NBA Players not pleased by owners' new collective bargaining proposal
The NBA’s players have reacted unpleasantly over the new collective bargaining offer, made by the league owners. The new offer which confers to a 10 year deal is not much different than the original one. The Los Angeles Lakers’ guard Derek Fisher, who is also the president of the players’ union spoke to the media and said,
“Unfortunately, the proposal is very similar to the proposal the league submitted over a year ago, this last proposal doesn't look close to what we were expecting. We are taking a close look at each piece of the proposal, and I along with my players and executive committee will be determining what next steps best move this process forward, I continue to work on this daily, take this very seriously, and have a responsibility to my players to try and get a deal done.”
The NBA spokesperson Tim Frank also confirmed this news and said that this new deal was presented to the players’ union last week, while it is the second occasion when a formal proposal has made by NBA’s majority owners.
The union believes that the new collective bargaining proposal still has many loop holes and players’ interests have been compromised. In accordance with new contract, the owners are trying to get as roll-back in the existing contract of the players, ensure a hard salary cap and receive a majority of basketball related money, more than half of which is presently going into the players’ pockets.
NBA is a large organization and earns billions of dollars every year. The point, many experts are raising, is to why these owners want 57 percent basketball related money in their own accounts rather giving back to the players, who perform day in and day out and attract many spectators to come and watch a basketball match. Not only the ticket sales generate this huge money, but also TV rights and sponsorships are the other major sources for National Basketball Association (NBA) for revenue generation.
Although the union has hinted that it can compromise on the basketball related money, but the main bone of contention had been the contract alteration and the hard salary cap.
The league says that it suffered a loss of 300 million dollars due to the existing financial system. According to their stats, the players were paid 2.1 billion dollars in total and that amount needs to come down by at least 800 million dollars. The union on the other hand, contests that the $300 million figure does not reflect the true picture and is mainly because of depreciation, along with interest transactions on loans, which are used to finance the purchase of teams.
The NBA had not stopped functioning since 1998, when it lost a few game due to a lock-out of similar nature. But, with little flexibility from the owners and the league, the stage is set for a possible lock-out next season.
Tags: