re: General NBA Links

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Throwing crumbs to the help when things are going great is flattering?

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They may see the players as the help in good times, but when they're sitting across the table they are the enemy. You don't toss scraps to your enemy.

On cue, Lowe pops in with his take.

LINK

Of course he states my fears much more eloquently than I ever could

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The owners are the more interesting issue. It has long been assumed they will opt out in 2017, even though things are going swimmingly for them. Rich guys don’t turn down the chance to get even richer, and they crush labor underneath their $1,000 shoes. They might not be satisfied with winning the last lockout when they could win another one and trim the players’ share of revenue below the 50 percent mark.

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But lockouts are work stoppages, which means no games, and at least for a time, no checks from the TV networks. They cost money. If things are going great, there is at least the chance the owners just ride out the CBA until its expiration in 2021. “There’s at least a chance they feel they’ve reached an equilibrium,” says Gabe Feldman, a sports law expert and associate law professor at Tulane, “and that we might be on the verge of an era of labor peace.”

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But Feldman doubts it, even in light of a $2 billion purchase that suggests owners should just want to keep the party going. “I don’t think this really has a significant impact,” he says. “I don’t think it really changes some of the arguments the owners used in the last lockout. Teams don’t have to be losing money for owners to lock the players out.”

Ballmer’s purchase actually proves out one argument the owners put forth last time around, Feldman says: It costs a ton of money to run a team, and those costs are going up as the league expands its digital and international reach. The revenue-sharing system counters some of that spending, since it will lift up the poor teams, but it doesn’t help every team equally. “If I’m Steve Ballmer,” Feldman says, “I overpaid for this team. I can’t give up anything in the next collective bargaining deal.”

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Lots of very good stuff in there.