Speaking of Europe if Stern gets his way i could easily see a lot of top players bailing from the NBA to make a ton more cash overseas.
While contraction would probably help, if nothing else the product on the floor would get better, I wonder how you decided to lump Toronto in as a team that doesn’t draw? Based on attendance reports from the last several years (2009-2010 NBA Attendance - National Basketball Association - ESPN) they haven’t been worse then a middle of the pack team as far as attendance is concerned. Now Memphis, Sacramento, New Jersey and Philly, there are some teams that haven’t been drawing. But speaking as a former season ticket holder, leave my Raptors alone! 
Don’t these organizations need to file taxes? If they lie on their taxes shove them in jail.
There is also the idea that owning a professional team is an investment. These franchises can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars more when sold than when they were bought. Maybe the owner lost money in 20 years they owned it, but that loss would pale compared with the difference in price bought vs. sold.
I agree with others here. The owners own the league. If they want to cut salaries, I don’t think there is much the players can really do in the end. On the other hand, I think it is time for the public to quite building stadiums for these guys. Enough of that already.
Toronto doesn’t draw? Which league are we talking about again?
Yes, but owners tend to own more than the team itself, and it isn’t that difficult to move profits to other businesses. For example, if a team owns a tv network they can have that network pay much less for the rights to broadcast games then they were already used. So they could have a team that on paper is losing money, but in reality they are doing quite well. Also, a lot of prifits to owners are from the difference between the price paid and the price sold of a franchise. Are you giving the players a chunk of that?
If a communities taxes build a stadium. they should have to pay the tax payers back before they are allowed to move or fold.
There’s a lot they can do, actually. They can vote to decertify their union, which would be followed immediately by an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA. If the players won this suit (they almost certainly would), there would basically be no rules in place for contracts, the draft, etc. I think the owners have shown that they are willing to spend money they don’t have for player salaries, and I don’t see that changing in a non-CBA environment.
I agree wholeheartedly. Sports franchises have leeched off taxpayers for far too long. It is time for some fiscal responsibility from the sporting world.
Seattle is a large market that had a good fan base, they refused to build a new stadium and Stern helped to move the franchise. Now he is talking about franchise contraction and how much money the NBA loses. Why the hell wouldn’t you move one the potential contracted team to OK city if you wanted it that bad.
NHL players all took a pay cut after the lockout that wiped out the 04-05 season and they also got a salary cap and floor. In return they got items such as unrestricted free agency being lowered to age 27 from 31. The salary cap started out at $39 mil and now it’s $59 mil, that’s about a 50% increase. The current CBA expires in Sept 2012.
Stern says player salaries should be cut? What a surprise. He works for management and thinks labor costs should be decreased which is about as newsworthy as the sun coming up tomorrow, isn’t it? As a former NBA partial season ticket customer, I think ticket prices and beer prices are too high, so I stopped buying them.
There are many, many NBA teams no one outside the particular team would really miss, which is what happens when you market individual players, which is what the NBA does. Would anyone east of California miss the Clippers, Warriors or Kings? Of course not. Would anyone west of the Mississippi miss the T-Wolves, Cavs, Grizzlies, Hawks or Hornets? Again, of course not.
For me basketball is running downhill. Refereeing stinks. The refs have even been caught gambling and fixing games. The league openly favors the stars, allowing them to get calls. That is sanctioned cheating. It evolved from Jordan Rules. In the playoffs a few years ago, Wade got the benefit. The Pistons could not come near Wade without a whistle. It was horrible to watch.
The public believes basketball players make too much money. But they are entertainers. They make money according to what the team makes. The teams make lot of money. They will disguise their books to cut players salaries. Then they will make even more.
With all the talk of contraction, what exactly happens to a contracted team/organization? I mean, take the New Jersey Nets, for example. They were recently purchased for however many hundreds of millions by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. What happens to his investment? Does it just go “poof”? Do Stern and the other non-contracted owners say, “sorry fellah”, and kick him out, followed by a mad dash by the surviving GMs to sign Devin Harris and Brooks Lopez (and whoever else is rosterable from that awful team)?
I guess the threat of contraction is always present, and while I’ve heard the term bandied about by all the big four sports leagues in North America, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it happen. The rules may differ from league to league, but what happens, exactly?
The NBA would buy back the contracted franchises from the owners. No, Stern won’t let the poor billionaires go hungry…
I agree with you, except that it started a long time before Jordan. I missed out on seeing Bill Russell, but there were these two fellows named Havlicek, West, Chamberlain and Abdul-Jabbar who got more than their share of favorable calls.
This won’t happen until the voter stop voting for crappy stadium deals.
Wilt never fouled out in a game during his career. They chopped him to keep him away from the net.
Not even then. Here in Seattle, we voted down a new baseball stadium TWICE. And they built it anyway.
Well to be fair the new stadium in Orlando has apparently been a major boost for business downtown.