottom-line a bit. What can the players do? The owners see the opportunity to make another buck, and they're taking it. Like Hot Rod used to say, it is "like shooting fish in a barrel".

 

[NUMBERICA]

So what's your exact take on the negotiations then? Clearly you're anti-owners, but what concessions should they make? ... how should the deal turn out.

What concessions should the owners make? I haven't seen anything to suggest they they have offered any, will offer any, or that anyone thinks they might offer any. They've somehow done a great job convincing a large chunk of people that they're giving players concessions by demanding fewer things but still giving nothing previous to the OWNERS locking out THE PLAYERS.

Let's try to remember that last part.

 

[My2Cents]

GOP-ers/Tea-partiers/whoever those of you are that see nothing wrong with "taking advantage of legal loopholes":

How do you feel about teams using (see also: demanding) public money to build their stadiums on top of their need to pad their profit margins by skirting taxes to people with less money? All good? Let them do what they want?

The players that earn nearly all of the revenue for the teams and wanting (marginally) more than half of that are such slimy, greedy jerks.

I'll be sitting here waving my little american flag.

It depends on how you define legal loophole. I don't have a problem, for instance, with a real estate developer or manufacturer accepting freely given government incentives to locate a business enterprise in a city or state. Those businesses contribute to the tax base and create jobs. Incentives like this are common practice regardless of which party the business supports. Do you think it's just Republicans who take advantage of "loopholes"?

I've never been a big fan of teams using public money to build arenas or stadiums but each city has to weigh the cost benefit. In the case of the Amway Center, I think the building is owned and operated by the city so they derive revenue from it's operation and tax dollars from increased business activity that results from the team playing in Orlando. If DeVos contributed 50 million it was to the City's project because according to Forbes he doesn't own the building. Amway also bought the naming rights for 40 million.

I think the players deserve every penny possible from a viable business model. I haven't seen anyone's books, and don't have any idea how much the owners are actually losing, but I don't think the owners should have to subsidize the league. I don't care how rich they are, they should at least be able to break even. I don't think the fact that they are wealthy is a good argument for why they should lose money. The players are wealthy too. And if their hard cap motives are pure, I would love to be able to compete for a championship once in a while.

 

[NUMBERICA]

Again, we don't know how much money has been lost NET as a WHOLE. The NBA salary cap has gone up every year, including these doom and gloom years where owners are losing 19 quadrillion dollars (TM). How does that happen? It looks to me like the owners want the players to give back for crappy management that the teams have been running. If it were the other way around, players would be on strike because they didn't know how to use their own money. To my knowledge and despite players as a whole being morons with their money, that hasn't happened.

And that's besides that the disparity in income is based on little else besides a franchise's geographic location. Revenue sharing fixes a whole lot of this boobing by those poor, poor owners. Well, except for the poor, poor owners that are making the most and don't want to share (but should, since everyone shares in the product of the league anyway).

I'm getting on a tangent again. The heart of my point is that it makes no sense for the cap to keep going up (as it's based on total income) simultaneous to a supposed sudden era of losses for owners. If the owners want to prove how they're losing one entire ***-cheek, they can release their ledgers for examination. Their actual ledgers. The ones that show what they're claiming for asset amortization and all of that fun, slimy crap.

 

[GVC]

I think the players deserve every penny possible from a viable business model. I haven't seen anyone's books, and don't have any idea how much the owners are actually losing, but I don't think the owners should have to subsidize the league. I don't care how rich they are, they should at least be able to break even. I don't think the fact that they are wealthy is a good argument for why they should lose money. The players are wealthy too. And if their hard cap motives are pure, I would love to be able to compete for a championship once in a while.

Absolutely.

I can't speak for rustbucket, but my big gripe is the one-sided coverage these negotiations are getting. As stated so well in the other thread by kicky, there's been little talk of the owners losing out if the two sides don't come to an agreement. Why is that? There's been little talk of increased revenue sharing as a viable solution. Why? Everyone seems to be focusing on the owners' talking points, and it's hard to have an intelligent and fair conversation when one side isn't given a fair shake. Maybe this is a sign that the players need better representation.

 

[r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t]

I'm especially excited to introduce to you our next NBA owner. The owner of the New Orleans Hornets is The NBA. The NBA is unique among owners, since it is not a human being, nor an entity representing a group of human beings. The NBA is simply "the league". The NBA has an estimated net worth of at least $10 billion, which means it is just the third most wealthy of all the owners. Much of The NBA's riches were accrued during the 80's when it was able to negotiate network and cable television contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The NBA has also been able to acquire public financing for new arenas for nearly every team, thus increasing the value of its franchises by billions of dollars. The NBA moved teams away from cities that wouldn't agree to its terms (Charlotte and Seattle). The commissioner of The NBA is David Stern. It is unknown exactly how much compensation Mister Stern receives. Many of the team owners reportedly do not know. It has been speculated in the media that Stern's annual compensation is somewhere between $10 and $23 million.

 

[r_u_s_t_b_u_c_k_e_t]

... they should at least be able to break even...

They "should" have been able to make money under the previous arrangement. They could have. They ran their teams like idiots, and did or maybe did not break even. The lockout and subsequent "negotiation" of a new CBA is their solution to this/their problem.

 

[idiot]

They "should" have been able to make money under the previous arrangement. They could have. They ran their teams like idiots, and did or maybe did not break even. The lockout and subsequent "negotiation" of a new CBA is their solution to this/their problem.

I like your series here and agree that it's pertinent to know that owners are masters in getting others to foot the bill and or/bullying their way into a bigger payday. But this quote is where I break ranks with you. The players' line is that the reason some teams aren't doing so well is that they're not being run smartly. While that may be true for some, that's just too easy of an excuse and ignores the real competitive balance problems that exists in the NBA system. The reason teams are overspending is in large measure because they can't be competitive without it. Other than outspending your opponent, almost the only thing you can do in today's NBA to create a winner is luck into a loyal superstar draft pick (Durant, Duncan, Dirk, Stockton, Malone) or be a high destination glamour city (and usually some combination of the two works best).

I'd like to see the players get paid a good portion, even 57%, if as Numberica implies the net income of the NBA makes that feasible. But the one thing the players seem to be standing for above all else is the current system in which teams have little choice other than to drive the market up for marginal stars in hopes the team will luck out and the players turn into authentic stars. When Carmelo and Wade give interviews complaining that the fans don't really understand the players' position, but also essentially saying that fans shouldn't expect all teams to have a good chance to be competitive, it's hard to have sympathy for them. Their "blood issue" isn't money, it's the cap on individual team spending. Why? It just sounds like the players are digging in most strongly over their "right" to create super-teams in glamour cities.

Is there not some solution in which competitive balance could be addressed while also ensuring the players get a healthy chunk of the earnings?

 

[GVC]

Revenue sharing and a sliding scale for players' revenue share based on total revenue should be on the table, just like in the NHL model. If the CBA changes drastically in favor of the owners, and the economy magically goes into boom mode (...), the owners (especially the big market owners) will be laughing all the way to the bank (you know, like they did in the 80s and 90s).

 

[NUMBERICA]

A punitive LT or flex cap helps too. I also think the mid-level is a little out of control (it seems to be the bastion for contract-year phenoms that either normally aren't very good, or are on their way out and trying to get every penny they can before they crap out [Posey]). I also think something resembling a franchise-tag is pretty damn important since we've seen what happens when a Lebron James ups and leaves (not to mention the forced-hand deals the Nuggets and [to a lesser degree] the Jazz [felt] they had to make to prevent such a catastrophe).

In placing such restrictions on free agency and the longevity of deals, I think allowing the players to make the share they've been making is AT LEAST fair. One of the bigger problems I have with the owners stance is that it's SO predicated on finances and not on parity/system issues, besides that I don't buy their cooked-book numbers for a lot of reasons. There are so many system issues to tackle, and the storyline I keep hearing is "GAAAHH WE'RE ****ING BROKE GUYS!! GIMME!!!!"