While most are feeling that sense of excitement and jubilation watching the start of the NFL and NHL seasons, NBA fans on the other hand have just been dealt another huge blow in an already difficult situation.
NBA Commissioner, David Stern announced this week that the first two weeks of the regular NBA season will be officially canceled due to the breakdown of labour talks once again- not that we didn’t know this was coming. Neither side was willing to compromise and agree on the percentages for basketball-related-incomes that were being tossed around, and it was just a matter of time before both sides would walk away from the table. Now we find ourselves faced with a serious predicament, “what happens now”?
I can’t speak for everyone, as I know there are many different thoughts towards this issue, but I will say that this will ultimately hit the league’s image even harder than it already has. Other than the revenue that has been lost and will continue to be lost, fans are feeling a sense of resentment because players don’t seem to be taking this as seriously as they should be– like when Lebron James tweeted the Seattle Seahawks’ head coach Pete Carroll expressing his interest to play in the NFL. It’s those actions that show us, basketball lovers, that these players that are financially stable and don’t think it’s a big deal that as of right now, there is no NBA Season. Not only that, but it seems like the fact that alot of staff that work within the NBA are currently unemployed and losing work does not even factor into the equation for them.
It is up to the owners to stop worrying about how much money they’re losing because they feel that players are making too much. The NBA brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year, so there is no real reason to think that money is lost here, but as long as the player’s association is not willing to be flexible in reducing the BRI to a proposed 47 percent by owners (from 57 per cent), no headway will be made in negotiations.
It seemed that this would be the likely outcome when all of this madness started, and now that it is a reality and games are starting to get canceled, it’s clear that the general consensus in the league now is how to salvage the remaining games and exit this limbo that all parties have found themselves in.
