Will the NBA become a 'fly over' league?
TUESDAY, 31 MAY 2011 14:28
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/will-the-nba-become-a-fly-over-league
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
The NBA Champion Final series is one of the National Basketball Association’s crown jewel events but behind the glitz and glamour of the competition is a real question that no one wants to discuss. Is the NBA in danger of becoming what Louisville lawyer and player agent Bruce Miller calls a fly over league?
A fly over league is a term that needs to be defined.
This seems to be the best definition. The NBA may become a league of just major cities with three teams in New York – Manhattan’s Knicks, Brooklyn’s Nets and a small market team moving to Newark. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has already told NBA Commissioner David Stern that Newark is open for NBA business as soon as the Nets franchise moves over to Brooklyn. New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek wants an NBA team in his Newark building. Three teams in the Los Angeles area, two teams in the San Francisco Bay Area
The Sacramento Kings owners, the Maloof brothers, have toyed with the idea of moving their franchise to Anaheim to give Los Angeles three teams, the Lakers and Clippers along with the proposed Anaheim Royals. Sacramento officials are scrambling to find hundreds of millions of dollars to build the Maloofs a new arena despite proposed layoffs of municipal workers along with the shut downs of public parks and scaling back of educational opportunities from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Anaheim doesn’t have an NBA team because city officials gave the lion’s share of the Anaheim arena revenues to the Walt Disney Company when Disney signed a deal to put a National Hockey League expansion team in the building. There weren’t enough revenues left over for Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling to move his team from the Los Angeles Sports Arena to Anaheim. That is why Anaheim lost an NBA team.
Priorities are priorities for a small market franchise that cannot keep up with the Knicks, Lakers and other large market teams.
National Basketball Association owners and players do not have a collective bargaining agreement after June 30th. The National Basketball Players Association has already filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming that NBA owners are not negotiating in good faith.
NBA owners want to roll back salaries and there is a claim that as many as 22 of the 30 franchises are losing copious amounts of money.
Newark officials want to replace the Nets. San Jose is looking for an NBA. The NBA owns the New Orleans Hornets franchise; Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl is not running for re-election and owns the Milwaukee Bucks, a franchise looking for a new facility. The Indiana Pacers franchise is heavily subsidized by local taxpayers in Indianapolis and surrounding areas. The very successful on court Oklahoma City Thunder franchise is also very heavily subsidized by Oklahoma City taxpayers.
That franchise was in Seattle until a few years ago when local elected officials decided not to build a new arena for the team. The then SuperSonics owners squeezed every last nickel they could out of Oklahoma City and state politicians.
This is the NBA today.
Miller is charge of an effort to bring the NBA to Louisville. The Kentucky market is small yet it is basketball crazy. The state has two “professional” basketball franchises already – the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville – but the city has not had a “big league” team since the American Basketball Association folded in 1976 and the Louisville Colonels owner John Y. Brown took some NBA cash and left the world of basketball.
Brown returned to pro basketball after in 1976 when he purchased a piece of the NBA’s Buffalo Braves.
Louisville started seeking an NBA franchise about 10 years ago but struck out in efforts to land George Shinn’s Charlotte Hornets, Michael Heisley’s Vancouver Grizzlies and Leslie Alexander’s Houston Rockets. Shinn moved his team to New Orleans (which is a financial disaster), Heisley went to Memphis (another fiscal problem) and Alexander stayed in Houston.
Miller isn’t doing a whole of lobbying for an NBA team at the moment. No one is going to sink $300 million into a small market team without knowing what the new Collective Bargaining Agreement looks like.
Could Louisville work? Under the right set of circumstances, yes. But it has to start with NBA owners increasing revenue sharing between the large market Knicks and Lakers and the ownerless New Orleans, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Indianapolis and other small market franchises.
Will the Knicks Jim Dolan and the Lakers Jim Buss (the Lakers scored a huge deal with Time Warner Cable to form a Lakers regional cable station in English and in Spanish starting in 2012) to share revenues? One of the major coups of Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s career was getting New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to give up some of his dollars in a revenue sharing scheme. Can David Stern, who really has never been very successful in twist the arms of Buss and Dolan to give up some of their dollars to help the smaller markets.
The NBA plans to manufacture what 2008 Republican Presidential candidate John McCain denounced. He claimed Barack Obama wanted to redistribute the wealth of the country.
NBA owners want a shift in wealth the in the business.
McCain, of course, was using a new campaign slogan but Stern and small market owners have been after a shift in wealth for four years now. Mainly the owners want to stop paying the playing enormous salaries over a long term commitment. A lot of players are not as productive as owners and general managers projected and a lot of contracts are bad investments on the court.
The National Basketball Players Association should not be in the business of protecting owners from a bad investment. The NBPA already gave the NBA owners a huge concession in the last go around for a CBA by agreeing to bar players just out of high school and high school graduates from applying for a job as a player in the league.
NBA Commissioner David Stern came up with flimsy excuses which included that he didn’t want to see NBA scouts at high school games. Does that clean up the high school game?
No.
The real reason Stern and his owners didn’t want 18-year-old out of high school players was simple. Why pay for research and development when you have a college willing to do just that? By getting a 19-year-old instead of an 18-year old, you have a more finished product and more importantly, a contract renewal comes at 22 or 23 years of age not 21 when a player still has a perceived upside.
Jermaine O’Neal was a total bust with Portland after getting millions from ownership as the 17th player picked in the 1996 draft. He cost Paul Allen a lot of money and did nothing for Allen’s Trail Blazers franchise. Allen though stuck with him and at 21 offered O’Neal a huge contract. O’Neal’s second contract was big but his playing time wasn’t and he languished costing Allen millions.
Portland traded him to Indiana where he flourished. Had O’Neal been in college, Allen would have invested his money in another player. Allen, under today’s CBA, would have been protected against a bad investment because O’Neal would not have come into the league at 18 and qualify for a new contract at 21. Players second contracts come at 22 or 23.
If the NBA owners don’t get rollbacks, Miller’s job of trying to get an NBA team in Louisville will be difficult. The league has not given up on New Orleans yet and is looking for a person who has an interest in keeping the team in New Orleans. The Sacramento arena deal has not been fully explained but the league is committed to remain there through spring 2012. Of course if the owners lock out the players and there is a long work stoppage, it doesn’t matter what will happen in New Orleans and Sacramento in 2011-12.
The new CBA may very well determine whether the NBA becomes a fly over league or not. Charlotte, Memphis, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Sacramento, Portland, Orlando, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Cleveland and Denver may become fly over cities in the NBA owners minds if they don’t get what they want in the new collective bargaining agreement. The players? They just want status quo.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, “The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition” is available at bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle.
Showing posts with label new orleans hornets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new orleans hornets. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
New Jersey might have shot at New Orleans Hornets when N.J. Nets move
WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY 2011 11:55
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/new-jersey-might-have-shot-at-new-orleans-hornets-when-nj-nets-move
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There was a rather interesting sports business interview on WWL Radio in New Orleans last week that occupied some of my time during the drive from New Orleans to Daphne, Alabama. Doug Thornton, who is SMG's senior vice president and de facto head of the New Orleans Superdome and New Orleans Arena, was talking about the $85 million publicly funded expansion of luxury seating at the Superdome (which is designed to put more money into New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson's pockets despite NFL owners claiming they need to reduce expenses and players salaries because they need to cut salaries and expenses — the NFL seems to be awash in money) and the future of the New Orleans Hornets and the NBA's need to find a new financial model so that New Orleans and other small markets can survive.
It is a conversation that you will never hear on the sports radio talk shows in New York or Philadelphia or read about in area newspapers. It is an issue that never gets discussed on cable TV sports talk shows. The NBA's big market teams are in decent financial shape; the New York Knicks have to be rolling in dough with sellout crowds, not paying New York city property tax and owning a cable TV regional sports network. Mikhail Prokhorov must think the New Jersey Nets will be a goldmine once the franchise moves to Brooklyn and it would be fascinating to take a look at Comcast's real books when assessing the Philadelphia 76ers finances given that the country's largest cable TV multi systems operator owns the team, the arena and the regional cable TV network in Philadelphia.
The National Basketball Association now owns the small market New Orleans Hornets.
There are reports that the Maloof brothers are thinking about moving their Sacramento Kings franchise after failing to secure a new arena in the California capital and having financial problems with their core businesses. Indiana's ownership claims mounting losses despite playing in an Indianapolis arena and paying virtually no rent. There are similar stories in Charlotte, Memphis and other NBA outposts. Louisiana is pumping money into the Hornets operation. The state is used to handing out paychecks to major league sports owners.
The Saints Benson received in the neighborhood of $185 million in state handouts between 2002 and 2010 as a thank you for not moving the team. Benson has a new deal with the state that lessens the amount of direct handouts (from about $23 million to as much as $6 million annually) but includes other perks like giving him an office building (the Benson Tower which is across from the Superdome) for a small amount of money (the building has been renovated) and a guarantee of a number of leases for office space for state agencies.
Benson is not getting quite the same state bailout under the new deal but Louisiana is paying him in other ways to keep him happy through 2025. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, one of these let's cut everything to the bone including laying off municipal employees and not raise any taxes to pay for services, boasted that the new deal saved the state hundreds of millions of dollars. What Jindal should have said is simple, we are moving money around and we are still paying. NBA Commissioner David Stern knows the Saints deal and since he and 29 NBA owners run the Hornets, he probably will try to get Jindal to give him a "deal" that will "save" Louisiana millions of dollars before attempting to sell the team to an owner who will decide whether to stay in the Crescent City or take the business elsewhere.
The NBA has run out of North American cities to move franchises. The Las Vegas arena that was supposed to open in 2010 was nothing more than a mirage in the desert, San Diego has no arena, and Pittsburgh has no interest in an NBA franchise. Seattle has no arena, Louisville has an arena but it would be just a small market and most small markets in the NBA with the exception of San Antonio are in bad financial shape.
Newark is "hosting" the New Jersey Nets until a Brooklyn arena is open. Newark might be the best open market the NBA will have but that will not happen for a few years.
The New Orleans situation is dire. The former owner George Shinn reached a deal with Louisiana that included an attendance clause and if certain benchmarks are not hit by the end of the month, the Hornets former ownership and presumably the NBA can tell Louisiana that they plan to move the franchise to another city. The team has a clause in the lease that allows the franchise to pay $10 million to Louisiana at the end of March and leave if the attendance does not average 14,735 per game. The team needs an average of 14,915 people per game by January 24 to insure that the Hornets franchise will be in the city in 2011-12. But the Hornets-Louisiana lease is done in 2014 and presumably Prokhorov's Nets will be in Brooklyn by that time leaving Newark open as a relocation possibility.
The New Orleans business community is buying up tickets to make sure the Hornets attendance meets the benchmark but according to Thornton even if this year's version of the Hornets does exceed the benchmark there is a serious question as to the financial viability of the team going ahead in a small market without help from the NBA. That help would be a new collective bargaining agreement, which would reduce salaries and significant revenue sharing from the big market owners (the Knicks-Dolan family) to the lesser revenue generating markets like New Orleans.
New Orleans is a small market with limited cable TV revenues and that is a major problem for the franchise. Shinn could not get Knicks TV money or Los Angeles Lakers TV money.
The NBA owners and players are trying to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. NBA Commissioner and more than likely chief negotiator David Stern has left open the possibility of contracting teams. If the owners and players do not come up with a collective bargaining agreement by July 1, the owners will more than likely lockout the players, which means that all NBA business will stop.
The free agent market will close, which is why there is pressure on Carmelo Anthony to get a new contract now instead of going into an uncertain free agency period where he might find different rules and lose millions of dollars.
The NBA has been given a free ride by the sports media who seem to love to bang on Gary Bettman and NHL financial problems in Phoenix, Atlanta, Columbus, Nashville and other cities. Stern has not received the criticism that has been directed at Bettman even though like Bettman he has been forced to take over a franchise, New Orleans (Bettman ended up with Phoenix and presided over bankruptcies in Ottawa, Buffalo and Pittsburgh). Major League Baseball took over the Montreal Expos in 2002. Stern has a good number of problem franchises, which is why he will play hardball in talks with the players although he has not taken care of the revenue sharing issue that has been floating around for years at owners meetings.
If New Orleans can no longer support a franchise and Sacramento fails, where do those franchises go? There is a suggestion that the Maloofs will look at Anaheim and San Jose but the problem in those cities is the NHL. The Amaheim Ducks ownership and the San Jose Sharks ownership get the lion share of the revenues out of the arenas in those cities and the ownership groups probably would not welcome an equal partner in the buildings unless they become part of an NBA ownership group.
Louisville is college basketball country. Does the area have the financial wherewithal to support what really is elitist entertainment for the people who like to watch games in an arena? Neither Seattle nor Las Vegas have an NBA state of the art building, Kansas City doesn't seem to be a viable option even though the city has a new arena. Vancouver had an NBA team and might be more viable financially with the Canadian dollar on par with the US greenback but no one is pushing for an NBA return in western Canada, at least not yet.
If the Hornets franchise is sold and the new ownership is forced to stay in New Orleans until 2014 under the terms of Shinn's lease but wants out when the agreement ends, would New Jersey be a viable option if Prokhorov's Nets are finally in Brooklyn? That's a good question. David Stern's three legged stool theory of being financially successful requires a city to provide government support (an arena, tax breaks, etc.), a strong cable TV money deal and corporate support.
Newark and New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek built an arena. So there is government support and Vanderbeek is now housing the Nets. The New York area has three regional cable TV networks. An owner could come into New Jersey and get a large cable TV deal with SNY. Why SNY? Because the Comcast-Time Warner-New York Mets owned entity does not have an NBA or NHL presence in the late fall-winter-early spring. The Dolan's MSG Network has the Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders and college basketball. The YES Network has Prokhorov's Nets.
The third leg of the stool is the problem. Corporate support. Neither the Nets nor the Devils have been able to get a high level of support (if attendance figures are a true barometer) of corporate backing over the decades that the franchises have been in the Garden State. Would New Jersey business leaders embrace a new NBA team in Newark in 2014 if that scenario plays out?
Would the Dolans and Prokhorov want a third team in the New York area? The NBA could block any attempt by a prospective New Jersey team owner to put a franchise in Newark in 2014 even though there is the Los Angeles Clippers precedent. Donald Sterling moved his team in 1984 without league permission. Eventually Sterling and the NBA resolved their differences. The NBA blocked the sale of the Minnesota Timberwolves to boxing promoter Bob Arum and his group in 1994. Arum wanted to move the franchise to New Orleans.
The NBA owners and players have to get a new collective bargaining agreement and after the dust settles, there will be assessments. If the owners cannot get rollbacks in salaries, some owners may throw in the towel and sell off money losing franchises. Newark might be in line for a failed franchise under the right set of circumstances.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY 2011 11:55
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/new-jersey-might-have-shot-at-new-orleans-hornets-when-nj-nets-move
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There was a rather interesting sports business interview on WWL Radio in New Orleans last week that occupied some of my time during the drive from New Orleans to Daphne, Alabama. Doug Thornton, who is SMG's senior vice president and de facto head of the New Orleans Superdome and New Orleans Arena, was talking about the $85 million publicly funded expansion of luxury seating at the Superdome (which is designed to put more money into New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson's pockets despite NFL owners claiming they need to reduce expenses and players salaries because they need to cut salaries and expenses — the NFL seems to be awash in money) and the future of the New Orleans Hornets and the NBA's need to find a new financial model so that New Orleans and other small markets can survive.
It is a conversation that you will never hear on the sports radio talk shows in New York or Philadelphia or read about in area newspapers. It is an issue that never gets discussed on cable TV sports talk shows. The NBA's big market teams are in decent financial shape; the New York Knicks have to be rolling in dough with sellout crowds, not paying New York city property tax and owning a cable TV regional sports network. Mikhail Prokhorov must think the New Jersey Nets will be a goldmine once the franchise moves to Brooklyn and it would be fascinating to take a look at Comcast's real books when assessing the Philadelphia 76ers finances given that the country's largest cable TV multi systems operator owns the team, the arena and the regional cable TV network in Philadelphia.
The National Basketball Association now owns the small market New Orleans Hornets.
There are reports that the Maloof brothers are thinking about moving their Sacramento Kings franchise after failing to secure a new arena in the California capital and having financial problems with their core businesses. Indiana's ownership claims mounting losses despite playing in an Indianapolis arena and paying virtually no rent. There are similar stories in Charlotte, Memphis and other NBA outposts. Louisiana is pumping money into the Hornets operation. The state is used to handing out paychecks to major league sports owners.
The Saints Benson received in the neighborhood of $185 million in state handouts between 2002 and 2010 as a thank you for not moving the team. Benson has a new deal with the state that lessens the amount of direct handouts (from about $23 million to as much as $6 million annually) but includes other perks like giving him an office building (the Benson Tower which is across from the Superdome) for a small amount of money (the building has been renovated) and a guarantee of a number of leases for office space for state agencies.
Benson is not getting quite the same state bailout under the new deal but Louisiana is paying him in other ways to keep him happy through 2025. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, one of these let's cut everything to the bone including laying off municipal employees and not raise any taxes to pay for services, boasted that the new deal saved the state hundreds of millions of dollars. What Jindal should have said is simple, we are moving money around and we are still paying. NBA Commissioner David Stern knows the Saints deal and since he and 29 NBA owners run the Hornets, he probably will try to get Jindal to give him a "deal" that will "save" Louisiana millions of dollars before attempting to sell the team to an owner who will decide whether to stay in the Crescent City or take the business elsewhere.
The NBA has run out of North American cities to move franchises. The Las Vegas arena that was supposed to open in 2010 was nothing more than a mirage in the desert, San Diego has no arena, and Pittsburgh has no interest in an NBA franchise. Seattle has no arena, Louisville has an arena but it would be just a small market and most small markets in the NBA with the exception of San Antonio are in bad financial shape.
Newark is "hosting" the New Jersey Nets until a Brooklyn arena is open. Newark might be the best open market the NBA will have but that will not happen for a few years.
The New Orleans situation is dire. The former owner George Shinn reached a deal with Louisiana that included an attendance clause and if certain benchmarks are not hit by the end of the month, the Hornets former ownership and presumably the NBA can tell Louisiana that they plan to move the franchise to another city. The team has a clause in the lease that allows the franchise to pay $10 million to Louisiana at the end of March and leave if the attendance does not average 14,735 per game. The team needs an average of 14,915 people per game by January 24 to insure that the Hornets franchise will be in the city in 2011-12. But the Hornets-Louisiana lease is done in 2014 and presumably Prokhorov's Nets will be in Brooklyn by that time leaving Newark open as a relocation possibility.
The New Orleans business community is buying up tickets to make sure the Hornets attendance meets the benchmark but according to Thornton even if this year's version of the Hornets does exceed the benchmark there is a serious question as to the financial viability of the team going ahead in a small market without help from the NBA. That help would be a new collective bargaining agreement, which would reduce salaries and significant revenue sharing from the big market owners (the Knicks-Dolan family) to the lesser revenue generating markets like New Orleans.
New Orleans is a small market with limited cable TV revenues and that is a major problem for the franchise. Shinn could not get Knicks TV money or Los Angeles Lakers TV money.
The NBA owners and players are trying to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. NBA Commissioner and more than likely chief negotiator David Stern has left open the possibility of contracting teams. If the owners and players do not come up with a collective bargaining agreement by July 1, the owners will more than likely lockout the players, which means that all NBA business will stop.
The free agent market will close, which is why there is pressure on Carmelo Anthony to get a new contract now instead of going into an uncertain free agency period where he might find different rules and lose millions of dollars.
The NBA has been given a free ride by the sports media who seem to love to bang on Gary Bettman and NHL financial problems in Phoenix, Atlanta, Columbus, Nashville and other cities. Stern has not received the criticism that has been directed at Bettman even though like Bettman he has been forced to take over a franchise, New Orleans (Bettman ended up with Phoenix and presided over bankruptcies in Ottawa, Buffalo and Pittsburgh). Major League Baseball took over the Montreal Expos in 2002. Stern has a good number of problem franchises, which is why he will play hardball in talks with the players although he has not taken care of the revenue sharing issue that has been floating around for years at owners meetings.
If New Orleans can no longer support a franchise and Sacramento fails, where do those franchises go? There is a suggestion that the Maloofs will look at Anaheim and San Jose but the problem in those cities is the NHL. The Amaheim Ducks ownership and the San Jose Sharks ownership get the lion share of the revenues out of the arenas in those cities and the ownership groups probably would not welcome an equal partner in the buildings unless they become part of an NBA ownership group.
Louisville is college basketball country. Does the area have the financial wherewithal to support what really is elitist entertainment for the people who like to watch games in an arena? Neither Seattle nor Las Vegas have an NBA state of the art building, Kansas City doesn't seem to be a viable option even though the city has a new arena. Vancouver had an NBA team and might be more viable financially with the Canadian dollar on par with the US greenback but no one is pushing for an NBA return in western Canada, at least not yet.
If the Hornets franchise is sold and the new ownership is forced to stay in New Orleans until 2014 under the terms of Shinn's lease but wants out when the agreement ends, would New Jersey be a viable option if Prokhorov's Nets are finally in Brooklyn? That's a good question. David Stern's three legged stool theory of being financially successful requires a city to provide government support (an arena, tax breaks, etc.), a strong cable TV money deal and corporate support.
Newark and New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek built an arena. So there is government support and Vanderbeek is now housing the Nets. The New York area has three regional cable TV networks. An owner could come into New Jersey and get a large cable TV deal with SNY. Why SNY? Because the Comcast-Time Warner-New York Mets owned entity does not have an NBA or NHL presence in the late fall-winter-early spring. The Dolan's MSG Network has the Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders and college basketball. The YES Network has Prokhorov's Nets.
The third leg of the stool is the problem. Corporate support. Neither the Nets nor the Devils have been able to get a high level of support (if attendance figures are a true barometer) of corporate backing over the decades that the franchises have been in the Garden State. Would New Jersey business leaders embrace a new NBA team in Newark in 2014 if that scenario plays out?
Would the Dolans and Prokhorov want a third team in the New York area? The NBA could block any attempt by a prospective New Jersey team owner to put a franchise in Newark in 2014 even though there is the Los Angeles Clippers precedent. Donald Sterling moved his team in 1984 without league permission. Eventually Sterling and the NBA resolved their differences. The NBA blocked the sale of the Minnesota Timberwolves to boxing promoter Bob Arum and his group in 1994. Arum wanted to move the franchise to New Orleans.
The NBA owners and players have to get a new collective bargaining agreement and after the dust settles, there will be assessments. If the owners cannot get rollbacks in salaries, some owners may throw in the towel and sell off money losing franchises. Newark might be in line for a failed franchise under the right set of circumstances.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Louisiana taxpayer subsidies not enough for the NBA's Hornets
By Evan Weiner
December 5, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/louisiana-taxpayer-subsidies-not-enough-for-the-nba-s-hornets
(new York, N. Y.) -- Louisiana residents both in the New Orleans area and in other parts of the state should be keeping a close eye on the future of the National Basketball Association's New Orleans Hornets. The team owner George Shinn has decided he doesn't want to own the franchise anymore and is apparently about ready to sell the franchise back to the league.
The NBA has not lost a franchise since November 27, 1954 when Baltimore went out of business. The original NBA franchise in town, the New Orleans Jazz, had a five year run between 1974 and 1979. The franchise left because of financial strains and relocated to Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1983, the league probably saved a few franchises from extinct by agreeing to a new collective bargaining agreement with the players that included a salary cap.
This is just more than an owner handing the keys to the franchise back to the league for Louisiana residents as they have a vested interest in the team. The state has been giving subsidies to Shinn since he decided to leave Charlotte and relocate his team in New Orleans in 2002. Louisiana was also subsidizing Tom Benson and his National Football League Saints to keep his franchise playing in the Superdome.
Benson received $186.5 million between 2002 and this year as a gift from Louisiana Governor Mike Foster and the two statehouses in 2001. Benson decided to remain in New Orleans despite having years left on his Superdome lease.
Louisiana is heavily invested in "Major League" sports with taxpayers shelling out millions upon millions of dollars annually to satisfy Benson and Shinn. Benson has a new lease with the state thanks to Governor Bobby Jindal to play in the Superdome that reduces annual subsidies from $23.5 million to up to $6 million but the state gave up a building near the Superdome which Benson will redevelop and then rent out space for state offices in the building. Benson and the state agreed to create a sports development district and there will be upgrades at the Superdome which was renovated after Hurricane Katrina flooded out the city in August 2005.
Meanwhile Shinn was also giving subsidies by Louisiana elected officials.
The Shinn-Louisiana 2002 agreement included a clause that required the state to reimburse the team if Shinn was unable to sell naming rights to New Orleans Arena or didn't reach certain thresholds for advertising and sponsorship sales. Shinn could have received as much as $6.5 million annually if New Orleans ticket buying community failed to scoop up tickets.
The arena never did get a corporate name. New Orleans is a small market with limited corporate dollars and an even more limited television marker, two of the three absolute necessities required for a successful sports business. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban expressed reservation about moving the Hornets to New Orleans in 2002. New Orleans was a shrinking city before Katrina hit in 2005 as the city has been losing population since the 1960s.
In January 2008, Governor Kathleen Blanco and Shinn rewrote the original lease after the Hornets franchise returned to the Crescent City following a two-year exile to Oklahoma City after the devastation caused by Katrina. There were still subsidies included in the new deal and the state picked up some of the costs of a training center for the team but Blanco and Shinn extended the lease by two years with 2014 as the final year of the agreement. But Shinn did have an escape clause if the team did not average 14,735 people a game in the arena.
So far, the team has averaged 13,826 people in nine games in 2010-11 but there is a 13-game test that started on December 1 that could tell the tale of the Hornets future in New Orleans. In those 13 home games between December 1 and January 17, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the franchise needs to draw an average of 14,213 per opening and if the number is below that on average, the team can opt out of the Blanco-Shinn 2008 agreement. Shinn, if he continued as owner, could have broken his lease as early as March 1, 2011 and would have been required to pay a $10 million exit fee.
Shinn was hoping to sell his majority ownership in the club to minority partner Gary Chouest but those talks have gone nowhere over the past eight months.
Interestingly enough National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern, who is in the midst of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the National Basketball Players Association, has suggested that the NBA might drop a financially ailing team or two. It was thought that Stern was using the threat of contraction to get the players attention that the league was in serious in Stern's desire to tighten the league's budget and that was his way of getting association concessions.
Louisiana decided to partner with sports franchises for the same reason states and cities subsidize pro teams. Politicians like "big league" status and think by rolling out the red carpet for sports franchises it will bring other corporate businesses to their cities and states. That isn't the case but it is a good tale for a politician to spin. When Shinn moved from Charlotte to New Orleans, Charlotte officials scrambled to get a new arena built in the city to replace a 14-year-old building that was "obsolete" because it didn't have luxury suites and club seats, the high ticket items.
Charlotte's mayor at the time, Pat McCrory, said the city needed an NBA team because Charlotte highlights would appear on ESPN's SportsCenter and that was advertising for the city.
Sports teams around the United States get all sorts of tax breaks and handouts from elected officials. Louisiana handed out cash to Benson for his Saints and Shinn for his Hornets. Apparently the legal payoffs are not enough for Shinn or Chouest and once again, Louisiana may have to go to the well and bailout a sports franchise.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
December 5, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/louisiana-taxpayer-subsidies-not-enough-for-the-nba-s-hornets
(new York, N. Y.) -- Louisiana residents both in the New Orleans area and in other parts of the state should be keeping a close eye on the future of the National Basketball Association's New Orleans Hornets. The team owner George Shinn has decided he doesn't want to own the franchise anymore and is apparently about ready to sell the franchise back to the league.
The NBA has not lost a franchise since November 27, 1954 when Baltimore went out of business. The original NBA franchise in town, the New Orleans Jazz, had a five year run between 1974 and 1979. The franchise left because of financial strains and relocated to Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1983, the league probably saved a few franchises from extinct by agreeing to a new collective bargaining agreement with the players that included a salary cap.
This is just more than an owner handing the keys to the franchise back to the league for Louisiana residents as they have a vested interest in the team. The state has been giving subsidies to Shinn since he decided to leave Charlotte and relocate his team in New Orleans in 2002. Louisiana was also subsidizing Tom Benson and his National Football League Saints to keep his franchise playing in the Superdome.
Benson received $186.5 million between 2002 and this year as a gift from Louisiana Governor Mike Foster and the two statehouses in 2001. Benson decided to remain in New Orleans despite having years left on his Superdome lease.
Louisiana is heavily invested in "Major League" sports with taxpayers shelling out millions upon millions of dollars annually to satisfy Benson and Shinn. Benson has a new lease with the state thanks to Governor Bobby Jindal to play in the Superdome that reduces annual subsidies from $23.5 million to up to $6 million but the state gave up a building near the Superdome which Benson will redevelop and then rent out space for state offices in the building. Benson and the state agreed to create a sports development district and there will be upgrades at the Superdome which was renovated after Hurricane Katrina flooded out the city in August 2005.
Meanwhile Shinn was also giving subsidies by Louisiana elected officials.
The Shinn-Louisiana 2002 agreement included a clause that required the state to reimburse the team if Shinn was unable to sell naming rights to New Orleans Arena or didn't reach certain thresholds for advertising and sponsorship sales. Shinn could have received as much as $6.5 million annually if New Orleans ticket buying community failed to scoop up tickets.
The arena never did get a corporate name. New Orleans is a small market with limited corporate dollars and an even more limited television marker, two of the three absolute necessities required for a successful sports business. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban expressed reservation about moving the Hornets to New Orleans in 2002. New Orleans was a shrinking city before Katrina hit in 2005 as the city has been losing population since the 1960s.
In January 2008, Governor Kathleen Blanco and Shinn rewrote the original lease after the Hornets franchise returned to the Crescent City following a two-year exile to Oklahoma City after the devastation caused by Katrina. There were still subsidies included in the new deal and the state picked up some of the costs of a training center for the team but Blanco and Shinn extended the lease by two years with 2014 as the final year of the agreement. But Shinn did have an escape clause if the team did not average 14,735 people a game in the arena.
So far, the team has averaged 13,826 people in nine games in 2010-11 but there is a 13-game test that started on December 1 that could tell the tale of the Hornets future in New Orleans. In those 13 home games between December 1 and January 17, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the franchise needs to draw an average of 14,213 per opening and if the number is below that on average, the team can opt out of the Blanco-Shinn 2008 agreement. Shinn, if he continued as owner, could have broken his lease as early as March 1, 2011 and would have been required to pay a $10 million exit fee.
Shinn was hoping to sell his majority ownership in the club to minority partner Gary Chouest but those talks have gone nowhere over the past eight months.
Interestingly enough National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern, who is in the midst of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the National Basketball Players Association, has suggested that the NBA might drop a financially ailing team or two. It was thought that Stern was using the threat of contraction to get the players attention that the league was in serious in Stern's desire to tighten the league's budget and that was his way of getting association concessions.
Louisiana decided to partner with sports franchises for the same reason states and cities subsidize pro teams. Politicians like "big league" status and think by rolling out the red carpet for sports franchises it will bring other corporate businesses to their cities and states. That isn't the case but it is a good tale for a politician to spin. When Shinn moved from Charlotte to New Orleans, Charlotte officials scrambled to get a new arena built in the city to replace a 14-year-old building that was "obsolete" because it didn't have luxury suites and club seats, the high ticket items.
Charlotte's mayor at the time, Pat McCrory, said the city needed an NBA team because Charlotte highlights would appear on ESPN's SportsCenter and that was advertising for the city.
Sports teams around the United States get all sorts of tax breaks and handouts from elected officials. Louisiana handed out cash to Benson for his Saints and Shinn for his Hornets. Apparently the legal payoffs are not enough for Shinn or Chouest and once again, Louisiana may have to go to the well and bailout a sports franchise.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
There appears to be a player collusion problem in the NBA
There appears to be a player collusion problem in the NBA
TUESDAY, 13 JULY 2010 08:42
HTTP://WWW.NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM/PROFESSIONAL/THERE-APPEARS-TO-BE-A-PLAYER-COLLUSION-PROBLEM-IN-THE-NBA
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
There is a new contender for the dumbest athlete when it comes to the business of sports. The New Orleans Hornets guard Chris Paul now wants to join Amare Stoudemire in New York with the Knicks and Paul has also suggested that Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony joins James Dolan's crew in Manhattan. Paul, if the comments are correct, has thrown gasoline on a fire started by the Miami Heat's signing of Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and LeBron James that might have be a product of players' collusion.
On Monday, NBA Commissioner David Stern downplayed the collusion charge after an owners meeting in Las Vegas.
The National Basketball Association is out of control in terms of the normal sports business model and Chris Paul, not LeBron James, may be the final spark that lights a war between the owners and players in July 2011. The athletes may be the show but the owners are the employers and there are some rules that need to be followed both official and unofficial. When you play in New Orleans or Denver, you don't say you are going to New York or elsewhere in a year or two. It kills the local enthusiasm for the customer and fan base. Paul plays for a small market that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina five years ago. In fact Paul played the first two years of his pro career in Oklahoma City because New Orleans could not economically support an NBA after the disaster. Paul has done some great work raising money for New Orleans and the surrounding area but his business acumen is not there.
Paul's remarks were ill conceived for the overall business of the NBA.
That should not be surprising because all he does is play basketball for a living but his advisors would do well to tell him to keep quiet. Paul joins LeBron James as two players who need better public relations advisors.
NBA Commissioner David Stern and his owners (except perhaps the Knicks Jimmy Dolan) have to be upset that Paul allegedly said at Carmelo Anthony's wedding that "we will form our own Big 3." That statement was reported in the New York Post. The New York tabloids and some Wall Street types who buy corporate tickets at Madison Square Garden may be happy, but Stern's league has outlets beyond the Hudson River and the players may cause fans and even corporate backlash in other markets.
The economy breakdown has hurt the NBA but players making comments about going somewhere else is a punch in the gut that Stern and the 30 owners don't need.
Whether Paul did make that toast or not is immaterial. The story is out there and you have to wonder what the very powerful Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke (whose wife is a Wal-Mart heir) or Hornets owner George Shinn who wants to sell the Hornets to an oilman and Hornets minority owner Gary Chouest are going to do. Paul and Anthony are under contract to their respective teams and are the centerpieces of the team's sales push for luxury boxes, club seats and cable TV advertising (Kroenke owns the Nuggets cable TV network, Altitude).
This is a problem.
If Paul and Anthony want to leave, why should local corporates buy luxury boxes, club seats and marketers buy signage in the arena and TV advertising? The players are mercenaries and have no loyalty to the area but sports sells the idea of the "Sixth Man" in basketball, the "12th Man" in football, the home ice advantage in hockey. The home crowd is worth something, so sportswriters say and other sports people contend.
Root, root, root for the home team is the mantra and the players do it for the fans or as one time Nets forward Derrick Coleman said for the "city of New Jersey." That is absolute fiction as players go for the best contract for the most part wherever they can find it and this is just a job for most players who go from team to team either on their own or because some general manager decides that the player isn't good enough and needs to be replaced.
Players come and go. But players should not call the shots, employees don't call shots, Management does.
The national TV packages and international deals and some marketing partners probably don't care about the players calling the shots and building teams.
Did LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade collude to sign with the Miami Heat? There is some evidence that they wanted to play together however collusion is hard to prove. Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry talked openly in 1990 about playing together for the Los Angeles Dodgers and eventually they did. Collusion has been a worry for 44 years going back to the Dodgers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale hold out. The two pitchers decided to negotiate together for a new deal for the 1966 season. The pair held out for 32 days and finally signed the most lucrative contracts for any player in 1966.
By 1968, the Major League Baseball Players Association and Major League owners agreed to an anti-collusion clause in the collective bargaining agreement. Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth in 1985 persuaded owners not to go after free agents. The policy continued in 1986 and 1987. The Major League Baseball Players Association filed a grievance with an arbitrator and won a $280 million award in November 1990.
Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry talked about joining the Dodgers at some point during the 1989-90 time period. Davis was traded to the Dodgers from Cincinnati and Strawberry left the Mets after the 1990 season as a free agent and signed with the Dodgers.
The Wade-Bosh-James trio did nothing illegal. They fulfilled their contracts and went into free agency. Stoudemire finished out his Phoenix Suns contract and was free to negotiate elsewhere as was Joe Johnson. But the manner that LeBron James ended his free agency week and used a league partner — The Walt Disney Company's ESPN like it was another bad "reality" TV show on one of Disney's TV networks like ABC (which televises the NBA Finals) — will rub some people in the league the wrong way.
Here is a partial list of people who might not be very happy right now. The Chicago Bulls Jerry Reinsdorf (see his baseball history and his role in the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike), the Hornets Shinn and Chouest, the Nuggets Kroenke (his Colorado Avalanche hockey team did not play in 2004-05 as part of the NHL owners lockout), the Cleveland Cavaliers Dan Gilbert, the Milwaukee Bucks Senator Herb Kohl, the Minnesota owner Glenn Taylor and owners in San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Portland, Sacramento, Oklahoma City and maybe Ted Leonsis in Washington who in May at a speech before the National Press Club said that the NHL (Leonsis owns the NHL's Washington Capitals) is in better financial shape than the NBA and pointed out that the NHL's collective bargaining agreement has a hard salary cap "that protects owners from taking stupid pills."
Paul apparently took a "stupid pill" when he suggested that he Stoudemire and Anthony team up with the Knicks in the same way that Wade, Bosh and James signed with the Miami Heat.
The NBA has had one major lockout, that in 1998-99 which took a few months to resolve. The players quickly agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement in 2005 possibly in part because some of the NBA owners had interest in National Hockey League teams (Los Angeles Phil Anschutz who owns the LA arena where the Lakers and Clippers play, the Toronto Raptors, Reinsdorf — a partner in Chicago's arena with the Wirtz family — the Philadelphia 76ers. Leonsis — a minority owner of the Wizards — the Atlanta Thrashers, the Colorado Avalanche and the Dolan-owned New York Rangers along with various TV and arena partnerships) and the players saw what happened with NHL players.
The players are the stars and performers and it is true that no own pays to watch Dolan or Portland's Paul Allen. But the players are also employees and there are some conditions that they need to meet. Announcing publicly that they want to play elsewhere is a major problem on many levels. The "alleged" bond between players, teams and fans that is being broken. Why would advertisers and marketers buy into a basketball team if they know the employees want to leave? Are municipalities who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into arenas and stadiums that are not working out based on people flocking to the stadiums/arenas and businesses popping up around the building being duped? The NHL's Montreal Canadiens organization pays more in property taxes in Montreal than all 29 US-based NBA teams pay in property taxes.
There is also a question of whether the NBA is a bona fide competition. If Paul really wants to leave New Orleans for New York, is he playing his best before the people spending copious amounts of money in a very poor market or going through the motions until he gets to New York?
Dan Gilbert charged that LeBron James quit on the Cavaliers during the playoffs. Whether LeBron did or not cannot be quantified but it is not good if there is a suspicion that someone quit as a player during a competition.
The battle lines are being drawn. The big time players are flexing their collective muscles and the owners are not going to like that. Before the Miami Heat signings, owners are complaining about how too much basketball related income was going into the pockets of the players and that the owners have lost $400 million.
The summer of 2011 is coming up quickly for NBA owners and players as the collective bargaining agreement is done. Sports is business and the business of sports is about ready to put the economics and power of big name players on a collision course.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaking on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
LAST UPDATED ( TUESDAY, 13 JULY 2010 08:42 )
TUESDAY, 13 JULY 2010 08:42
HTTP://WWW.NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM/PROFESSIONAL/THERE-APPEARS-TO-BE-A-PLAYER-COLLUSION-PROBLEM-IN-THE-NBA
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
There is a new contender for the dumbest athlete when it comes to the business of sports. The New Orleans Hornets guard Chris Paul now wants to join Amare Stoudemire in New York with the Knicks and Paul has also suggested that Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony joins James Dolan's crew in Manhattan. Paul, if the comments are correct, has thrown gasoline on a fire started by the Miami Heat's signing of Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and LeBron James that might have be a product of players' collusion.
On Monday, NBA Commissioner David Stern downplayed the collusion charge after an owners meeting in Las Vegas.
The National Basketball Association is out of control in terms of the normal sports business model and Chris Paul, not LeBron James, may be the final spark that lights a war between the owners and players in July 2011. The athletes may be the show but the owners are the employers and there are some rules that need to be followed both official and unofficial. When you play in New Orleans or Denver, you don't say you are going to New York or elsewhere in a year or two. It kills the local enthusiasm for the customer and fan base. Paul plays for a small market that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina five years ago. In fact Paul played the first two years of his pro career in Oklahoma City because New Orleans could not economically support an NBA after the disaster. Paul has done some great work raising money for New Orleans and the surrounding area but his business acumen is not there.
Paul's remarks were ill conceived for the overall business of the NBA.
That should not be surprising because all he does is play basketball for a living but his advisors would do well to tell him to keep quiet. Paul joins LeBron James as two players who need better public relations advisors.
NBA Commissioner David Stern and his owners (except perhaps the Knicks Jimmy Dolan) have to be upset that Paul allegedly said at Carmelo Anthony's wedding that "we will form our own Big 3." That statement was reported in the New York Post. The New York tabloids and some Wall Street types who buy corporate tickets at Madison Square Garden may be happy, but Stern's league has outlets beyond the Hudson River and the players may cause fans and even corporate backlash in other markets.
The economy breakdown has hurt the NBA but players making comments about going somewhere else is a punch in the gut that Stern and the 30 owners don't need.
Whether Paul did make that toast or not is immaterial. The story is out there and you have to wonder what the very powerful Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke (whose wife is a Wal-Mart heir) or Hornets owner George Shinn who wants to sell the Hornets to an oilman and Hornets minority owner Gary Chouest are going to do. Paul and Anthony are under contract to their respective teams and are the centerpieces of the team's sales push for luxury boxes, club seats and cable TV advertising (Kroenke owns the Nuggets cable TV network, Altitude).
This is a problem.
If Paul and Anthony want to leave, why should local corporates buy luxury boxes, club seats and marketers buy signage in the arena and TV advertising? The players are mercenaries and have no loyalty to the area but sports sells the idea of the "Sixth Man" in basketball, the "12th Man" in football, the home ice advantage in hockey. The home crowd is worth something, so sportswriters say and other sports people contend.
Root, root, root for the home team is the mantra and the players do it for the fans or as one time Nets forward Derrick Coleman said for the "city of New Jersey." That is absolute fiction as players go for the best contract for the most part wherever they can find it and this is just a job for most players who go from team to team either on their own or because some general manager decides that the player isn't good enough and needs to be replaced.
Players come and go. But players should not call the shots, employees don't call shots, Management does.
The national TV packages and international deals and some marketing partners probably don't care about the players calling the shots and building teams.
Did LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade collude to sign with the Miami Heat? There is some evidence that they wanted to play together however collusion is hard to prove. Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry talked openly in 1990 about playing together for the Los Angeles Dodgers and eventually they did. Collusion has been a worry for 44 years going back to the Dodgers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale hold out. The two pitchers decided to negotiate together for a new deal for the 1966 season. The pair held out for 32 days and finally signed the most lucrative contracts for any player in 1966.
By 1968, the Major League Baseball Players Association and Major League owners agreed to an anti-collusion clause in the collective bargaining agreement. Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth in 1985 persuaded owners not to go after free agents. The policy continued in 1986 and 1987. The Major League Baseball Players Association filed a grievance with an arbitrator and won a $280 million award in November 1990.
Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry talked about joining the Dodgers at some point during the 1989-90 time period. Davis was traded to the Dodgers from Cincinnati and Strawberry left the Mets after the 1990 season as a free agent and signed with the Dodgers.
The Wade-Bosh-James trio did nothing illegal. They fulfilled their contracts and went into free agency. Stoudemire finished out his Phoenix Suns contract and was free to negotiate elsewhere as was Joe Johnson. But the manner that LeBron James ended his free agency week and used a league partner — The Walt Disney Company's ESPN like it was another bad "reality" TV show on one of Disney's TV networks like ABC (which televises the NBA Finals) — will rub some people in the league the wrong way.
Here is a partial list of people who might not be very happy right now. The Chicago Bulls Jerry Reinsdorf (see his baseball history and his role in the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike), the Hornets Shinn and Chouest, the Nuggets Kroenke (his Colorado Avalanche hockey team did not play in 2004-05 as part of the NHL owners lockout), the Cleveland Cavaliers Dan Gilbert, the Milwaukee Bucks Senator Herb Kohl, the Minnesota owner Glenn Taylor and owners in San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Portland, Sacramento, Oklahoma City and maybe Ted Leonsis in Washington who in May at a speech before the National Press Club said that the NHL (Leonsis owns the NHL's Washington Capitals) is in better financial shape than the NBA and pointed out that the NHL's collective bargaining agreement has a hard salary cap "that protects owners from taking stupid pills."
Paul apparently took a "stupid pill" when he suggested that he Stoudemire and Anthony team up with the Knicks in the same way that Wade, Bosh and James signed with the Miami Heat.
The NBA has had one major lockout, that in 1998-99 which took a few months to resolve. The players quickly agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement in 2005 possibly in part because some of the NBA owners had interest in National Hockey League teams (Los Angeles Phil Anschutz who owns the LA arena where the Lakers and Clippers play, the Toronto Raptors, Reinsdorf — a partner in Chicago's arena with the Wirtz family — the Philadelphia 76ers. Leonsis — a minority owner of the Wizards — the Atlanta Thrashers, the Colorado Avalanche and the Dolan-owned New York Rangers along with various TV and arena partnerships) and the players saw what happened with NHL players.
The players are the stars and performers and it is true that no own pays to watch Dolan or Portland's Paul Allen. But the players are also employees and there are some conditions that they need to meet. Announcing publicly that they want to play elsewhere is a major problem on many levels. The "alleged" bond between players, teams and fans that is being broken. Why would advertisers and marketers buy into a basketball team if they know the employees want to leave? Are municipalities who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into arenas and stadiums that are not working out based on people flocking to the stadiums/arenas and businesses popping up around the building being duped? The NHL's Montreal Canadiens organization pays more in property taxes in Montreal than all 29 US-based NBA teams pay in property taxes.
There is also a question of whether the NBA is a bona fide competition. If Paul really wants to leave New Orleans for New York, is he playing his best before the people spending copious amounts of money in a very poor market or going through the motions until he gets to New York?
Dan Gilbert charged that LeBron James quit on the Cavaliers during the playoffs. Whether LeBron did or not cannot be quantified but it is not good if there is a suspicion that someone quit as a player during a competition.
The battle lines are being drawn. The big time players are flexing their collective muscles and the owners are not going to like that. Before the Miami Heat signings, owners are complaining about how too much basketball related income was going into the pockets of the players and that the owners have lost $400 million.
The summer of 2011 is coming up quickly for NBA owners and players as the collective bargaining agreement is done. Sports is business and the business of sports is about ready to put the economics and power of big name players on a collision course.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaking on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
LAST UPDATED ( TUESDAY, 13 JULY 2010 08:42 )
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