NBA suggestion...

[xelxock]

After having read the article in the Sacramento Bee regarding the cost to NBA "fans" of maintaining their addiction, I have a suggestion or two.

Given that $62,000,000 (!!!!) is spent annually on players' salaries alone, we should start there. A fixed salary should be assigned to players based upon their seniority with the NBA. A method for awarding "extra" money could be developed dependent upon team (and individual) performance. This business of "soaking the groupies" while the players haul in millions even if they're sick, lame or lazy, has got to stop. Although I've become an avid Kings cheerleader (and become much more interested in the NBA as a whole mainly due to the increasingly widespread presence of ex-Kings), I am more than willing to give up games (those that I can afford) to protest this inequitable, ridiculous player/ticketbuyer arrangement. If the Maloofia and other "owners" can't develop a system that encourages the players to actually work for the exhorbitant amounts they rake in and is, in turn, affordable and fair to ticket buyers, then I'll settle for watching the games on CSN or even just reading a rundown in the morning paper.

 

[Amory]

Fixed salary. So if Tim Duncan goes down for a season then he makes just as much as Ronnie Price for the season? I think that players wouldn't play as hard because what if they were injured?? they wouldn't make any money.

What about when your coach decides not to play a player when he is a good player? (i.e. Corliss)

Sorry, the capitalist in me is coming out.........

 

[captain bill]

^ It goes both ways. A player who earns a fat contract has no real motivation to play anymore as long as he doesn't want to. And, if you do give a good player a big contract, there is an obligation to play him even if it's not in the best interests of the team.

Anyway, none of that really matters. All the players and owners are rich and happy enough to care what the fans think. They'll keep making money and have no reason to rock the boat. Sure, players could take a pay cut, and owners could pass the saving on to the fans- cutting themselves out from a nice profit in the process. Plus, if owners try that players will get very, very, angry, running the risk of another strike and pissing of the fans, making the owners not happy because they make less money.

If you haven't noticed yet, very few players and owners care about fan interests at all in terms of the bottom line. No one in charge of a big corporation does. As long as the fans keep paying, they'll assume that everything is ok. The Bee article illustrates the situation perfectly-fans are getting pinched, but they are cutting other expenses to make up for it. As long as that happens, and Arco keeps selling out, the owners have no incentive to change what's going on. They don't feel the hit in the fan's wallet. Until there is a serious decline in revenue, which at this point seems inevitable in a few years, they will be content going along the current path.

 

[BigWaxer]

What a loaded question.

IMO all sports should have no guaranteed contracts. Makes all players earn salaries. Right now they get paid way more then what any normal person should earn for what they do.

Teachers, cops …etc should be earning this amount of money, not people with ego's and posies and heads that think they are the reason we all live… my statement also goes for actors...

 

[Amory]

I can understand something like a 2 year contract or something like that........but not a base salary. What about the players like DC that didn't have that great of numbers but help out a lot on other ends?

I'll keep my mouth shut on the other ideas in here just because I don't want to start contention

 

[mcsluggo]

man, what a bunch of unrelated (or at most tangentially related issues) mashed together into an unintelligible mush.

I’ll ignore most of the mash, and try to zero in on I imagine to be the basic issue at hand: IS THERE A CAUSALITY OF HIGH PLAYER SALARIES LEADING TO HIGH TICKET PRICES?



Imagine a clean starting scenario: Somehow the owners get the players to play for free, AND the owners charge $1/ticket for games.

Question: what happens?
Answer: there are lines around the block for people to get tickets (the product is still the same, isn't it). This leads to the owners raising prices, of course.

Question: How far do they raise prices?
Answer: As long as they get more money from raising prices. AND they will get more money as long as the extra $$$ they get for raising prices on the tickets they still manage to sell is greater than the $$$ they lose from lost ticket sales. AND since the games are all selling out, they don’t lose any money from lost tickets. SOOO, you’d end up where we are today, with prices just high enough that fans gripe about the prices, but there are still more people willing to buy tickets than there are tickets available--- This without the player being paid ANYTHING.




Folks, the Kings have a local monopoly on live NBA basketball. As a monopoly, the pricing strategy has little to do with costs, and everything to do with limited supply and exorbitant demand. The ONLY way player salaries really affect ticket prices is as a psychological game piece: the owners give a mock groan about high salaries and fans perhaps grudgingly agree to pay a tiny bit more than they otherwise would have, attributing the high price to player costs. This is a small component of overall ticket prices at best.

On the other hand high player salaries have EVERYTHING to do with all the above factors (throwing in mass media as well). Causality just runs in the other direction. Monopoly pricing by the owners leads to high prices and huge profits à players see these huge profits and negotiate for a higher share à player salaries get huge.

In the final analysis: Prices are high because demand is high and supply is low. Profits are high because competition is nil (ie supply is low). Finally, player salaries are high BECAUSE monopoly revenues from tv/radio/tickets are so high. The only real question in this case is what proportion of the huge fat-laden monopoly profits pie the owners get, and what proportion the players get.

This situation is very dissimilar to your typical business question in the face of real market competition (such as GM getting slaughtered because its total cost of workers- including legacy workers- is so high). Monopolies lead to high prices. Period.

 

[mcsluggo]

surefire way to kill ANY conversation....?

break out the economics.

 

[jacobdrj]

Strictly looking from the owners' points of view, the best system would be a combination of the NFL's "hard cap and no guaronteed contracts" and the NBA's rookie salary's rules where the rookie contracts are 100% based on draft order and do not count against the cap.

Why?

Because that leaves the most competition day in and day out among the players, and teams are not penalized for making bad draft picks, or overpaying for worthy, but still unseasoned/proven rookies. This also keeps the useful vets around regardless of what draft order you had that year.

But that would ABSOLUTLY suck for the players.