Basketball fiasco

[lionkingcmsl]

Now, most you know that I'm not much of a sports fan. I'll follow the local teams and root for them, but I'm not a rabid type that lives and dies by sports.

That being said, I've got to weigh in on the basketball mess.

My quibble is where does the players and players union get off demanding any cut of the revenues, and especially over 50%?

This would be like the autoworkers going to GM and saying, "Because you make so much money, we want greater than half of your profits." What do you think GM would say? I'll tell you what they would say, "Get out of here and return when you return to reality!"

The basketball players put in their time at "the job" and get paid like everyone else. That is what they are entitled to. Now if a player owns a stake in the team they play for then, yes, he is entitled to a share of the profits in his annual stock dividend.

For a player, or union, to say they want any part of the reveune and especially greater than half of what the team makes, just because, is so totally wrong. If you want to help the retired players, then negotiate that point, but do not tie revenue sharing to it. This is nothing more than a dressed up "you make too much money and I want some of it", or a redistribute the wealth scheme. It is also greed, plain and simple.

If the players get better than half of the revenues what is the point for a team owner to keep owning the team. If a player wants part of a team's revenue then that player should own a stake in the team and not just demand a cut of the profits.

While it would hurt the team owners and fans, I think the best bet is to cancel the season for a year or two and see if the players, their agents and the union comes back to earth.

For those that think I'm wrong, let's try an experiment. You go to the owner of your business and demand any percent of his revenues and see what happens.

Just because they are highly trained athletes does not give them special privileges. Do not demand that what is not rightfully yours.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

You are only partly correct. Without them and their super athletics, there is nothing to watch. Consequently there is no business at all. Much like if I own the patents to something company X wants, I'm fully in the right to demand whatever I want in exchange for letting X use my patents. And this is no doubt the model that the players are following, which is something that I myself can pull, but they cannot.

Because this only holds true if the ballplayers are the only ones who can play ball. That's not the case -- there are lots and lots of people who'll take the salary offered and play for the owners. Which is exactly what the owners should do. Give the current players their walking papers and hire new blood from the colleges. The game won't be quite as awesome, but if the idiot fans continue to stream in to watch, everyone will make money again. Well, most everybody.

I would love to see both billionaire owners and their millionaire ball players all lose big on this for a couple of years. Both sides are being dicks and both sides need to learn another critical business lesson -- if you don't keep producing, your fans will go spend money elsewhere. And some proportion of them won't ever come back.

[skipai.livejournal.com]

In today's world problem we face financially, the sports players really do ask too much at the moment in wages. Seriously, do they really need to gave £50,000 a week wages? Anytime a player comes about that requires higher payment and all, the ticket prices always goes up, sales of sports shirts of the team always goes up. (And remember exactly how these are made as well... None of the major sports labels are innocent of using slave labour here...)

I think it happens with your sports over there and our football over here...