National Basketball Association and Players Association executives meeting: NBA News
It has been reported that National Basketball Association Commissioner, David Stern and National Basketball Players Association Executive Director, Billy Hunter have been gathering to discuss the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
According to the sources, the two sides had a meeting last week in Chicago, staffers from both sides were present in the meeting. The two sides are meeting again during this week in New York to further continue the talks on new CBA.
Current CBA will expire on June 30 and if the new CBA is not reached until then, the owners have promised that they will lock-out the players.
This is not the first time that Stern and Hunter are meeting to resolve CBA issues, earlier they had negotiated the deals in 1999 and 2005. However, their face to face meetings in the past have always failed to make important progress, but the big progress
has never been reached without such high-level talks.
The National Football League is already on labour strike because of player lock-out and they field the case against the League in court for the final verdict. After this episode, the representatives of NBA and Players Association softened their public oratory.
The union officials termed the NFL players' move of taking the matter into the court as the last resort, while the league has stated that they are still looking for input from the union.
Stern's deputy, Adam Silver said almost a month ago that the league's goal is "a system in which all 30 teams can compete, and, if they are well-managed, to make a profit. We have never suggested to the union that there's only one way to accomplish that
end."
The league proposed an updated pact to the players in the previous week, but players rejected it straight away.
Union president Derek Fisher said while speaking to reporters, "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."
The league has been looking for $800 million other than annual income from the players over and above a hard salary cap. The union has quarrelled with the league over the revenue pact similar to the present one and discarded the hard salary cap.
Hunter’s stand on rejection was that hard salary cap would bring an end to the guaranteed pacts, which he termed as “the lifeblood” of a pro basketballer. Hunter said, "We've had that right for years, and it's not something we're trying to give up."
Both sides though, agreed that TV ratings remained far better than the previous season. Meanwhile, lately the league has declared that the 2010-11 season ticket sales also went up roughly one percent.
The association said that the strong surge in the league’s popularity has washed out all the losses that occurred during the recession. On the other hand, the league said that the strong season had reduced the $340 million loss to $300 a year and also added
that out of 30 teams 22 are losing money.
Tags: