NBA Commissioner David Stern brings contraction issue on the table
NBA commissioner David Stern has opened up another debate as he revealed in an interview that the NBA would consider bringing down the number of teams. The league currently has 30 teams and there have been suggestions that the
overall quality of the game suffers because the talent pool is stretched too much. Coupled with the fact that some small market teams are not very profitable, contraction is an idea which has been on the fringes for years now.
Stern, who oversaw the creation of new franchises and the expansion of the NBA to its current size, now ironically is open to cleaning up the mess he created. In a recent interview he revealed that this is something on his mind
and could be looked into once the NBA and the players agree on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
"[Contraction] is not a subject that we're against," Stern said. "In fact, when you talk about revenue sharing, a number of teams have said that if you have a team that is perpetually going to be a recipient, aren't you better
off with the ability to buy them in? Because between the revenue sharing and the split of international and the TV money, we could almost buy them in with their own money.”
The current NBA situation is a classic case of biting on more than you can chew. In their greed to make as much money as possible, Commissioner Stern and the owners continued to expand the NBA gradually bringing it to 30 teams.
Now that appears to be a bad move because, financially, many of the teams are not doing very well. Since the owners want to take the players money, they intern have suggested the league start a revenue sharing program among the
franchise, just like in other sports like the NFL.
Faced with the prospect of having to share their profits, Stern and the owners are now looking for a way out. The contraction plan is likely to face opposition in this plan from the players, because they stand to lose jobs. If
there are a lesser number of NBA franchises, a lesser number of players can be employed.
However Stern says that’s not the case and the players are actually for the idea.
"The players actually have been heard to suggest that as well, which was interesting because that means they are suggesting that we eliminate 30 jobs, or the potential for 30 jobs.”
Although that might be the case, it is hard to believe anything David Stern says these days as there is always some spin on his comments. We will rather hear it from the players themselves.
Tags: