Race to the Bottom thread

The NBA has created a model where the top free agents only want to go to the same 5 teams and competitive teams that cost families hundreds of dollars to go see rest entire starting lineups some nights but they are most worried about teams with sub .300 records that no one cares about sitting players no one is paying to go see 2/3 of the way through a lost season. Give me a break.
 
sactowndog said:
What this ignores is players make more money from endorsements and being in a major media market increases your ability to gain lucrative endorsements. Nothing with salary can make up for that.
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with the exception of lebron, NO ONE (from the nba) makes more in endorsements than they do in salary

if there are 450 nba players, are there more than twenty who make even $10 million annually in endorsements?

(turns out, the number is 18 - making 10 mil or more annually (if you say "more than 10 mil annually", the number drops to 12)

i just looked it up on sportico and what surprised me most was the vast differences in outside earnings (endorsements) between players.

this is a list of the top 100 athletes counting salary and endorsements (soccer players at the top):

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www.sportico.com

Highest-Paid Athletes in the World: Full List

Cristiano Ronaldo was the highest-paid athlete in the world in 2025, earning $260 million.
www.sportico.com www.sportico.com

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the "endorsement" leader (#8) is Ohtani with 100 million (but only 2.5 mil in "salary")

at #100 is OG Anuoby with a salary of $37,1 million and endorsements of .75 million ($750,000 - note the "point")

#93 is cade cunningham with a salary of $28.2 million but endorsements of $10 million

but #92 is Tyrese Maxey with a salary of $35 million but endorsements of only $3.5 million

and #91 is Darius Garland with a salary of $36.5 million and endorsements of only $2 million

i'm not sure why cade makes so much (outside money), compared to the other two (who are in bigger or same sized market as detroit)

tied at #84 are rudy gobert and d'aaron fox (tied in total earnings but fox makes $5 million outside of salary, rudy only 1.5 million)

at #81 is MPJ and #79 is a tie between La`Melo and Domas - total salaries: $122 million/endorsements total: $13 million

at #76 is franz wagner with $39 in salary and $3.5 million in endorsements

that is your bottom ten (out of the thirty nine nba players on the list)

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the list begins with three soccer players (renaldo, messi, ect) and juan soto (mlb)

first nba player (#5 on the list ) is lebron with a salary of $48.7 million and endorsements of 80 million

then curry (#7), durant (#9) and giannis (#13) with total endorsements of $145 million (annually) so THOSE guys are doing fine (even the guy in the "small market")

i hear people saying, "endorsements mean much more than salary" and for SUPERstars, that may be true.

in between 13 (giannis) and 100 (anunoby) are 34 other nba players making vastly different amounts in endorsements (none as extreme as the "top four")

below is just "minutiae"

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between 24 and 32, there are six more nba players (Ant, Embid, Tatum, Butler, Jokic and Booker) - endorsement money drops (Ant is at 20 mil, Tatum at 18 mil and the other four at 9 -11mil (annually)

the next group is at 37-40 (Luka, Shai, Lilliard and Towns) but they ALL make more than the previous set (in endorsements) - 15 mil, 20 mil, 15 mil and only 5 mil (Towns)

between 46 and 55, there are six more players, but only two (Harden, Mitchell) make double figures (in endorsements) - the "low man" is AD (3.5 mil)

there are four more nba players between 60 and 65 (two at 5 mil, two at 10 mil) - Zach is #61 (with 5 mil in endorsements)

there are no more double figure endorsement deals (except, oddly, Cunningham at #93 (10 mil)

Ja and Beal each make 36.5 mil (salary) and 8 mil (endorsements)

some players above Cunningham in the rankings have astonishingly low endorsement deals (Markkanen, Gobert and Siakam are at 1.5 mil - Domas and Garland are at 2 mil)

most of the rest are in the 3.5 - 5 mil range (Fox is at 5 mil)

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interesting (but not "on point") is that brock purdy (#50) makes 9 mil in endorsements, but travis kelsey (#54) makes 32 mil - gee, wonder why THAT is?

more than 1/3 of the players (almost 40%) on this list are from the NBA.

it's interesting to compare two nba superstars in the same market

Tatum (#27) makes 42.4 mil in salary but 18 mil in endorsements

Jaylen Brown (# 49) makes more in salary ($49,2 mil) but only 1.5 mil in endorsements

not sure why the disparity

likewise, Ant (#24) makes 20 mil in endorsements but Gobert (#84) only 1.5 mil

again, same market, big disparity


anyway, an interesting look at endorsements
 
Tetsujin said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2023761651904766336

But don’t worry, we solved the gambling problem by arresting Chauncey Billups and Damian Jones and banishing Malik Beasley to Bad Bunny’s basketball league!
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Guarding the integrity of the game has to be the Paramount goal of every sports organization. Decades of watching professional and college sports has made one thing clear: nothing will kill the game faster than degenerate gamblers.
 
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Folsomkingsfan said:
The NBA has created a model where the top free agents only want to go to the same 5 teams and competitive teams that cost families hundreds of dollars to go see rest entire starting lineups some nights but they are most worried about teams with sub .300 records that no one cares about sitting players no one is paying to go see 2/3 of the way through a lost season. Give me a break.
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teams like the Bulls and Kings and any good basketball market has consistently had great attendance. I’m a Cubs fan and they have sucked for 85 percent of their existence. Fans still support non winning teams. Teams at least not trying to win? Yeh that’s a problem
 
I haven’t been a fan of Adam Silver for some time now. Some of the stuff coming out that is directly or indirectly associated with Silver is troubling. He and the owners are the current keepers of the league. I feel as though they are creating massive damage to the product.
 
eleventy said:
Do you mean that literaly?

That a player (especially a new young player) would turn down $20 million because they did not know or like team or locale?

On his second or third contract, maybe, but not on the first.
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Because 20 million in the grand scheme for especially a star young prospect is, as said, nothing. The reason is because there are so many other avenues to make up the difference and until the Kings can shake their reality as the place where potential goes to die then it would be a wise business decision. The young guys are playing now, but just watch, the first half of this season may have caused some sort of damage. The last time if you recall it involved draft picks not sending medical reports or accepting invites to visit. Hopefully getting the young guys out now will curb some of that damage with agents/players.
 
Tetsujin said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2023761651904766336

But don’t worry, we solved the gambling problem by arresting Chauncey Billups and Damian Jones and banishing Malik Beasley to Bad Bunny’s basketball league!
Click to expand...

Ah, the sacrificial lambs, lol. As soon as they had gambling on pro wrestling and the box scores in bball it was all over. Pro sports have always been a work to some degree but now the curtains are pulled back far enough to see the little dip**** behind them pulling levers.
 
After thinking about the tanking thing, the truth is tanking isn't as bad as it seems nor any different than it has been, the real issue is it's happening all at once. You have a few of the forever mediocre teams like the Kings finally throwing their hands up all at the same time and saying "I give". Then there's teams in a true gap year like the Pacers really gaming the system with a roster that knows darn well what it's playing for and what it's doing. It's a dogfight amongst the bad teams and there's a few too many to where it's obvious what's going on. Truth is though, if a player like Domas or LaVine are injured or have been what sense does it make to play them? Domas busting his hump to return for what? What if he tears his other meniscus?

Maybe a way to partially temper things would be to make a certain number of teams ineligible to have a top 4-5 pick or whatever cutoff in consecutive years. That would at least make the pool of true tankers a bit more shallow. The only issue would be they would have to probably strengthen the odds of the worst teams getting one of those picks instead of having teams jumping from 8-10 back as the Kings have done a few times. Either way it would mitigate some of the damage to a select few teams perhaps.
 
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