Billy Hunter wows not to move on the BRI split – NBA Update
Executive Director of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) came down hard on the NBA owners over the labour dispute on Tuesday, November 1.
On the night when the NBA season was supposed to start, Hunter wrote a letter to NBA players, explaining his position regarding the Basketball Related Income split and condemned the owners for being greedy and unfair in the labour
negotiations.
Hunter expressed some anger at the behaviour of NBA owners. He focused his attack on the BRI issue, saying the owners were asking for an unreasonable amount of money. The BRI, largely viewed as total revenue coming into the league,
was split 57-43 between players and owners under the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Hunter though revealed that it is a wrong assumption. The actual revenue is far greater than the BRI, and the players are locked out of a certain part of it. He said the owners just wanted more and more money and that has left
the players in a bad situation.
He claimed the 57 percent of BRI received by players under the previous CBA was actually just 50 percent of the revenue. He also claimed the players had offered to go further down, but the owners wanted $3 billion from the players
so that they could all be profitable.
"By comparison, we received 50 percent of total revenue under the previous CBA, and our 53-47 proposal would reduce the player share to 46.4 percent of total revenues," he explained. "In addition, compared to our former 57-43 split,
the owner's proposed 50-50 shifts more than $300 million per year to the owners, which equates to more than $3 billion over a 10-year deal," Hunter explained.
He said the players were already locked out of growth in certain areas and owners wanted to restrict them even more.
"A move of this magnitude guarantees operating profits for all owners irrespective of quality of management and does not allow players to adequately share in the growth of the league."
Hunter engaged the NBA owners this past week once again to try and find a solution to the NBA lockout situation, which is now in its fifth month. Talks were mostly focused on the salary cap issue, where the NBA wants a hard cap
and the NBPA wants more freedom for its members.
After the NBPA made some concessions in the salary cap issue, talks moved to the BRI split. NBA Commissioner David Stern, instead of reciprocating the good faith from the union once again stuck to the 50 – 50 split idea.
This left the players in an awkward position and Hunter was left with no option but to walk out. No more talks are scheduled for the moment.
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