On October 4 the NBA cancelled the remainder of the preseason. Leaving the rest of the regular season at major risk of falling through. Here is a recap of what’s been going on in this NBA lockout, the major issues and why fans may not see a season at all this year.
Listen, I am a basketball spectator. I have yelled profanities at my television over missed jump shots and have gotten into yelling matches with fans of opposing teams. And though I am a proud lover of the game, I confess that I didn’t really know the details behind what was causing this.
Honestly, I didn’t take it seriously because I figured a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) would have been settled by now between the owners and the labor union for professional basketball players (NBPA).
(A CBA is the set of rules by which the league and the teams have to operate.)
The Background
The last major lockout was in the 1998-99 season. The season was cut down to 50 games but a new CBA was created that expired in 2005. But unlike the current lockout, negotiations in 2005 went smoothly.
The Issues
- Basketball Related Income (BRI)
A major issue is the percentage agreement between the NBA and the NBPA over the BRI.
The BRI is all of the revenue generated by the NBA, NBA Properties or NBA Media ventures—from ticket sales, media deals, advertising, parking, sponsorships, and more. Every NBA player earns a portion of this depending on the agreement set in the CBA.
The split has teetered between 47-percent and 53-percent, with each proposal being rejected by either the players or the owners.
- Revenue Sharing
The NBA currently doesn’t have revenue sharing in place. Revenue sharing is used to improve competitive balance between teams in smaller markets from teams in larger revenue streams.
This is meant to be a safety system to avoid the ongoing complaints found in sports like baseball where the same teams win the championship because they have the monetary means to hoard the best athletes.
The correlation between salaries and victories is low in the NBA, as opposed to baseball where you find that the higher the salaries the more successful the team.
- Salary Caps: Hard or Soft
A salary cap is the limit set for what teams can offer players in new signing contracts. Currently a soft cap is in place, this means that there are exceptions that allow teams to exceed the cap depending on the circumstance.
A hard salary cap would mean that teams would have to commit to the set salary cap.
With preseason cancelled, $200M dollars has already been lost. And it is being rumored that if the teams don’t come to an agreement by Monday, then the first two weeks of the NBA season will also be cancelled.
Derek Fisher Leads NBA Labor Negotiations for the 2011 NBA Lockout.
What do you think the solution should be here? Some agents are actually recommending decertification, which would mean abandoning the basketball labor union altogether.
In my opinion the obvious solution is for both sides to learn some humility and stop being so greedy, if not for anything, then at least for the fans who year in and year out support this franchise.
In the meantime players are looking to European teams for contracts until the lockout is settled.
How dire do you think the future of the NBA is?
If the owners and players ever manage to get it together and negotiate a CBA, the best place to get cheap tickets for the best seats is Dynamic. Let’s all hope a compromise is found sooner than later!