The NBA lockout has claimed its first victim, and it comes at the expense of the first two weeks of the upcoming basketball season. The news that broke Monday night was inevitable. Both sides — players and owners — are nowhere near an agreement. A lot of money is at stake for both sides, as well as the loyalty of the NBA fan base.
The owners are fighting for the players to take a pay cut, and after the NBA lost $300 million last year and 22 of the 30 teams didn’t break even, it’s easy to see why. The owners want to make a significant cut to the players 57 percent shared revenue they had in the last deal, but the players won’t budge on anything less than 53 percent.
If something isn’t done soon, there is a good chance there won’t be an NBA season this year. Players will miss out on paychecks unless they decide to play overseas, owners will miss out on revenue from home games and television networks like ESPN and TNT will miss out on the money they make from broadcasting the games. Also, NBA fans will have to suffer through a year without professional basketball.
The NBA lockout situation is a little different than the recent NFL lockout. Instead of the players demanding more from the owners like in the NFL, the NBA owners are demanding more from the players. Also, the players have much less leverage in the NBA lockout.
This is because there isn’t a real threat to the owners if there isn’t a season. Missing a full season of basketball is more detrimental to the players rather than the owners. While the owners will lose exponentially more money compared to the players, once the lockout is over they can make it back in the following seasons.
For the players, however, there are only so many years they can play the game before their body begins to breakdown. This means the players have a shorter amount of time to make their money. Missing one season, especially for the players in their prime, will cost them a lot of cash.
Another reason why missing a season won’t hurt the owners is because they don’t have to worry about losing their fans. As much as fans say they won’t return after a lockout, they always do. It doesn’t even feel like the NFL was locked out this year. In most cases, fans are more eager to get back to the game because they’ve missed it so much. Once the lockout is over, the owners will still be able to fill stadium seats with their numerous fans
If the players really wanted to stick it to the owners they should have went on strike during the middle of last season. The players knew the lockout was coming this off-season as many began saving their money before the season started. If they had gone on strike before the playoffs, all the money the owners had invested in the playoffs would have been for nothing. The owners would have lost out on a lot of revenue.
As it looks right now, there is no end in sight for the NBA lockout. Both sides are not seeing eye to eye and neither are as eager as the NFL to have a season this year.
With many players deciding to go to Europe to play, and some deciding to go on popular reality shows like Dancing with the Stars — namely Ron Artest — NBA fans will just have to wait to see the return of professional basketball.
Once baseball season is over, there won’t be any sports on television during the week for a while. Except for hockey, which may be the only benefiter of the NBA lockout.
Chase Doerr is a senior journalism major and contributing writer for the Daily 49er.
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