December is coming, and this usually means that basketball season is in its prime. The NBA is one of my favorite things about wintertime, but with the lockout still in place, it doesn’t look like there will be any games soon.
The lockout started on July 1st, and has already reached its 140th day as of last Thursday. Not only are all of the games through December 15th cancelled, but many experts also think that the lockout will threaten the entire NBA season. 324 games have already been cut this season, which means that the teams have already lost a huge amount of revenue.
The lockout is extremely frustrating for the players, organization, and owners, but the fans are starting to get frustrated as well. These negotiations have been ongoing since early 2007, when the previous negotiations had ended. The players’ union and owners have both been upset for a long time, and this is an issue that cannot, and will not, be fixed quickly.
The original reasoning behind the lockout was the fact that both the players and owners were unhappy with the salary cap and revenue sharing. The owners wanted to reduce 40% of the player salaries and have a hard salary cap of 45 million dollars a year. When the players wanted to negotiate, the owners decided they wanted to then have a 2 billion dollar cut over the next ten years. Right now, the revenue share is a 45/55 split, with the players receiving the larger portion of the revenue. The owners want a 50/50 split, as they are claiming they are losing money (300 million last year alone).
The players have been willing to negotiate, but don’t want to completely cave like the owners have wanted them to. These components, along with the stubbornness that both sides have vicariously presented, has brought on the lockout.
The lockout has consequences for players and owners alike. During this lockout the players aren’t able to train or use any of the facilities, while the teams can’t talk to players or even scout potential prospects. Players have started missing their paychecks, which has made the option of playing overseas very attractive for many players.
400 jobs that have been lost already: 200 on the corporate side and 200 in the actual league. Many of the owners have lost revenue as well, but this varies depending on the team and franchise. However, half of the owners are willing to miss out on the season if it means they can get a better deal, because in the long run, missing a season would cost them less money than getting more revenue from the players.
This isn’t the first time a lockout like this has happened. The last major lockout was in 1998-1999 season, where the season was shortened to 50 games per team. This current lockout may be even worse than the 1998-99 lockout, if an agreement is not reached soon.
Experts have claimed that the league needs at least 30 days after an agreement is reached to start games, so if the negotiations continue to cease, don’t expect any games for at least another month and a half.
No one really knows what will happen, but I think that the owners will win. People are claiming the players will be unified, but this is difficult to believe when the top players in the league receive over 40% of the revenue per team. It’s hard to be unified when the revenue distribution isn’t fair in the first place. Whether or not the season will happen this year is unknown. Hopefully the players and owners can reach some sort of agreement, because I am very eager for this NBA season to start, especially with the Bulls finishing with such a great record from the 2010-2011 season.
Source:
ESPN News