For NBA Owners, revenue split is a bigger concern than reataining their top players
In an effort to resolve the labour dispute, the owners and players association have met 23 times since the National Basketball Association Lockout took its first breath on 1st July, upon the expiration of the previous
Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
However, these are not the only times both the parties tried to make a deal. A number of sessions took place periodically when the old CBA was reaching towards its expiration date.
In all the meetings, while the division of the Basketball Related Income (BRI) has been the focal point of discussion, there was not a single time owners demanded a franchise tag or some mechanism to limit their superstar from
going into the big market. This shows NBA owners are more concerned about the revenue split than keeping their top players on the team.
One of the officials, who have been a part of every negotiation since both the parties are trying to make a settlement, declared that NBA owners never raised the issue of introducing a franchise tag, not even a single time.
“It’s never been brought up. The issue has not been raised once. The owners have never talked about a franchise tag. Not once.”
This is very surprising because when LeBron James left Cleveland Cavaliers back in July 2010, many owners from the small market started to fear that their superstars will do the same. At that time, it was expected that the NBA
owners will demand a change in the system of the free agency which will protect the small market teams form a similar scenario.
Even the Hall of Famer Charles Barkley suggested the owners to seek for some franchise tag in order keep the top players from leaving the small market.
“When you have a player like LeBron going to Miami, owners have a problem with that. For a lot of owners, what LeBron did was the last straw. When a team like Cleveland can’t keep its superstar, that’s a real problem for the league.
We don’t have enough superstars in the NBA where two or three of them can go play for one team. This isn’t baseball. The owners want to do something to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” Barkley said.
However, it seems like the NBA owners are extremely concerned with only securing a good percentage of the revenue throughout the negotiations process and are paying no attention in finding a way to retain their top players . This
means that even if owners manage to get a good percentage of the BRI in the new CBA, teams like Orlando Magic and New Orleans Hornets can’t do nothing if there superstars Dwight Howard and Chris Paul repectively, decide to enter into a bigger market, leaving
the team completely on the tear.
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