Re: LockOUT!

["Jonathan Brainin" <jbrainin@planet.net>]

Dan Forant wrote:

>The owners say their devoting 57% of income to salaries. Average player
>makes $2.2 mil. Not bad. With 15-28 teams showing red ink, you can see
>where the league is headed. Owners want a real salary cap and to lengthen
>rookies contract terms. I for one am sick of labor whining. If these
>players can't make enough dough, get a real job. It's become a joke. Ticket
>prices have become a joke.

These teams are losing money just like all those teams in M.L. Baseball
were losing money.  If you're losing money, sooner or later you either sell,
move or close up shop.Not one team in MLB has moved in years, there
have been almost no changes of ownership and not one team has gone
broke.  As is usual in most management/labor negotiations, management
is crying poverty.

I tell you what.  Why don't the owners open their books to the players to
show just how much they're hurting.  If the problem is real, the players
would
be a bit more inclined to negotiate.  However, the owners won't open their
books so the point is moot.

Ticket prices have no correlation to salaries.  They go up with each new
contract, they go up with each new TV deal, they even go up after major
corporate sponsorship deals.  Bottom line is pro sports are catering not
to "Joe Six-Pack" but to all the wealthy people in each market who can, and
will, pay whatever the cost of a ticket might be.  After all,  it's usually
their
company who buys the tickets.

The salary problems in the NBA are NOT caused by the players but rather
by the owners.  They are now looking for protection from themselves.  Why
should the players be affected?  While all the owners are whining now
about salary costs, any one of them (excepting Gaston, it seems) will rush
spend a $100 million to sign a player like Marbury or Walker (or whomever.)

Where the owners would have a valid complaint is if they were to complain
about all the guaranteed contracts in the NBA.  What's the downside risk of
signing Walker to a six year/$100 million deal if he can be cut if he
doesn't
perform?  Goodbye 'Toine and your salary cap burden.  Think of what the
Celtics would have to spend if they could have just jettisoned all their
dead
weight.

What's really pathetic here is that the owners are pushing a stupid solution
that doesn't address the real problem.  A hard cap won't fix things.
There's
a lot of little things that might help but the real issue, and the one
neither
side has mentioned to date (so far as I know), is the guaranteed contract.

Personally, I'd force both sides into binding arbitration and be done with
it.

Just my 2 cents,
Jonathan